This chapter describes how integration within the transport system is more achievable, where the vehicles produced are basically compatible with the infrastructure on a world scale. On a single map we can not only see roads of various administrative levels in one country but also roads from neighboring countries, and all shown to the user as an integrated network. The railways are probably at the other extreme of integration, at least in Europe, with multiple "islands" of barely connectable sub-networks scattered around the continent. The chapter describes how integration is especially important at the level of transport services, possibly across modes, at all geographical scales. Integration provides a much wider reach for those who are located outside the main poles or axes, and thus constitutes an essential element of distributive justice of mobility across the territorial space. This element of distributive justice, together with the contribution to widening the labor and consumption markets, justifies public interest in the provision and proper functioning of integrated transport networks. For all agents engaged, integration means additional costs in planning, control, risk coverage, and, sometimes, also in additional components of service. In purely private terms, this can only be justified by global market expansion, improvement of the market position of the operator, or by additional revenue collected from the user or from the authority. Some examples have been given in this chapter of selective integration occurring without the push from the state, normally associated with access to more powerful market positions by the operators.
Abstract