The traffic and transport policy of Belgium, Austria, Germany, the UK and Sweden most closely resemble that of the Netherlands. This is one of the findings of a study into the differences and similarities between the Dutch Mobility Policy Document and the policy of a number of other EU Member States and of the European Commission. Various policy documents and several interviews served as the basis of the study. With regard to passenger transport, the aims of Belgium, Germany, Sweden and the UK are comparable to those of the Netherlands. In addition to the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, France, Slovenia and the UK aim to facilitate and encourage growth in public transport. The EC’s passenger transport policy focuses primarily on the protection and safety of passengers and much less so on facilitating and encouraging growth in public transport. The freight transport policy of many countries focuses on maintaining and/or increasing reliability, safety and sustainability. Likewise, EU policy aims to maintain the sustainability of transport. As part of this, the EC is pursuing shipping as an alternative to road transport. The transition from modal-shift policy (actively promoting the use of modalities other than road transport) to co-modality (opting for the most efficient modality in terms of economic interests and sustainability) enjoys widespread support in Europe and is in keeping with the change in policy in this respect embodied in the Mobility Policy Document. With regard to the environment, most countries agree that more restrictive regulations should be enacted to minimise the negative environmental impact of transport. This is also in keeping with the EC’s policy. Belgium and the Netherlands are the only countries to explicitly include source policy in their respective transport policy documents. As regards road safety, all of the countries surveyed aim to effect improvements. This is being achieved both by means of the enactment/more rigorous enforcement of regulations and through public awareness campaigns. The EC’s policy aims to halve the number of road casualties by 2010 (in comparison to 2001). Much like the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Portugal, Slovenia and the UK support the internalisation of external costs by means of price policy. The EC is also working to develop policy in this regard. This study offers an indication of the European countries that the Netherlands may be able to work with to achieve certain aims. The extent to which the Netherlands actually collaborates with these countries and the question of whether this is prudent with regard to the level of foreign influence on internal matters were not addressed by this study. In order to respond to these issues, a more extensive force field analysis needs to be implemented with specific and more detailed attention to certain issues. (Author/publisher)
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