On the European Community scale, international traffic is growing very fast, notably faster than inner traffic of some member states. Road transport is the main beneficiary of this phenomenon. For transit countries like France, saturation of major routes seems to be an inevitable short-range consequence and solutions (new infrastructure, mode shift, ...) are to be found: the frontiers opening in 1993 makes fear the worst. But even if the phenomenon is visible and obvious, its understanding still remains very partial, from both qualitative and quantitative points of view. This prevents any inclination to even short-range forecasting. Our vision is blurred by conflicting mechanisms: the international division of labour induces growing exchanges between countries, but, simultaneously, cultural, physical, administrative constraints to these exchanges still exist. These different barriers appear as what is generally called a "frontier-effect", reducing the potential for trade without frontiers. This paper presents passenger statistics for rail, air, and road transport at frontiers between France and her neighbours. Given the available statistics, timely insights are proposed about transport of passengers between France and its neighbour countries, while several elementary models are proposed about transport of goods in EC. (A)
Abstract