– the EU Initiative Developing a Roadmap to European Transport in the next decades
100 years ago, transport of people and freight meant moving humans and objects from point A to point B. Until now, the concept stayed basically the same, as well as the modes of achieving this goal. However, a lot of drawbacks have shown within this century. Greenhouse emissions have grown exceedingly high due to continuous and extending reliance on fossil fuels. Traffic congestions are frequent, road traffic deaths are rising. Each year, this causes enormous costs for taxpayers and governments.
Yet, in this past century, our society has evolved in many areas. So why should our transport system still stick to old ways? Since March 2011, the European Commission with its Directorate General for Mobility and Transport has intensely worked on a completely new initiative to develop a “roadmap to a Single European Transport Area”. With it, the European decision makers aim at removing major barriers and bottlenecks in many key areas of transport and freight infrastructure.
The initiative wants to achieve a total transformation of our transport system, while keeping and enhancing the European competitiveness in a global environment. According to the Directorate of Mobility and Transport, the key topics are:
- Developing and deploying new and sustainable fuels and propulsion systems
- Reducing Carbon dioxide emissions by 60% until 2050
- Optimizing the performance of multimodal logistic chains
- Increasing the efficiency of transport and of transport information systems (including “SESAR” and “Galileo”)
- Phasing out conventionally fuelled cars and trucks from cities by 2050
- Shifting 30% of medium and long distance road freight to other modes by 2030
- Using cars for less than half of middle distances by 2050, which should cut in half the road traffic deaths by 2020, and result in almost zero casualties in road transport by 2050
The European Commission understands that such high goals can only be achieved, when transport in Europe is perceived as an international issue. Therefore, transport has been included in all trade negotiations and in all of the Commission’s respective work in international organizations (ICAO, IMO, OTIF, etc). In these forums it is intended to promote European safety, security, privacy and environmental standards worldwide by building bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
After 100 years of using fossil technology to get us and our products from point A to point B it is about time to transform the transport system into a more efficient and integrated mobility scheme. Will the EU succeed with their “Transport 2050” initiative? The next generation might be able to answer this. Our generation has the responsibility to take first steps into the right direction.
For more information on the European “Transport 2050”- initiative contact our flex2know team.
