The Greek transport system has been radically upgraded and expanded over the past few years with a view to achieving balanced economic development of the country regions and integration of Greece with the other Member - States of the European Union (EU). For the period 1998-2002, the program includes investments in the order of 980 m for the railroad network, 180 m for the airports, 65 m for the ports and 4.680 m for the road network. Currently, the Greek section of the Trans-European Network covers approximately 4,000 km. It has been designed as a closed motorway with a central reserve, two lanes and a hard shoulder per direction, with a cross section of 24,50 m. In the areas close to Athens and Thessaloniki, due to heavier traffic volumes, three lanes per direction have been provided for. For a limited length accommodating lower traffic volumes, the construction of an expressway has been anticipated, i.e. two-directional single carriageway with a cross-section of 12,50 m. For the period 1994-2008, the total budget for the investment program amounts to 13.670 m (Table 1). It is co-funded by the European Union (Community Support Framework etc) by 50% for the selected projects. At the same time, loans have been granted by the European Investment Bank Toll collection is anticipated along the greatest part of the Network and wherever there is a motorway. Today, the average fee for passenger cars is less than 0.045 / km. In particular, for the period 1998-2002 the expenses reached the amount of 4.680 m . During that period, 860 km of motorway were completed. Over the past four years and parallel to the projects realization, a broad program for the improvement of the Project and Construction Management of public works was implemented by the Greek Authorities. Such a program ensures transparency and free competition leading to projects of higher quality as well as to less cost and time overruns. In the context of the Program for the Greek part of the Trans-European Road Network, projects are mainly managed by Public Services. Apart from those operating traditionally for many years, and in the context of the efforts to modernize Public Administration, Special Services have been established to achieve more autonomous management. At the same time, a number of "Societes Anonymes" companies have been created in the Public Sector and are fully autonomous in the management of projects, by employing, for example, private Project and Construction Managers. Design and construction is executed by companies of the private sector in accordance with the new Greek Legislation in force and the recently adopted European Union Directives. New legislation has promoted the merging of small firms and resulted in the creation of bigger and better organized companies. In Road Construction, co-operation between Public and Private Sector has already been achieved for the Rio - Antirio Bridge, a three - lane, six - span sea crossing and Attiki Odos, the 70 km Athens outer ring road. Another six big Motorway Concessions totalling 1100 km are already under way to construct the remaining sections of the Greek Trans-European Road Network. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
Abstract