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Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Communication from the Commission: A sustainable future for transport: Towards an integrated, technology-led and user friendly system’

On 17 June 2009 the European Commission decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under Article 262 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on

A sustainable future for transport: Towards an integrated, technology-led and user friendly system (communication)

On 2 July 2009, the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union requested the European Economic and Social Committee to draw up an exploratory opinion on the subject:

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for preparing the EESC's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 12 November 2009. The rapporteur was Mr Ribbe.

At its 458th plenary session, held on 16 and 17 December 2009 (meeting of 16 December), the Committee adopted the following opinion by 171 votes to 5, with 11 abstentions:

1.1 The EESC shares the Commission's view that the current transport policy still leaves us far short of the sustainability goals we have set ourselves and that a radical change of direction is needed.

1.2 The EESC points out that not only must more effort be made to achieve environmental goals (in areas such as climate protection, resource conservation, biodiversity, and noise and air pollution), but that many social issues in the transport field also remain unresolved. These include not only employee rights and the pay and working conditions of those employed in the transport sector, but also the availability of, and access to, public transport for those with disabilities, the young and the elderly. Another issue is the freedom of choice of transport users who either cannot afford or do not wish to have their own car.

1.3 The Committee supports the goals set out in the Commission document, but does not accept that the instruments described can alone usher in the fundamental turnaround needed.

1.4 Many of these goals are far from new and the Commission has been promoting some of them for many years. The problem is that they have not been implemented: the internalisation of external costs and calls for a change in urban transport policy are just two examples.

1.5 In its definitive white paper, the Commission should set out clear options for action and present specific and quantifiable goals.

1.6 The Committee thinks it is imperative to have a debate on which political and planning decisions give rise to transport or indeed how transport can be avoided. It calls on the Commission to devote far greater attention to these issues when it puts forward a new white paper or new policy guidelines.

2.1 In 2001, the Commission issued a white paper (1) setting an agenda for European transport policy up to 2010. This programme was updated in the mid-term review of 2006 (2). Approaching the end of the ten-year period, the Commission now thinks it is time to look further ahead and prepare the ground for later developments in transport policy.

2.2 In the present communication, the Commission sets out the first results of its thinking and deliberations, informed by various studies, discussions, findings and consultations.

2.3 In taking stock, the communication states: ‘Transport is an essential component of the European economy’, with the transport industry accounting for 7 % of GDP and over 5 % of total employment in the EU. The Commission explains and highlights the importance of transport not least for the social and economic cohesion of the regions, Europe and the world as a whole, as well as for the competitiveness of European industries and the attainment of the Lisbon goals.

2.4 However, the Commission notes regarding transport policy: ‘More limited, however, have been the results with respect to the goals of the EU SDS: as indicated in the progress report of 2007 (3), the European transport system is still not on a sustainable path on several aspects.’

2.5 It goes on to state: ‘The environment remains the main policy area where further improvements are necessary. In the EU, compared to 1990 levels, in no other sector has the growth rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions been as high as in transport (4). Applying this analysis to past developments in transport, it can be seen that the sector has greatly increased its activity while making insufficient progress in reducing its energy and GHG intensity.’

2.6 The decoupling of growth in transport from GDP growth, which was one of the objectives of the 2001 white paper and of the sustainable development strategy (SDS), has only been achieved in passenger transport and not in freight. One of the reasons given for this is: ‘The growth of freight transport is also linked to economic practices – concentration of production in fewer sites to reap economies of scale, de-localisation, just-in-time deliveries, wide-spread recycling of glass, paper, metals – that allowed reduction of costs and, possibly, of emissions in other sectors at the expense of higher emissions from transport.’

2.7 Although the energy efficiency of transport (and individual modes of transport) is increasing, this is not enough to outweigh the larger transport volumes (5). In other words, the volume of traffic is no less a problem than the fact that ‘[t]here has also been limited progress in shifting transport to more efficient modes, including through the development of short sea shipping.’

2.8 Among the points the Commission makes in a section headed ‘Trends and Challenges’ are the following:

2.9 In a nutshell, the Commission is absolutely right in saying that a ‘vision for the sustainable mobility of people and goods’ must be formulated.

3.1 The EESC welcomes the fact that the Commission is returning to this matter and putting forward the first ideas – albeit often still rather nebulous – on the future of transport as part of a wide consultation process. Its analysis of the transport sector is quite clear: we are a long way from the sustainability goals we have set ourselves and fundamental changes are necessary. Nevertheless, we still do not have a recognisable vision with specific goals and instruments to curb and reduce car use in particular. These should be set out by the Commission in a detailed action plan and should include quantified goals.

3.2 The EESC agrees with many of the Commission's ideas, including, among others, 1) that the present infrastructure, including new or improved information and communication technologies, must be exploited to the full; 2) that ‘an intelligent and integrated logistic system must become a reality’; 3) that new ideas are needed, especially in urban transport; 4) that co-modality must be improved and transport shifted in larger measure to more environmentally friendly transport modes; and 5) that innovative, emissions-reducing technologies must be employed. However, none of this amounts to new insights, let alone a new vision.

3.3 The EESC would draw attention to the great many pertinent opinions it has drafted in past years on policy and on improving the technical and organisational facets of managing transport flows such as the opinions on the Mid-term review of the 2001 Transport White Paper (7); the Strategy for the internalisation of external costs (8); Freight Transport Logistics Action Plan (9); Facilitating cross-border enforcement in the field of road safety (10); TEN-T: A policy review (11); The Greening of Maritime Transport and Inland Waterway Transport (12); A European vision for the oceans and seas (13); Road transport in 2020 (14); A rail network giving priority to freight (15); A European rail network for competitive freight (16); Promotion of inland waterway transport ‘NAIADES’ (17); and An Integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union (18).

3.4 The EESC is keen to stress that the transport policy of the future must be much more than ‘merely’ the improved solution – from the sustainable development angle – of present or expected transport flows. While the Commission makes some sound comments about this in its communication, they are nevertheless too vague and intangible. In fact, this is the fatal flaw in these considerations.

3.5 The Commission makes it clear that the present system must be radically changed. Thus point 53 states: ‘The transport system will experience substantial changes’, point 70 speaks of the need for a ‘substantial overhaul of the transport system’, and paragraph 37 refers to a ‘different concept of mobility’. However, the EESC would like to see more tangible explanations of what exactly is meant by this.

3.6 As a result, while the document serves as a very good summary of many familiar positions and ideas, it falls short of presenting a real ‘vision’. Much remains unexplained, such as the question – unresolved for years – of how to address the ‘internalisation of external costs’.

3.7 This is why the EESC would like this exploratory opinion to raise some fundamental issues which it feels are not adequately addressed in the Commission document. It would like to see the Commission take up these points and go into them in greater depth as it pursues its deliberations.

4.1 To gauge the importance of transport primarily in terms of the transport sector's contribution to GDP or jobs is short-sighted. Whenever people converge, whenever goods change hands, whenever, that is, there is social or economic activity, there is ‘transport’. To put it another way: without the exchange of goods, without transport, no society would function and there would be almost no GDP.

4.2 People want and need to be mobile and goods demand and need to be traded. Thus the Commission is right in its assertions in points 39 and 40 of the communication: ‘Transport provides access to many of our freedoms. The freedom to work and live in different parts of the world. The freedom to enjoy different products and services. The freedom to trade and to establish personal contacts. … Demand for these freedoms will likely increase in the more multicultural, heterogeneous society of the future…’

4.3 Transport is therefore of the utmost importance, but it is not an end in itself. Not all transport must automatically be deemed ‘good’ for society simply because it furthers the interchange of people of goods. As the Commission itself makes abundantly clear in its paper, transport is not always beneficial. A core role for politicians, therefore, is to give the ‘freedoms’ in question a clear framework – boundaries indeed – where they may come into contact with, or even threaten, other freedoms: for example, where human health, our environment and/or our climate – but also the needs of future generations – are concerned.

4.4 At the same time, (transport) policy must ensure that everyone has good transport options and safe access to them. This especially includes – if sustainability is to be achieved – the socially more vulnerable groups, those with disabilities, children and young people, and so on. Efforts must also be made to improve the working conditions of those employed in the transport sector.

4.5 However, transport policy in the past has often taken the soft option. Its main concern up to now has been how to satisfy demand for transport. Indeed, it often went beyond that and actually created new demand and new transport needs through, for example, the economically misguided subsidising of motorised transport, the promotion of an economic division of labour and attendant allocation of enterprise sites and residential areas on the basis of cheap oil alone. It was believed that the problems this created could be solved purely by infrastructure or technology. What the debate forgot to address – and this must change – was how transport is generated and whether certain transport phenomena make sense. In so saying, the Committee is well aware that the Commission does not bear sole responsibility here, since many decisions are taken, under the subsidiarity principle, at national, regional or local level.

4.6 The EESC expressly welcomes the Commission's very candid approach to a number of questions. In point 59, the Commission writes: ‘Many public services have been progressively centralised with a view to increasing efficiency. The distances between the citizens and the service providers (schools, hospitals, shopping malls) have been on the increase. Firms have followed the same trend by keeping a smaller number of production, storage and distribution centres. The trend towards the concentration of activities has produced a large amount of 'forced’ mobility, owing to a worsening of accessibility conditions.’ However, what is missing here, in the EESC's view, is any discussion of what conclusions should be drawn in terms of policy.

4.7 There should be no doubting that the trends set out – such as the concentration of not only public institutions, but also of companies – are directly or indirectly influenced by overall economic circumstances and political decisions. It is important that, before policy and planning decisions are taken in the future, the impact on transport and the transport system is analysed far more stringently. Has a plan ever been scrapped because of a political decision that the new transport situation that would follow (or be induced) was undesirable?

4.8 In the light of the findings, shortcomings and needs set out in its communication, it would be helpful, therefore, if the Commission made it clear – as part of the search underway for a ‘sustainable future for transport’ – which past developments and frameworks at European and national level it considers to have been wrong. Was it right to centralise schools and administrations the way it was done in some Member States? Was the move to concentrate slaughterhouses and dairies (often with EU structural funding) really effective in terms of sustainability (and, for example, regional development)? Was it really possible to promote regional development by expanding infrastructure, or is it not rather the case that a misguided transport infrastructure policy has led to the depopulation of rural areas and engendered forced mobility?

4.9 Another example would be the importing of cheap animal feed into Europe as part of a worldwide division of labour, which has led to a concentration in livestock farming and to new transport flows. Perhaps the main reason for this was that neither the animal feed prices nor the transport costs reflected the whole ‘environmental and economic truth’. Nor, in many cases, are the adverse social costs reflected. The knock-on costs alone of climate change – itself due in part to transport – or the costs of illness caused by transport noise and emissions raise important questions regarding a sustainable mobility policy within the EU. Will this be the same in the future? How does this affect transport policy? Regrettably, these are questions which the Commission's document fails to answer.

4.10 The EESC calls for an impact assessment to be made in all policy areas – from economic and competition policy through to development policy – to gauge the extent to which they generate transport. For example, the revision of the European common agricultural policy to strengthen regional economic cycles affords great opportunities for transport avoidance and for shortening transport routes in Europe.

4.11 The issue in such a debate is not mobility per se – in other words the number of journeys made. It is about their length and the ways in which they are made (at what cost and using which mode of transport).

4.12 This is where many things have changed in recent years. Journeys have become much longer and it cannot even be said that the most environmentally friendly modes of transport are being used. This is as true for passenger transport as it is for freight transport, the flow of goods. Grain has always travelled from the field via the mill and the bakery to the end consumer; it is the nature of the transport that has changed. The fact that it currently makes sound business sense – because of the parameters of other policy areas and inadequate harmonisation within the EU – to take pre-formed pieces of dough hundreds of kilometres in a freezer lorry before they are baked into pretzels is just one example of where action needs to be taken.

4.13 For generations, people have made no more than three or four journeys a day. In Germany, for example, they make around 281 million journeys – around 3,4 journeys – per person every day. This means around 3,2 billion kilometres are travelled every day (19). In 2002 it was ‘only’ around 3,04 billion kilometres.

4.14 Transport and journey lengths depend on private, political and business decisions. Crucial in these are the costs that have to be paid for transport solutions. On this front much should and must change in the future, as a result, for example, of the increase in raw material prices (especially for fossil fuels), the ‘internalisation of external costs’ – which the EESC has backed and called for on many occasions – and the cut in public funding for infrastructure that the Commission is expecting. However, there are no clear policy messages about what conclusions should be drawn now. In the EESC's view, decisions on infrastructure should increasingly take on board the broader picture of sustainable development. Consideration should be given not only to improvement in connections, productivity increases and time-saving but increasingly also to the knock-on environmental and social costs involved.

4.15 Every new measure in transport infrastructure is very costly and the consequences of implementing it last for several decades. If the Commission states that the number of older people in our society will rise, that more and more people will live in cities (with mobility demands shifting accordingly) and that less public money will presumably be available for transport infrastructure, this means that massive changes are needed in infrastructure investment.

4.16 For this reason, the EESC proposes that the Commission and the Council presidency – as part of the ‘substantial overhaul of the transport system’ and the ‘different concept of mobility’ – initiate a deeper discussion of questions of principle, such as how transport is created and forced mobility. The Committee stresses once again: this would not be a debate about the erosion of freedoms or about mobility needs, but a necessary discussion about drafting the sustainable development strategy – in which transport policy has so far been very inadequately integrated – and about preserving the freedom of mobility for future generations.

4.17 The Commission addresses an important point in point 53: ‘However, transport workers in some sectors may be displaced from their jobs as a result of the adjustment to a radically different economic and energy context. It is important to ensure that such change is well anticipated and managed, so that changing conditions will also be a source of new jobs and that transport workers can participate in, and respond to, the process.’

4.18 The key phrase here is ‘well anticipated’. This involves setting out in the clearest terms which sectors will benefit or be adversely affected. Much is already known; it needs to be dealt with in the open. In one of its first opinions on sustainable development (NAT/229), the EESC pointed out that it is these necessary processes of transformation that foster anxiety and resistance, especially in those areas of society that profit from the present, unsustainable system and as such are most affected by structural changes.

4.19 There needs to be clarification not only about how transport arises and the length of journeys, but also about the nature of transport modes. The EESC especially welcomes the following points the Commission makes in its communication:

Brussels, 16 December 2009.

The President of the European Economic and Social Committee

Mario SEPI

(4) Unless otherwise stated, figures are taken from: GD TREN (2009), EU energy and transport in figures. Statistical pocketbook 2009.

(5) The EESC points out that the Mid-term review of the transport White Paper (COM(2006) 314, Graph 3-2) includes the Commission's calculations of a further increase in CO2 emissions from transport up to 2020. This runs counter to the EU's climate protection goals.

(19) See the study ‘Mobilität in Deutschland’ [Mobility in Germany] from Germany's Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs.

(21) See: http://www.unendlich-viel-energie.de/de/verkehr/detailansicht/article/5/erneuerbaren-energien-koennen-strombedarf-fuer-elektroautos-spielend-decken.html.

(22) Developing the Citizens’ network – Why local and regional passenger transport is important and how the European Commission is helping to bring it about; COM(1998) 431 final of 10.7.1998.