With its ‘White Paper on Transport: Time to Decide’, the Commission is proposing an Action Plan aimed at bringing about a transportation policy and a transportation network that increases the competitiveness and efficiency of Europe, including all modes of transport. It proposes a strategy designed in particular to revitalise railways and other alternative modes of transport to road, which will enable to gradually break the link between transport growth and economic growth in order to reduce pressure on the environment and congestion without restricting the mobility needed for competitiveness. The White Paper introduces a large amount of smaller goals and more than 70 measures needed to achieve the goals. Some objectives include quantitative targets while most objectives remain qualitative. Here it is aimed to give a consistent and unambiguous summary of the objectives, policies and measures introduced in the White Paper in order to enable policy evaluation. The White Paper has proposed a number of measures for each of the 12 policy guidelines. The 12 policy guidelines can therefore not only be seen in terms of key-objectives but also in terms of a policy package. In this section the packages of measures that belong to each of the 12 policies are distinguished. The ASSESS project, which is summarised in this report, provides the technical support to the Commission services for the “Assessment of the contribution of the TEN and other transport policy measures to the mid-term implementation of the White Paper on the European Transport Policy for 2010”. The scope of the ASSESS study are the measures and objectives that were stated in the White Paper. In particular, the ASSESS project has assembled all main sources of quantitative information at the European level to carry out an assessment of both the achievements to date (mid 2005), the possible policy implementation scenarios to the year 2010, and the longer term prospects to the year 2020. The analysis accounts for the economic, social and environmental consequences of the proposed measures and their contribution to sustainable development objectives. It provides also a detailed analysis of those effects of enlargement likely to affect the structure and performance of the EU transport system. Chapter II gives an overview of the implementation of these policies and measures in the EC and the Member States. Since this part of study provides a picture of which are the main difficulties in White Paper implementation, it also gives some useful suggestions concerning what should be done to overcome these obstacles. This chapter also gives an idea to what extend will the White Paper contribute to improving the transport situation in 2010. Chapter III is the conclusion of the indicator assessment of the White Paper objectives. In this chapter, the White Paper objectives are analyses for 4 White Paper scenarios in an increasing degree of ambition. The objectives that cannot be achieved and the conflicting objectives are pointed out. Chapter IV gives the conclusion on the challenges from a changing world, as the EU enlargement, globalisation and security, financial issues and the political dimension. The last chapter V gives the recommendations, based on the assessment of the White Paper measures, the indicator assessment and the challenges in a changing world. (Author/publisher)
Abstract