Since 1987, the EC has carried out a transport policy in stages to open up national markets and eliminate distortion of competition in the transport sector. The effects of this in Italy have been somewhat limited, due to lack of public capital. In 1953, Italy had 620,000 cars, today over 28m; the highway network was 500 km, now 6200 km. This growth has taken place without coordinated planning. Most main highways are today saturated by about 2.4m heavy vehicles. The "aggressiveness factor" of a heavy vehicle is up to 40,000 times higher than that of a car. Coastal trade, railways and intermodality have been considered to reduce traffic on highways. The Italian railway network is 16,000 km, as against 27,000 in Germany and 34,000 in France. The cost of rail transport per km is almost twice that of road transport. In 1994, 240,688 were injured and 7500 killed in road accidents. The main causes are excessive speed, inadequate safety distances, failure to stop at light signals.
Abstract