The SPECTRUM (Study of Policies regarding Economic instruments Complementing Transport Regulation and the Undertaking of physical Measures) project, financed under the EU's 5th Framework Programme, aims 'to develop a theoretically sound framework for defining combinations of economic instruments, regulatory and physical measures in reaching the broad aims set by transport and other relevant policies'. For the evaluation of the instruments a 'high level' objective function has been developed that addresses efficient intra- and intergenerational equity. Using the high level objective function, it is making an assessment over the extent to which it is possible to substitute economic transport instruments for physical and regulatory instruments, and is investigating synergy and complementarity between instruments in these three categories. This framework has been applied to both urban and interurban transport. This paper will focus on the results from the inter-urban case studies. The interurban work in SPECTRUM comprised two main components. Firstly, assessment of specific interurban measures for the air, rail, road and sea sectors, with particular emphasis on capacity allocation and charging and the internalisation of externalities. This was undertaken with reference to a series of case studies: Madrid Barajas Airport (Spain), the East Coast Rail Line (United Kingdom), the Port of Antwerp (Belgium) and part of Road Corridor IV (Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary). These case studies are all local and concerns single modes. The second part of the interurban work involves case studies on a national, regional and European scale that concern multi-modal aspects for both passenger and freight sectors. In particular five model-based studies have been considered distinguishing between passenger case studies (the London-Paris-Brussels corridors and Norway as whole) and freight sector case studies (BENELUX and Great Britain). In addition, the passenger and freight model SCENES has been used to examine the interlaces between modes of interurban transport systems on a European scale. A series of interurban transport instrument packages have been considered, including combinations of economic regulatory and physical measures, which may potentially improve the efficiency of interurban passenger and freight transport and equity issues. The obtained results in terms of potential impacts on welfare for different policy packages will be presented for these five case studies. Particular attention will be given to the existence of synergies and interactions between different policy instruments. The available results suggest that introduction of fair and efficient pricing for transport infrastructure use may be welfare enhancing, whereas infrastructure expansion (particular rail based improvements) does not lead to substantial welfare benefits. For the covering abstract please see ITRD E135207.
Samenvatting