Transport in the European Union:  time to decide

John Whitelegg

Introduction

In October 2001 the European Commission published its new transport policy document with the sub-title “Time to Decide”.  Clearly the Commission has already decided that transport conditions in Europe for over 300 million citizens are rather poor now and are set to deteriorate even further by the 2010 which is the time horizon of the transport policy document.  Sadly the Commission has set the whole transport policy debate within a very unimaginative context of some modest modal shift (less use of road and more use of rail) and some suggestions for charging lorries for their use of road space.  This misses the opportunities of fundamental demand management strategies.  The Commission finds it very difficult to grasp the concept of traffic reduction.  We can reduce the numbers of  cars on the streets by land use planning and demand management.  We can reduce the number of lorries (and the distances they travel) by innovative spatial/regional organisational strategies designed to increase the proportion of local products consumed locally and we can reduce the explosive increase in demand for flying by making sure that the cost flying to the passenger “tells the ecological truth” and that airports respect elementary public health controls.  All this has been missed by the Commission and their White Paper now sets us very firmly on a “business as usual” trajectory with just a little bit of hand waving and concession to the “green lobby”.  The European Commission has decided to do a lot more of the same thing over the next 10 years.

The consequences of pursuing a business as usual strategy are very clear:

·	increasing levels of congestion on Europe’s motorways and urban roads.  Congestion costs alone in the EU are expected to equal 80 billion Euros pa

·	significant increases in greenhouse gases from transport.  Transport’s production of GHG will make the achievement of EU reduction targets very difficult to achieve

·	significant health impacts from lack of physical exercise, noise, respiratory disease and road traffic accidents

·	significant damage to neighbourhoods, community and liveability as traffic levels damage social interaction and public use of streets

·	significant costs in futile attempts to cope with the steep increase in transport demand.  The UK 10 year transport plan calls for Ł180 billion (UK sterling) investment in physical infrastructure

·	more polarised societies as wealthier groups travel more (air, high speed train and car), poorer groups travel less and the environmental impacts of travel on the part of the wealthy bear down disproportionately on the poorer groups.

·	Spatial changes in European society so that urban sprawl accelerates, cities lose their cultural and economic significance and move in the direction of “doughnut cities”.  Agricultural, nature protection and recreational land is lost and travel distances increase

The growth in demand for transport

The White Paper has described the main elements of the transport problem.  Most passenger and goods traffic goes by road.  In 1998 road transport accounted for nearly half of goods traffic (44%) and 79% of passenger traffic.  The road share of freight transport is much higher than the 49% figure if we look at land transport.  In the UK, for example, road freight carries 70% of all freight tonne kms.  The figure comes down on a European scale because of the importance of coastal shipping and freight on the inland waterways (especially the Rhine and the Danube).

In the period 1970-2000 the number of cars in the EU trebled from 62.5 million to nearly 175 million.  Overall car travel (car-km) is growing at about 3% pa. The number of cars is rising by 3 million every year and the enlargement plans of the EU which over the next 10 years will bring Poland, Hungary and Romania (and others) into the Union will add to this total.  The so-called accession countries in common with many other ex-Soviet bloc countries (Baltic states, Slovakia, Czech Republic) are all experiencing car ownership and use growth rates that are much larger than the current EU average.  These growth rate are encouraged by the EU through its funding mechanisms for encouraging motorway construction (eg the motorway around Budapest) and pursuing grandiose plans for long distance motorway connections (Trans European Networks).

Road haulage is set to grow by about 50% by 2010.  In the period 1970-2000 it grew at about 5% pa.  Changes in European manufacturing organisation, logistics and sourcing strategies are all adding to the burden of road freight.  Road freight grows as a result of the organisational decisions of production companies and logistics operations and not  because of the growth in the demand for physical products.  The distances over which goods move every year grows by around 6% and the decisions of manufacturers to move those goods over thousands of kilometres (because transport is too cheap) fuels the demand for new motorways, new Alpine crossings and new crossings between France and Spain (Pyrennees).  The European Union is determined to assist in this process of energy intensive, distance intensive production development which is why there is so much emphasis in the White Paper on very expensive new infrastructure to connect Germany and Denmark with a fixed link (Fehman crossing).  The cost of the EU’s planned major infrastructure links is a staggering 1800 billion Euros and much of this capacity will simply move products around from region to region when they are available in all regions anyway.  This has been dubbed “useless transport”  (Whitelegg, 1996).

The growth in demand for aviation is at an even faster rate than for car travel or road freight.  Passenger kms flown are growing in Europe by about 8% pa and the very exceptional and tragic circumstances of  September 11th are very unlikely to damage the medium-long term growth potential of the aviation industry.  Indeed in late November 2001 the UK government gave approval for the construction of Heathrow Terminal 5 which at 30 million passengers pa capacity is bigger than Frankfurt Airport and will mean that Heathrow can handle 100 million ppa by 2010-2015.  This decision is at the request of the aviation industry and is matched by similar decisions to build new airport capacity including yet another completely new airport for Paris.  The aviation industry is clearly very confident about future success even though it is currently taking advantage of the unique circumstances surrounding international terrorism and is making staff redundant and reducing flights.  This will increase the amount of public subsidy (Ł40 million was given to the aviation industry by the UK government in December 2001) and restore the usual trajectory which in the UK will require a new airport equal in size to Heathrow Airport somewhere in the country  every 10 years.  

The European Commission having expressed concern about greenhouse gases, congestion, land take and other consequences of the growth in demand for transport then goes on to say that the growth of aviation is “inevitable”:

“This reorganisation of Europe’s sky must be accompanied by a policy to ensure that the inevitable expansion of airport capacity linked, in particular, with enlargement remains strictly subject to new regulations to reduce noise and pollution from aircraft”  (p14).

This is the clearest expression of the Commission's fundamental lack of understanding of sustainable development and transport.  There is nothing inevitable about the growth in demand for transport, including growth in demand for aviation.  I shall return to this subject in a later section of this chapter.

Greenhouse Gases

CO2 emissions from transport in the EU increased by 47% between 1985 and 2001. Other sectors increased by 4.2%.  More than 30% of final energy in the EU is now consumed by transport If this trend continues the EU will not meet its Kyoto commitments.

Road transport is the main cause of this increase and contributed 84% of the CO2 emissions from transport in 1998.  CO2 emissions from road freight are also expected to rise substantially, by 33% between 1990 and 2010.  Road transport is also a small but growing source of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from passenger car catalysts.  Emissions doubled between 1990 and 1998 to 7% of total N2O emissions.

In 1998 EU greenhouse gas emissions from international transport (aviation and shipping) amounted to 5% of total EU emissions.  Aviation emissions are expected to rise dramatically in future years (Whitelegg, 2000) and to account for about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector by the year 2020.

Attempts to restrict or reduce GHG from transport in Europe have largely failed.  A voluntary agreement with the automobile industry to set an emission limit of  140g/km of CO2 will reduce the rate of growth by a few percentage points but is more than compensated for by the increase in popularity of sports utility vehicles (SUVs).  SUVs are very large, heavy, 4 wheel drive, jeep like vehicles with very poor fuel efficiency and very high GHG emissions (>250g/km).  Their market penetration is very high in the US and in Europe.  Average vehicle occupancy is falling as more people choose to travel alone in their vehicles so increasing per capita GHG and cancelling out fuel efficiency gains.

Put very crudely European car transport is characterised by increasingly fewer persons in increasingly heavier and more polluting vehicles.  This is not a trend that can be influenced by technology.

Urban sprawl and logistic tendencies also exercise a powerful influence on GHG.  The UK has seen a substantial increase in car use for retailing as retailing has moved towards the US style “mall” concept.  Large shopping centres on edge of city sites (eg Meadowhall in Sheffield, Metro Centre in Newcastle and Trafford Centre in Manchester) have all proceeded on the basis of attracting shoppers from distances of over 100km to their thousands of car parking places.  The impact on traditional retailing centres has been very negative eg on Dudley near Meadowhall which has lost about 40% of its retail space and shopping trips account for more miles travelled than commute trips.  Other European countries have resisted these trends.  In Denmark shopping is still conducted in traditional city centre retail outlets supported by local residents.  Germany has also resisted these trends but the accession states (Hungary, Poland etc) are moving very fast in the direction of the out of town centre.  Urban sprawl has the potential to counteract and over-compensate for any technological gains made in fuel/engine efficiency and also any gains made by fiscal means (eg fuel taxation, congestion charging, car park charges).  Without a radical change in the business/developer driven agenda towards business parks, shopping malls and new models of suburbia Europe will not meet Kyoto targets and will see a continuing growth in transport GHG emissions.

The European Environment Agency in Copenhagen has addressed this issue and predicted  (EEA, 2001) that GHG emissions from transport will be 39% above the 1990 levels by 2010.  This does not include the aviation GHG emissions which can be allocated to EU citizens on the basis of their air miles and are currently not counted in EU GHG inventories.

Road freight transport is a particular source of concern in the EU.  Road freight tonne kms increased by 29% in the period 1990-1997 and road freight could increase by much more in the future.  The road freight problem is essentially one of the spatial organisation of  production and logistic supply chains.  Paradoxically because logistics is so well organised and so sophisticated (just in time, very short lead times, satellite tracking, reliability) it is now possible in Europe at very low costs to source a huge variety of raw material and semi processed inputs into a production chain that is very widely dispersed.  Essentially the traditional barriers of  the friction of distance and the cost of movement have been removed.  It is now normal to move thousands of products over tens of thousands of kms in a highly efficient manner.  The products will be delivered exactly where they are needed at the time they are needed.  One of the best documented examples of this process is the case of the yoghurt pot (Boege, 1995).  Boege made a  study of yoghurt production at one factory in Stuttgart (Germany) and found that many different products and sub products went into making the final consumer product.  The final product was so transport intensive that it was possible to calculate that each 150g pot of yoghurt was responsible for moving one lorry 9.2 metres.  Similar trends can be observed throughout food retailing (onions from Poland) and globally (onions on sale in UK supermarkets from New Zealand).  Furniture and household  products sold by IKEA throughout the EU are made up of parts sourced in eastern Europe (eg Poland), assembled at various place in Europe, shipped to Sweden, shipped to the UK and so on.  The distance intensity of such production processes is increasing at an increasing rate and produces more GHG.

The Health Impact of Transport

It is only very recently that the full extent of transport’s negative impact on health has become clearer.  In an ecological audit of the impact of cars on German society Teufel et al (1999) concluded that cars were responsible for 47,000 deaths each year and a range of other, less severe, health impacts.  These are summarised in Table 1.

Table 1  Health damage caused by cars, Germany, 1996, annual totals

	Number	Unit	
deaths from particulate pollution	25,500	deaths, pa	
deaths from lung cancer	8,700	“	
deaths, from heart attacks	2000	“	
deaths from summer smog	1900	“	
deaths from road traffic accidents  (RTAs)	8758	“	
	TOTAL 47,000	“	
serious injuries (RTAs)	116,456	injured/pa	
light injuries (RTAs)	376,702	“	
chronic bronchitis (adults)	218,000	number of illnesses/pa	
Invalidity due to chronic bronchitis	110	number of invalidates/pa	
coughs/auswurf	92,400,000	days/year	
bronchitis (children)	313,000	number of illnesses/pa	
Wiedreholt Husten	1,440,000	number of illnesses/pa	
Hospitalisation (breathing problems)	600	number of hospitalisations/pa	
Hospitalisation (breathing problems)	9,200	number of days of care/pa	
Hospitalisation (cardiovascular disease)	600	hospitalisations/pa	
Hospitalisation (cardiovascular disease)	8,200	number of says of care/pa	
Arbeitsunfahigkeit (not cancer)	24,600,000		
Asthma attacks (days with attacks)	14,000,000	days/pa	
Asthma attacks (days with broncho-dilator)	15,000,000	days/pa	

The volume of death and illness revealed in Table 1 puts the  European transport problem into a very serious public health perspective.  Transport is a major health problem and should be tackled as much within a public health context as in a traditional transport/roads/highway context.  All the deaths and injuries in Table 1 relate to cars and not to lorries or aircraft.  Total deaths are about 5 times greater than road traffic accidents deaths.

The total amount of sickness, days in hospital etc imposes a huge burden on the health services of  European countries and this burden is not recovered from those who drive cars.  The health impact is a huge human tragedy.  15 million days of  use of bronchodilators is a huge problem for many children and many families and the impact on physical activity, social activity, enjoyment of outdoor pursuits, community and neighbourhood is incalculable.  Health impacts in Europe in the 21st century are the direct equivalent of disease impacts in 19th century cities which then required major re-engineering with clean drinking water and sewage systems.  We are still waiting for the 21st century equivalent of this re-engineering to deal with the modern equivalent of widely dispersed sewage.

Road traffic noise and noise from aircraft also create significant health problems (WHO, 1996).  These health problems are generally understated in Europe with an implicit assumption on the part of traffic engineers and planners that most people can get used to noise and, in any case, it is only a minor irritation and part of life in an advanced industrial society.  This has to be rejected.  Noise causes raised blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, a range of psychological problems, sleep disturbance and it damages school age children if they are exposed to noise in a learning environment.  WHO (1993) discusses the evidence that supports the contention that children exposed to noise learn less well and have reading abilities lower than is the case for children not in noisy environments.  Studies around Heathrow Airport in SE England also point to damage to children living near the airport and under flight paths.

Children suffer in other ways as a result of the growth in car use and mobility.  It is common in the UK though less so in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands for children to be taken to school by car.  Hillman, Adams and Whitelegg (1992) drew attention to the serious impact of this tendency especially in the loss of independent mobility on the part of young children.  The consequences of this loss of independence and physical activity are that the UK has the highest rate of over weight and obesity amongst its 15 and 16 year olds in the European Union  (NAO, 2001).  Children (and young adults) increasingly living a sedentary lifestyle with very little physical activity incur a health penalty.  As they grow into full adulthood they are more likely to experience cardiovascular problems and specific illnesses such as diabetes.  A National Audit Office investigation in Britain (NAO, 2001) has identified the importance of walking and cycling as an important mechanism for reducing illness, reducing demands on the National Health Service and reducing the size of the growing bill for health care.

Traffic also damages community life and it is surprising that the frequently articulated comments of urban residents in European cities about the damage to neighbourhoods, community, social interaction and “liveability” are so poorly researched and understood.  In European transport we know far more about the skid resistance of different road surface materials than we do about how traffic deeply affects psychological and physical well being in urban communities.  The outstanding exception to this general rule is Donald Appleyard’s work in San Francisco (Appleyard, 1981).  Appleyard shows in a series of diagrams that heavily trafficked streets seriously impede social interaction to the extent that residents on these streets have much less social contact and fewer friends and acquaintances than do residents on lightly trafficked streets.  This is not just a passing item of sociological interest.  Isolation is keenly felt by elderly people and by parents with young children.  Poor physical conditions reduce the attractiveness of urban living and contribute to economic decline, outmigration  and the downward spiral of urban decay.  Low levels of physical use of public space (few people actually walking) increase the likelihood of crimes against the person and burglary.  Cities are attractive when they are well used by people and cyclists (as is the case in Copenhagen) or very well “policed” in the sense that there is a significant degree of general public surveillance as is the case with German and Austrian tram systems.  Travelling by tram through Dortmund or Bochum in Germany or Vienna (Austria) provide ample opportunities for everyone to survey and “oversee” everyone else.  The significant public presence is qualitatively and quantitatively different from that provided by car users who are in a very private and insulated world.

Studies of individual exposure to pollution (Rank, Folke and Jesperson, 2001) show that car occupants are exposed to 2-4 times as much pollution from vehicles as are cyclists.  This finding is in some ways counter-intuitive and surprising but is the result of cars following a very similar path through traffic to that followed by all other cars and effectively driving in a “tunnel of pollution”.  This raises the very interesting and important conclusion that the car itself damages the health of car occupants.  The conventional view is that cars are safer and more pleasant than cycling (presumed to be a dangerous activity).  Scientific research shows that this is not the case and the growth of car use in Europe (especially the increase in the number of children carried around by car) represents a significant public health problem which is at least an example of direct correspondence between perpetrator and victim.  Those that cause the problem suffer the consequences of that problem.

Aviation

In October 2001 a group of residents living in the vicinity of London Heathrow Airport won a court action before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.  The Court ruled that they had been deprived of their human rights because they could not have a good night's sleep.  The Court also ruled that the UK government had denied the residents an adequate remedy for their complaint and, further, that the UK government had not demonstrated that there was an overriding economic reason why night flights had to take place.  This ruling is very significant indeed.  It establishes a link between transport impacts and human rights that is of wider significance than airports.  Local residents in Austria, Italy and France have equally serious problems living in the vicinity of major trans-Alpine motorways.  It widens the transport debate far beyond the boundaries of traditional studies of noise and air pollution and it demonstrates the importance of fundamental traffic reduction strategies.  Many transport problems cannot be solved by technology or tinkering around the edges.  In a crowded continent like Europe transport problems require fundamental solutions that produce reduced levels of demand.

Flying is in many ways the ultimate expression of the energy intensive, distance intensive life style that has come to dominate the developed world.  It is also one of the most heavily subsidised modes of transport (there is no taxation on aviation fuel) and a mode that has unique levels of access to the highest levels of government and to government support of airport expansion, new road and rail infrastructure and very soft loans from European agencies (eg the European Investment Bank).  Aviation is also a very polluting activity and a significant source of greenhouse gases.  It is an unsustainable mode of transport.

Ground level air emissions
Aviation is responsible for a number of damaging environmental and health effects.  These are growing in significance in Europe and are likley to continue to grow as globalisation trends intensify and eastern European countries move towards EU levels of flying (freight and passenger).  Noise is a well documented and damaging consequence of living near airports or under flightpaths.  Less well known are the air pollution consequences of airport and aircraft activity.  
US research (Natural Resources Defense Council, 1996) shows that air pollution from cars and industry has declined with time while aircraft continue to emit more ground level ozone precursors (Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs and nitrogen oxides or NOx) with each passing year.  Airports in the US are in the top four largest emitters of NOx and VOCs (depending on location), together with power plants, the chemical industry and oil refineries.  These data are not readily available in the UK where published information (eg Environment Agency) does not list airports. Airports are also significant traffic generators, freight distribution centres, taxi destinations and bus stations and are responsible for significant amounts of pollution from the exhaust emissions of land based transport.  They also have large amounts of fixed and mobile generating equipment to supply aircraft with power whilst they are on the stand and large scale maintenance facilities for engines and aircraft.  They are also large fuel depots with storage tanks, fuel lines and  refuelling facilities all contributing evaporative emissions of VOCs to atmosphere. 

Evidence presented at the public inquiry into Terminal 5 (T5) showed that NOx levels would be 110% higher in 2016 (with T5) compared with 1991 and 45% higher in 2016 (without T5) compared with the same base year.  This is a very significant increase (from an already high base line) in a pollutant which is directly associated with smog formation and with damaging human health impacts.  The other pollutants (VOCs, CO and SO2) also show increases even without T5.  
The scale of the emissions from Heathrow Airport can be evaluated by reference to Environment Agency data on local pollution. They are presented in the form of regional rankings of polluting factories and rankings of polluting factories by chemical released to atmosphere.  In the case of VOCs Heathrow with Terminal 5 (in the year 2016) is predicted to produce 2052 tonnes of VOCs (the 1991 total for VOCs was 2224 tonnes and the reduction is due to predicted improvements in vehicle emissions).  This would make it the second largest polluter for this chemical in England and Wales, after BASF on Teesside (north east England).  Heathrow contributes about 10% of the England and Wales total of VOCs and yet does not figure in the Environment Agency list of point sources and is not controlled on a site basis.  Airports in the UK are specifically excluded from the provisions of Integrated Pollution Control.
US data show that Kennedy Airport is the largest source of NOx in New York and the second largest source of VOCs.  Both these chemicals combine to form ground level ozone which in its turn damages the respiratory system of humans and causes breathing difficulties, increased mortality and increased hospital admissions.  Scientific studies reported in Natural Resources Defense Council (1996) report that exposure to ozone at "relatively low" levels significantly reduces lung function and induces respiratory inflammation in healthy people during moderate exercise.  Chest pain, coughing, nausea and pulmonary congestion often accompany this decrease in lung function.  Other studies cited show that "repeated exposure to ozone for months to years can produce permanent structural damage in the lungs and accelerate the rate of lung function decline.  NOx also contributes to particulate matter which in the US produces 64,000 premature deaths every year".

VOC emissions include a number of toxic pollutants which in addition to their role in ozone formation at ground level have a direct impact on human health.  These include formaldehyde, benzene and 1,3 butadiene.  A 1993 study carried out by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that these pollutants contributed to elevated rates of cancer incidence in the vicinity of Midway Airport (SW Chicago).  Midway's arriving and departing planes contribute far more of these toxic pollutants than other industrial sources within a pre-defined 16 square mile study area.  The EPA study estimates that aircraft engines are responsible for 10.5% of the cancer cases in SW Chicago caused by toxic air pollution.  There are no studies of cancer incidence and toxic pollution around UK airports, several of which are much larger than Midway.
The impact of these pollutants on human health can be summarised as follows:

Carbon Monoxide (CO):  at high levels it causes headaches, drowsiness, nausea, slowed reflexes and at very high levels, death.  At low levels it can impair concentration and nervous system function and may cause exercise-related heart pain in people with coronary heart disease
Nitrogen Oxides (NOx): impair respiratory cell function and damage blood capillaries and cells of the immune system.  They may increase susceptibility to infection and aggravate asthma,  In children exposure may result in coughs, colds, phlegm, shortness of breath, chronic wheezing and respiratory diseases including bronchitis.
Ozone:  ground level ozone reduces lung function in healthy people as well as those with asthma.  It may increase susceptibility to infection and responsiveness to allergens such as pollens and house dust mites.  It may cause coughs, eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, nausea, chest pain and loss of lung efficiency and increases in the likelihood of asthma attacks.
Particulate matter (PM):  strongly associated with a wide range of symptoms such as coughs, colds, phlegm, sinusitis, shortness of breath, chronic wheezing, chest pain, asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and loss of lung efficiency.  As many as 15% of asthma and 7% of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease cases in the urban population are estimated to be possibly related to prolonged exposure to high concentrations of PM.  Long term exposure is associated with increased risk of death from heart and lung diseases.  PM may carry carcinogens such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), hence may increase the risk of developing cancer.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC):  This category of pollutant includes thousands of different chemicals many of which are hydrocarbons (HC). They may cause skin irritation and breathing difficulties; long term exposure may impair lung function.  Many individual compounds are carcinogenic (including benzene).  Benzene can cause leukaemia.  Those most at risk are people exposed to benzene at work or who live or work in the vicinity of petrol  filling stations or general vehicle activity.
Sulphur Dioxide (SO2):  SO2 irritates the lungs and is associated with chronic bronchitis.  People with asthma are particularly vulnerable and a few minute's exposure to the pollutant may trigger an attack.  However the most serious effect occurs when SO2 is absorbed by particulate matter which is then inhaled deep into the lungs.  At high doses it can release sulphuric acid on reaction with moisture in the lungs.  This can result in widespread death and illness, for example, it is likely to have been the main cause of the 4000 deaths during the notorious 1952 London smog.

Source:  British Lung Foundation (1998)  Transport and Pollution:  the health costs

The official view of the UK government expressed in its evidence to the T5 inquiry is that aviation contributes very little to local air pollution.  The US data quoted above clearly contradicts this view and local inventories of emissions around Zurich Airport and Stockholm Arlanda Airport show that aviation contributes a significant share of total emissions within a well-defined geographical area.  The information for Zurich and Stockholm is available because both these airports are capped in terms of the pollutants they can produce.  The Zurich data is presented below in Table 2.

Table 2    Zurich Airport:  emissions to atmosphere (t=tonnes)
 
			Airport Regional Perimeter		Canton of Zurich
	NOx	HC	NOx	HC	
Air traffic	475t      60%	380t        50%	950t      51%	415t      43%	
Ground transport vehicles 	105t       13%	50t            7%	705t       38%	220t        23%	
Other activities (eg generators, plant and machinery)	210t        27%	330t         43%	210t        11%	330t       34%	
Total Airport	790t      100%	760t       100%	1865t    100%	965t   100%	
Total emissions (all sources)	2,800t	N/a	21,160t	39,390t	
Contribution of airport	28%		9%	2.5%	
Notes
Airport regional perimeter is defined as an area 9x12 kms around the airport
The Canton of Zurich is taken to mean the area covered by the internationally defined landing and take off or LTO cycle

Source:  Airports and the Environment edited by Anne Paylor, MDIS Publications Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, 1994
A report on Frankfurt Airport (Rhein-Main-Flughafens Frankfurt/Main) and its environmental impact compared the airport's contribution to total NOx, unburnt hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide emissions in the Frankfurt area.  The results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3   Frankfurt Airport's percentage contribution to total pollution  in the Frankfurt area

NO2	40	
CO	44	
Unburnt Hydrocarbon	74	
SO2	44	
NB the data are from 1979
Source:  Konzepte Studie zur Umweltsituation des Rhein-Main-Flugahafens Frankfurt/Main, TUV Rheinland Gruppe, 1992
The Heathrow Terminal 5 Public Inquiry produced similar data from the evidence presented by the British Airports Authority (BAA).  Table 4 summarises this information.
Table 4  Percentage Contribution of Heathrow Airport to annual emissions of four pollutants in the near Heathrow region

Case	NOx	CO	VOC	SO2	
1991	59	45	48	76	
2016 4T 50mppa	76	57	46	66	
2016 4T 60mppa	77	57	46	67	
2016 5T 80mppa	81	63	53	73	
2016 5T 100mppa	82	61	53	74	
NB The near Heathrow region is an area 8kmx6km centred on the airport, an area close to but excluding the airport
4T= four terminals (the present number)
5T=five terminals (the decision on the 5th terminal is still awaited)
mppa= million passengers per annum

Source:  evidence presented by Tabitha Stebbings on behalf of the Local Authorities opposed to T5 (LAHT5) at the public inquiry 
Emissions are not the same thing as air quality around airports.  The evidence on air pollution around major European airports is very clear indeed.  Airports are significant contributors to air pollution and to elevated levels of particulate pollutants that are known to cause damage to human health. The London Borough of Hounslow which borders on Heathrow Airport and is responsible for air pollution monitoring is of the view that "further expansion of the airport and associated road traffic congestion could lead to significant worsening of local air quality (Source:  www.hounslow.gov.uk/es/monitor.html).  In a press release dated 10.8.99 the same London Borough concludes  "It is clear that the use of motor vehicles and the operation of Heathrow Airport heavily influence the levels of air pollution in Hounslow".  Pease (1999) describes the situation around Gatwick:

"The Gatwick Study reveals a dramatic rise in aircraft derived emissions-particularly NOx.  For this pollutant at least, it will mean that air quality in neighbouring Horley will remain above National Air Quality Strategy levels beyond 2005 despite the dramatic drop in road vehicle emissions….particulate pollution is high in and around Gatwick.  It reaches 85mg/m3 at the centre of the airport and exceeds the 50mg/m3 guidance level for many miles beyond".

Demand Management

The European Union White Paper  on transport accepts the argument that we must now "decouple" the growth in demand for transport from economic growth.  This is very important.  The future direction of transport policy should be able to first of all reduce the rate at which at car-kms and tonne kms of lorry activity grow and then reduce these in an absolute sense.  This can be achieved without sacrificing economic growth prospects.  Indeed many transport commentators in Europe would argue that we can only continue to develop our economies if we solve traffic congestion and pollution problems.  This European tendency echoes changes in UK national transport policy which in spite of some residual support for large and expensive new roads is nevertheless oriented in the direction of demand management and reducing the need to travel.  This represents a fundamental policy shift that is more demanding culturally and psychologically than it is in any technical sense.  The policy shift is real and documented in UK governmental statemsnt especially the influential "PPG13" (Planning Policy Guidance Note 13, Transport) but the views of many politicians and engineers is that only roads can bring relief from congestion and only roads can deliver economic gains for hard pressed regions.  In the next section I shall review the power of demand management solutions to solve both sets of problems.

European Best Practice

There is already a considerable body of experience on achieving significant modal shifts and the associated traffic reduction in European cities and regions.  This experience includes the following:

Lemgo in Germany has increased bus usage from 40,000 to over one million in one year

Zurich in Switzerland  has held levels of auto ownership and traffic volumes constant for a decade whilst public transit use has soared

Houten in the Netherlands has developed a comprehensive bicycle-pedestrian network and cut car trips per household by 25%

Source:  Hammond, B "Buses, bicycles and small town revivals" in US-European Perspectives on the Climate Change Debate, Center for Clean Air Policy, Washington DC, pp 33-41, 1994

Swiss and German research on car-sharing shows that people who have joined a car sharing scheme (not car-pooling) and who have previously owned a car have reduced their car mileage by 50%.  The Federal Ministry of Transport in Germany estimates that car sharing will reduce annual vehicle kilometres by 7000 million.  In Europe as a while the figure is put at 30,000 million vehicle kilometres reduction.

Source:  European Commission (1997) DGXVII (Energy), Improving energy efficiency and reducing gas emissions in urban transport.  Report of a series of car free cities seminars

In Aachen (Germany) traffic into the city centre has been reduced by 85% over the last ten years, the car's share of transport has gone down from 44% to 36% and NOx pollution has gone down by 50%

Source:  Car Free City Conference, Amsterdam, 1994, Regina Poth, page 45

In Bologna a deliberate policy of traffic restraint involving the closing of streets and park and ride produced a 48% drop in motorised traffic entering the historic core and a 64% drop in cars (1982-1989).

In Groningen (Netherlands) in 1990 48% of all trips within the city were by bicycle, 17% on foot, 5% by public transport and 30% by car.

Source:  Pharoah,T and Apel,D (1995) Transport Concepts in European Cities, Avebury

In Manchester the Metrolink tram has taken up to 50% of car journeys off roads in the area it serves.  It has replaced over one million car journeys into the city centre each year.

5% of car users switched to a new "City Express" bus service in Belfast in the first 6 months of operation

Edinburgh has set itself a traffic reduction target of 30%

In Leicester 10% more 7-9 year olds were allowed to walk to school after traffic calming

Source:  Roads 21:  a roads policy for the next century, Transport 2000 (1997)

Levels of cycling in one of the safe routes to schools pilot projects have more than doubled even without the necessary infrastructure works being carried out.  More than 120 pupils at Horndean Community School in Hampshire are regularly cycling to school compared with about 50 last autumn and just 36 when the project began in at the end of 1995.

Source:  Network News, the Quarterly Magazine of the National Cycle Network, Issue No 6, 4th Quarter 1997

The "Carte Orange" in Paris covering all modes and introduced in 1975 led to a 36% increase in bus patronage.  The London travel card led to a 16% increase in public transport use at a time of decline elsewhere.

Source:  European Commission (1996) The Citizen's Network.  Fulfilling the potential of public passenger transport in Europe

In Zurich substantial investment in public transport coupled with parking and access policies have led to the stabilisation (but not reduction) of traffic growth and to an increase of 30% in the use of public transport (1985-1990).  The level of use of public transport is now 470 trips per inhabitant per year, about twice the level of comparable European cities.

Source:  OECD (1995) Urban Travel and Sustainable Development, European Conference of Ministers of Transport, Paris

Achieving significant modal shifts, shifting people out of cars, creating more liveable cities, towns and rural areas and meeting traffic reduction targets is responsive to policy.  We can achieve traffic reductions.  The relative lack of progress in the UK, Spain, Portugal and Greece in  recent years is not indicative of a fundamental psychological problem or even a carefully balanced choice to go for cars and freedom.  It is the result of policy that either intentionally or unintentionally has encouraged the growth in demand for motorised transport.

This stance also implies a corollary.  Moving away from car dependence and shifting to lower levels of car use with higher levels of use of the alternatives brings with it multiple benefits:

		it brings economic gains to city centre retailing

	it brings national economic benefits 

		it re-invigorates neighbourhoods and communities

		it improves health

		it reduces the total amount of public expenditure devoted to new infrastructure and reduces the costs of dealing with the health effects of transport

		it helps us to achieve reductions in greenhouse gases

		it is inclusive; it helps the young, the disabled and the elderly and it helps the poor 

 Traffic reduction involves new ways of designing and implementing policy as well as new policy objectives.  These new ways of working will require:

	clear action by national government to put the right conditions in place that will allow local authorities to do their work effectively

	highly co-ordinated and integrated strategies at the level of local authorities to bring together the traditional transport, highway and planning functions with the agents of land use change and traffic generation.  A collaborative model of working will have to be formulated and implemented.

Transport demand and land use planning

The main source of grow in demand for transport in Europe is the spatial re-organistaion of society to produce a more "spread out" life style, a concentration of facilities (eg retailing) in fewer locations and an increase in the space time complexity of everyday activities (eg two working adults and children going to different schools beyond walking and cycling distance).  Transport planning and infrsastructure provision cannot comepnsate for fundamental inefficiencies in spatial organisation and service delivery.  The practical experience of SE England is that the road network cannot cope with the demands made on it as commuter trips incrsease in length and school children are taken to school by car. The most serious congestion "hot spots" in Europe (around Paris, Frankfurt and London) are the result of spatial changes in the organisation of services and facilities and solutions are more lilely to be found in re-engineering those spatial changes and not in providing more roads.

John Robert's (TEST, 1991) comparison of Almere (The Netherlands) and Milton Keynes (England) demonstrated the extent to which land use and transport planning can influence the demand for motorised transport:  "the most obvious finding and an important one, was the much higher percentage of trips made by car and the much lower level of bicycle use in Milton Keynes when compared to Almere (65.7% of trips by car compared to 43.1%, 5.8% of trips by bicycle compared to 27.5% respectively)".  The influence of compact cities on reducing motorised trips is reviewed in Smith, Whitelegg and Williams (1998).  Physical land use planning is a tried and tested method of reducing the length of trips, increasing the use of non-motorised modes and reducing the demand for expensive road infrastructure.

The policy agenda:  how do European countries try and solve transport problems?

A number of policies are either currrently in use or actively under development to solve transport problems.  They include:

	Urban road pricing (including congestion pricing)

	Fuel taxation

	Taxation on parking spaces at the workplace

	Taxation of parking spaces at car intensive developments e.g. out-of-town and edge of town retailing complexes, airports, leisure centres, sports facilities

	Regional norms on car parking provision to deter a competitive bidding-up process

	Financial support from hypothecated revenues for quality public transport, co-ordination, integration, dense pedestrian and cycle networks and innovative programmes of accessibility enhancement for rural areas

	Substantial policy integration at the national level so that transport and land use planning policies support health policies, climate change policies and vice versa

	Modification of the "predict and provide" approach which still determines policies towards airport capacity and housing provision

	The establishment of regional transport authorities following the German models eg the Rhine Main transport authority in Frankfurt or the Danish model (HUR in Copenhagen).  These authorities bring public and private finance to bear on the supply of public transport, high quality integration and co-ordination , "environment ticketing" schemes and high quality information

	Providing new methods of funding public transport e.g. fuel taxation as in Germany and employer contribution as in Paris (the "versement" tax on employers)

	Eliminating subsidies to private motorised transport through the company car, business mileage and corporation tax regimes

Not all these policy areas will be discussed here.  .

Road pricing and fuel taxation  is an attractive policy option, particularly if the revenues could be recycled into the local economy to support all the alternatives to the private car.  According to the OECD (1995) survey of transport policy options road pricing is being considered in some shape or form in most OECD countries.  The Mayor of London intends to introduce a cordon based system in 2003 which will require vehicles to pay Ł5 to enter the charging area (very roughly coinciding with central London).  Plans are well advanced in Cambridge and Edinburgh (UK), toll systems exist in Norway and Stockholm is planning to introduce such a system.  Road pricing is generally suggested for those locations where the growth rate in traffic is already the lowest across a number of geographical situations.  The growth of traffic into and out of central London has been far lower than the growth in outer London or the growth on the M25 corridor.  Road pricing is best seen as a strongly supportive measure alongside a battery of other measures including strong land use controls and modal preference. 

The view of the OECD (1995, page 154) is that "The key to the sustainable development strand is a substantial and steadily increasing fuel tax coupled with (other) measures".  The UK had a policy of  increasing fuel tax by 6% above the rate of inflation at each annual budget but this has now been abandoned by the Labour government.  The OECD suggest that the impact of a 7% pa rise in fuel costs in real terms would be to quadruple fuel prices in 20 years  ..(leading).. to lower car ownership levels compared with what they would otherwise be, fewer car trips and shorter trip lengths".  An overall reduction in car trip making of about 15% , a reduction in trip length of about 25% and an overall reduction of vehicle kilometres of one third is predicted if fuel prices rise by a factor of 2.5 (OECD, 1995, page 156)

Denmark has a very high tax on the purchase of new cars (160%) and has one of the lowest levels of car ownership in the European Union.

The Stockholm proposals provide a model for UK local authorities.  Stockholm will be divided into 10 zones covering the whole of the built up area, served by 90 fee stations.  Light vehicles (e.g. cars) would pay 0.45 or 0.55 ECU per transit on weekdays between 0600 and 1900.  The lower charge is for automatic debiting and the higher for manual systems.  HGVs would pay 1.10 ECU per transit if fitted with noise reduction technology and 1.40 ECU if not.  Once again higher charges would apply to manual systems.  The differential charge for noise indicates a  real environmental benefit from road pricing.  Vehicles can be charged on a number of different noise and pollution criteria to help achieve air and noise quality objectives as well as congestion targets.

The Stockholm scheme is estimated to bring in about 140 million ECU a year.  13% is allocated to administrative costs, 79% is refunded to residents and the rest set aside for noise reduction and public transport expenditures.

Source:  European Federation for Transport and the Environment, Briefing paper on Road pricing, Brussels, 1996

Parking taxes

A well developed system of public and private car parking charges already exists in most Euroepan countries but free car parking (as in employer provided spaces) is a strong incentive to drive for commuter purposes.  Depending on the location more than half of the available car parking in a UK town or city is free parking.  Private non-residential car parking (PNR) at workplaces, hospitals, universities and airports provide a powerful incentive for the use of car based transport for commuting and other purposes and for the use of cars in the course of work.  If local authorities are going to be successful in achieving traffic reduction targets there will need to be strong disincentives to add to the supply of PNR spaces and strong incentives for employers and site managers to develop mobility options that give far more choice than the car.  This will in its turn have an impact on the initial concept and location choice to the benefit of public transport, walking and cycling options.  A specific car space tax is suggested as a clear fiscal measure to achieve these objectives.

Parking.  Restrictions in mainland European cities such as Zurich and decisions as in Amsterdam to reduce car park numbers  (Lemmers, 1996) provide best practice examples.  Good practice parking policies exist in Sheffield, Winchester, Leeds, Southampton, Cambridge and Edinburgh.  An MVA consultancy study of Bristol for the DETR shows that car trips into central Bristol can be cut by 41% by a 75% reduction in on-street parking, higher charges and enforcement of planning permission for PNR parking.  (T2000, 1997, Just the ticket, traffic reduction through parking restraint). 

Reallocating space and modal preferences.  There are many isolated examples of successful policies in this area:  the Manchester Metrolink, bus lanes in several British cities, Zurich's prioritisation of public transport, Maidstone Integrated Sustainable Transport (MIST) project, car-free residential and city centre areas  (Lubeck, Amsterdam, Berlin, Edinburgh), building homes on car parks, bicycle priority schemes and planning in York and Cambridge, Delft and Groningen (the Netherlands), Detmold and Rosenheim (Germany);  Copenhagen's cycling strategy, Darmstadt's (Germany) encouragement of cyclists and pedestrians to share the same large car-free space in the city centre;  SMART buses in Liverpool, new tram systems in Strasbourg; innovative car-sharing initiatives (StattAuto) in Berlin, Bremen and Edinburgh e.g. 3000 participants in the Berlin car sharing scheme have removed 2000 cars from the roads of Berlin.  Vienna has adopted a policy of constructing several hundred extended pavements at crossings and tram stops to improve safety for pedestrians

Traffic management:  Groningen (Netherlands) has developed a sector access model; Bochum (Germany), has prioritised its trams in preference to cars, Gothenburg (Sweden), has divided the CBD into 5 cells which has had the effect of reducing car mobility  by 50%;  Houten (Netherlands) pop 30,000 has given preference to bicycles, restricted access by sectors and traffic restraint. Oxford (through parking controls and Park and Ride) over the last 20 years has produced one of the lowest rates of traffic growth in the city centre of any UK city.

Marketing.   Large scale marketing exercises have increased bus patronage in Lemgo (Germany).  Similar but less ambitious schemes can be found in the UK e.g.  SMART buses (Liverpool) and TravelWise schemes.  System-wide, discounted tickets have helped increase public patronage in Germany e.g. the "Umweltkarte"  or "environment tickets" e.g. Freiburg where the Umweltkarte is attributed with a reduction of 4000 cars per day on the roads to the city centre.  The German national rail system has increased its patronage through the introduction of the "Bahnkarte" system which provides 50% discounts on all rail ticket purchases after the acquisition of an annual card costing DM 250. 

Green Commuter strategies   These are increasingly common in the UK e.g.  Nottingham (City, County, Queens Medical Centre, Universities and Boots), Derriford Hospital (Plymouth), Oxford University (planning agreement).  Pfizer, the US based multinational company has reduced car use at its Sandwich (Kent, UK) plant by 12% in 3 years of the operation of a transport plan.  The Rijnstate Hospital in the Netherlands has restricted its car parking provision to 400 spaces for 2050 staff.  Transport Demand  Management policies have increased the use of public transport from 8% to 40% of all journeys.  Restricting car parking availability was the key to this success.

Traffic reduction for heavy goods vehicles

HGVs are a long standing problem in towns and cities, on trunk roads through villages and in or near national parks. They area  very serious problem on Alpine transit routes and on key sections of motorways in Germany, France and the UK.  In general their impact is much greater than their numbers would suggest.  Their impact on noise, road damage, pedestrian and cyclist fears and air quality is large and there is a strong case for reduction in ways that can protect the economy of towns and cities and the consumer who has come to depend on goods and services supplied by HGVs.  Considerable progress has been made in this area in mainland Europe, particularly Germany, whilst hardly any progress at all has been made in the UK.  In Germany HGV reduction strategies which pay attention to the commercial interests of the companies involved are generally referred to as "City-Logistik" strategies.

City Logistics involves setting up new partnerships and styles of co-operation between all those involved in the logistics chain and in delivering/receiving goods in city centres.  These partnerships offer significant reductions in vehicle kilometres and truck numbers and are currently in existence in  Germany and Switzerland.  City Logistics are a very clear illustration of the importance of developing high quality organisational arrangements and inter-company co-operation agreements in addition to whatever new technology might be appropriate.  City logistics have taken transport operations into an area of development that builds links and emphasises co-operation across all players and interest groups. 

In Germany partnerships between logistics contractors are reducing lorry numbers and improving the urban environment.  These partnerships (known as City Logistik companies in Germany) are in operation in Berlin, Bremen, Ulm, Kassel and Freiburg.  The Freiburg example has several pointers to the future shape of freight transport in urban areas.  There are currently 12 partners in the scheme.  Three of the partners leave city centre deliveries at the premises of a fourth.  The latter then delivers all the goods involved in the city centre area.  A second group of 5 partners delivers all its goods to one depot located near the city centre.  An independent contractor (City Logistik) delivers them to city centre customers.  A third group this time with only two service providers specialises in refrigerated fresh products.  These partners form an unbroken relay chain, one partner collecting the goods from the other for delivery to the city centre.

The Freiburg scheme has reduced total journey times from 566 hours to 168 hours (per month), the monthly number of truck operations from 440 to 295 (a 33% reduction)  and the time spent by lorries in the city from 612 hours to 317 hours (per month).  The number of customers supplied or shipments made has remained the same.  The Kassel scheme showed  a reduction of vehicle kilometres travelled of 70% and the number of delivering trucks by 11%.   This has reduced the costs of all the companies involved and increased the amount of work that can be done by each vehicle/driver combination.

These reductions in vehicle numbers and in traffic levels have benefited the companies through higher levels of utilisation of the vehicle stock.  It is not in the interests of logistic companies to have expensive vehicles clogged up in city centres, one way systems and on circuitous ring roads.  There are clear economic benefits arising from lorry traffic reductions.

Rural Areas

Rural areas have higher levels of dependency on cars than urban areas and have experienced a steady decline in recent years in the range and quantity of facilities that represent the normal everyday destinations for our trips.  The decline in rural shops, post offices, schools and health care facilities has been documented in most of the UK's rural areas.  For these reasons special care is needed with traffic reduction policies in rural areas.

Rural areas are not universally perceived as particularly difficult in terms of public transport provision and facility development.  Rural transport and facility density in Switzerland and Norway are well developed and sit amongst a number of other measures designed to support the residents of rural areas.  In the UK this support network is lacking and it would be unreasonable to expect transport policies to make up for the huge deficits in other policies.  The existence of a "rural transport problem" is largely dependent on the extent to which organisational and fiscal changes over the last 30 years have left rural areas unsupported.  When this support is restored e.g. through financial incentives that will support small schools, post offices, shops and rural enterprise as well as affordable housing then the "rural transport problem" is rendered less intractable.

Central government can support rural areas through a policy of providing resources for small facilities in a dispersed pattern in a rural area particularly in education and health care.  In the UK local authorities can support rural areas through the provision of 100% rate relief (a local property tax) for shops and post offices (section 49 of 1988 the Local Government Finance Act).  This already happens in East and West Sussex where all but one of the districts offers rate relief to village shops.

Rural inhabitants will still need to travel and unless transport initiatives are vigorously pursued this is likely to be by car.  There are potentially a number of alternatives to the car in rural areas:

	much improved bus services on main routes into larger settlements

	improvements to rural rail services where these exist

	community/voluntary car schemes

	community bus/dial-a-ride schemes

	improvements to pedestrian and cycling facilities

	shared use of vehicles e.g. post buses

	home deliveries

The exact mix of transport opportunities will vary from area to area and from the deep rural situation to circumstances where a large market town is accessible within half an hour by bus.  UK experience with rural bus services and community bus services up to 1985 was successful in many places but was dealt a severe blow by bus deregulation in the 1985 Act.  This Act  is in urgent need of reform to encourage innovative, community run bus services in rural areas.

In spite of this unhelpful public transport regime there are still very good examples of quality bus services in rural areas.  The bus services in Cerrig-y-Druidion in North Wales provide such a link (to Ruthin and Denbigh) and are well used.

Rural railways also continue to provide quality public transport in those areas that are served by this mode.  Recent research by TR&IN in Huddersfield has shown how rural lines currently serve their populations (Exeter to Barnstaple, Derby to Matlock, Ipswich to Suffolk and Huddersfield to Sheffield) and how they could do much more to offer a quality, affordable alternative to the car.

In rural Oxfordshire a study of Cholsey and Chalgrove showed that residents of the village with the poor levels of public transport (Chalgrove) travelled 30% further by car than Cholsey residents.  Cholsey has a bus or a train at least every hour.  The survey (Environment Change Unit, Oxford University, 1996) also showed that the average distance for car journeys within both villages was one mile or less, indicating a significant potential for transfer to non-car modes.  It would be mistaken to assume that rural transport demand is dominated  by large numbers of long journeys in situations where there is no public transport.  The reality is far more varied and has considerable potential for intervention to bring about a shift away from the car.

In Germany the "Buergerbus" initiative has set a high standard for affordable, frequent, community managed rural bus services.  These buses have been funded by the state government of North Rhine Westphalia and are operated by locally managed companies.  They cover a network of market towns and sparsely populated areas on a variety of frequencies and carry between 2000 and 18000 passengers per annum.

 A review of the economic consequences of traffic reduction

There is a well-developed literature on this subject.  Most of the work is German  in origin where resources have been devoted to empirical research on the relationship between traffic restraint (e.g. reducing the number of car parking places in cities) and retail viability.  This research carried out by the German Institute for Urban Research in the late 1980s and early 1990s is very clear:

"A study in Germany suggest that retail trade in central city districts increases with policies that encourage environmentally friendly transport modes.  Of the 38 cities studied, 14 had above average retail growth.  Of these 14, 10 had below average provision of infrastructure for the car"

Source:  European Commission (1996)  European Sustainable Cities.  Report, Expert Group on the Urban Environment, page 176

This is not really surprising.  There is a large literature on the costs of congestion and the scale of the defensive expenditures that have to be deployed to cope with the air pollution, noise pollution, road traffic accidents and congestion impacts of traffic growth and traffic concentration in space and time (Maddison et al, 1996).

Authoritative European surveys of the external costs of transport agree that the total external costs of transport in 17 European countries amounts to 270 billion ECU per year, an average of 4.6% of GDP.  The road total is 50 times higher than the rail total and for all practical purposes walking and cycling can be regarded as having zero external costs.

The full implementation of already accepted EU policy in the area of internalising the external cost of transport would significantly reduce the number of vehicle kilometres of car and lorry travel while at the same time expanding the use of other modes and liberating significant resources for investment in social infrastructure (e.g. education and training), environmentally high performing buildings and innovation in design and manufacturing to enhance the international competitiveness of UK businesses.

In a seminal study of Japan's urban transport system and economic performance, Hook (1994) associates Japan's reliance on non-motorised transport and rail transit with its economic success:

"High urban density and a transportation system heavily reliant on non-motorised transport and its linkages with rail based mass transit have been critical to Japan's economic success.  By minimizing aggregate transportation costs, Japan has been able to minimize its production costs, making its goods more competitive in international markets.  Further by discouraging the consumption of private automobiles and encouraging savings, a larger pool of potential investment capital was created, also critical to rapid economic growth....the automobile far from being a symbol of economic prowess is more a symbol of economic assets being wasted on consumption instead of on job creating and productivity-increasing investment.  Meanwhile the bicycle and other non-motorised vehicles far from being a  symbol of economic backwardness are more symbols of a society able to meet its passenger transport needs in the most cost effective and least environmentally damaging way, allowing scarce economic resources to be invested elsewhere"

Source:  Hook, W (1994)  Role of non-motorised transportation and public transport in Japan's Economic Success, Transportation Record, 1441, TRB, Washington DC

There are considerable benefits to be had from public transport investments.  Steer, Davies and Gleave (1997) in their report for Transport 2000 show that the total non user benefit from investing in the Midland Metro Line 1 amounts to Ł112.85 million at 1989 prices.  Evidence from Portland, Oregon (USA) shows a major wave of economic revitalisation from the new transit system and its associated land use planning (Centre for Clean Air Policy, Washington DC, 1997). Portland's economic decline in the 1960s and 1970s was reversed by new high density housing in the down town area, conversion of streets to pedestrian friendly configurations, replacing a riverside motorway with an esplanade, stringent parking restrictions, free public transport in the central area using a new light rail system and the scrapping of road schemes.  The result has been a revitalised city centre with 30,000 more jobs and 40% of commuters using public transport. 

Detailed empirical research in Germany shows that there is no relationship between the amount of car parking provision in the main city centres and the amount of retail spending in those areas  (Baier and Schaefer, 1997).  Freiburg with very low numbers of car parking spaces per inhabitant has a higher level of retail spending than Wetzlar with four times the number of spaces per inhabitant as Freiburg.  In the case of public transport there is a very strong relationship.  The higher the number of public transport arrivals in the cities the greater is the level of retail activity in those centres.  The evidence in Europe points to the economic success of traffic restraint policies and to the non-existence of damaging economic consequences.

The literature and experience from all advanced industrial countries that have invested in alternatives to the car and in forms of mobility other than the car is that there are measurable economic benefits and gains from doing so.  Traffic reduction is not about stopping people travelling.  Transferring trips to modes of transport other than the car or planning for land use arrangements and accessibility patterns that stimulate innovations in supply (e.g. home deliveries) are more likely to create jobs than to destroy jobs.  Indeed sustainable transport policies with traffic reduction at their heart are examples of strategies that have the potential to create, real lasting local jobs that can sustain local communities at a time when globalisation tendencies are making jobs far more mobile than at any other time in the past 50 years.

Trans European Networks

Europe is unique on a  global scale in that it has a supra-national authority (the European Union) planning for transport and providing resources for transport projects.  The 15 countries that are currently members of the European Union are still responsible in every sense for their transport plans, policies, programmes and strategies and they also make strong inputs to the EU policy level.  At the European Union level there are a number of key transport policy areas :

•	Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through voluntary agreements with car manufacturers
•	Improving air quality through directives and regulations which are legally binding in all member states
•	Social regulations to protect the health of workers eg limiting the hours that can be driven by lorry drivers
•	Planning and funding major items of new transport infrastructure  (trans European Networks)
•	Opening up access to railways systems and making national rail systems capable of being "inter-operable"
•	Opening up road haulage to international competition through "cabotage" ie permitting hauliers from one country to pick up loads in another country
•	Fiscal measures to bring the costs of road frieght transport into line with the damage that is caused by lorries (ie incresaing taxation through infrastructure charging).

In this section I will discuss Trans European Networks (TENs) only.  Trans European Networks are significant for a number of reasons.  They are a key area of European Union policy in that they are intended to deliver broader political objectives.  TENs are expected to contribute to the process of enlargement through easing movement across borders.  TENs are expected to deliver a fully integrated political union through the binding together of the many remote and disparate regions of the Union and TENs are expected to assist in the stimulation of economic growth which in its turn is expected to remove economic and social inequalities in the Union.  The fact that all these wider objectives and motivations lack any sound basis of evidence or validation has never been an obstacle to their promotion as key objectives.  The European Union is essentially an economic power bloc locked into outmoded ideas of economic growth, growth in output and growth in mobility.   The tension at the heart of the Union is one of this commitment to ever higher rates of growth in mobility sustained by infrastructure investment and a parallel commitment to sustainable development.  By definition sustainable development is about the conservation of energy and resources and is incompatible with commitments to the growth of motorised transport.  More than any other policy area of the European Union, the commitment to TENs reveals a fundamentally unsustainable core set of beliefs and policies.  The European Union is structurally incapable of  adopting an economic, social, spatial or transport policy that can deliver reductions in  traffic growth.  The consequences of this historic missed opportunity are increasing levels of congestion, health damage, climate change and damage to the cultural and architectural fabric of Europeans towns and cities.

The European Union White Paper on transport is very clear indeed on TENs:

"Given the saturation of certain major arteries and the consequent pollution, it is essential for the European Union to complete the trans-European projects already decided."  (page 14).  

The projects already decided are a list of 14 separate schemes agreed at the Essen Council meeting in 1996.  They are:

1	High speed rail and combined transport north south link
2	High speed train Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Amsterdam, London
3	High Speed train south
4	High speed train Paris, E France-Southern Germany (inc Metz-Luxembourg)
5	Conventional rail/combined transport Betuwe line
6	High Speed train/Combined transport France-Italy (Lyon-Turin-Milan-Venice-Trieste)
7	Greek motorways PATHE and Via Egnatia
8	Multimodal link Portugal-Spain-Central Europe
9	Conventional rail link Cork-Dublin-Belfast-Larne-Stranraer
10	Malpensa Airport (Milan)
11	Fixed link Denmark-Sweden (Oresund Link)
12	Nordic Triangle
13	Ireland-UK-Benelux Road link
14	West Coast Main Line (UK)

Three of these have been completed (in bold above) and the remainder will be completed by 2005. The EU budget allocated to these projects is 1830 billion Euros in the period 1995-2005.  In the period 1996-97 EU funding represented 30% of the total cost.  The remainder of the funding was from national governments and private companies.

These huge sums of money are all devoted to encouraging European goods and people to travel further and faster.  The large sums of taxpayers money that goes into these projects has not been evaluated in terms of "best value".  The EU is silent on the nature of the mechanisms that will convert more road space and higher rail speeds into jobs, prosperity and sustainability.  Indeed the weight of scientific evidence in European transport points to the conclusion that these investments will simply stimulate more freight and passenger movement.  This was predicted in a European Commission report on completing the internal market.  The report "1992" The Environmental Dimension concluded that the removal of barriers to trade and completing the internal market would increase greenhouse gases and lead to a deterioration in air quality.

The Gothenburg European Council (2001) concluded that TENs should form part of an environmentally sustainable policy to encourage the use of "environment-friendly modes of transport".  This will be realised through the development of multi-modal corridors and high speed trains.  Sadly the decision makers have chosen to ignore the reality of European transport experience.  Adding to motorway capacity does not reduce vehicle kms travelled.  Building high speed train routes does not encourage less travel (even air travel continues to grow as air traffic control slots are released for other routes).  Building airports does not reduce greenhouse gases.

TENs are increasingly concentrating on overcoming major "natural barriers" eg Alpine crossings, crossing the Pyrennees and linking Denmark and Germany (Fehmarn Belt).  Alpine crossings are a major political and environmental problem in Europe.  The concentration of 20,000 lorries per day on key roads and tunnels has imposed intolerable burdens on people and ecology and has contributed to the breakdown of this system in a series of accidents blocking tunnels in 2000 and 2001 (eg the Mont Blanc tunnel).  The emphasis on new rail tunnels funded by the Swiss government (not in the European Union) will only provide temporary relief to what is a fundamental spatial and organisational inefficiency.  As long as Northern Europe seeks to provide southern Europe with the same kind of goods that move in the opposite direction we will always have an "Alpine transit problem".  The problem is created by dysfunctional production systems and cost driven marketing and consumption systems which encourage as much movement of goods as is necessary to maximise profits and reduce consumer prices.  The environment (and health) is not priced in this system and all opportunities for local production for local consumption are enthusiastically and recklessly foregone.  It is the express purpose of new infrastructure (road and rail) to support an illogical and unsustainable long distance production-consumption system.

The White Paper highlights the importance of new infrastructure across the Pyrennees to assist trade between the Iberian peninsula  and France/countries beyond France.  Currently 15,000 lorries cross this boundary each day and this number is growing at 10% pa.  The European Union in advocating more crossings is not addressing the "why" question.  Why is lorry activity increasing so much when final consumers are not consuming 10% more food, metal, plastic, wood etc each year?  The answer (once again) lies in the production system.  Each year the distance intensity of each tonne of material increases.  This concept is clearly described in the case of yoghurt in Boege (1995) and in Whitelegg (1997).  If we continue to eliminate local production for local consumption from our economic systems then we will need to cater for very large increases in lorry numbers at every mountain pass, river crossing and international crossing.  The Commission's answer is to ignore the question and to prepare plans for another high capacity rail crossing of the Pyrennees.

The White Paper suggest the addition of 4 new, very expensive, infrastructure projects to the TENs list:

East European high speed train/combined transport to link Stuttgart-Munich-Salzburg-Linz-Vienna

Fehmarn Belt to link Germany and Denmark with a new 19km fixed link (bridge and tunnel)

Straubing-Vilshofen to improve navigability on the Danube

Interoperability of the Iberian high speed rail system

The high priority given to TENs guarantees that a high level of resources will be allocated to these projects.  Europe is now very firmly established on a trajectory that will create a distance intensive and movement intensive society for both passengers and freight.  The hyper-mobile society that we are now creating with massive subsidies and investments is already altering the geography and geometry of Europe and undermining environmental, ecological and social structures. 

Conclusion

Europe is undergoing a radical transformation of its transport landscape.  The process is well underway and may be unstoppable.  The main elements of the change can be seen in American and Australian transport systems.  Distance is becoming a desirable commodity in itself and the fragmentation of production and consumption systems based on a false model of economic efficiency are taking us to higher levels of people and goods movement.  Europe is becoming a continent where most people are on the move most of the time and if we can buy an apple that has travelled 1000 km then this must be much better than one that carries with it thousands of years of history, culture and taste and has travelled 50 kms.  The direct manifestations of transport failures (congestion, pollution and accidents) attract a  response from national governments and from the European Union that will make the problem worse.  Air traffic congestion is so bad in Europe that we will build 30 more airports.  Road traffic congestion is so bad that we will build 10,000 kms of new motorways and local travel is so awful (especially for children, those with mobility difficulties  and the elderly) that we will spend 99% of transport budgets on those kinds of transport that are of no relevance at all to the quality of life and accessibility of those who live in cities or the countryside.  We are creating an unequal, polarised, polluted European society where most money is spent on the irrelevant wishes and needs of the hyper mobile and least on the quality of accessibility within 5 kms of where we all live.  In the process we are destroying European civilisation with its fine cities and strong cultural identity and its patchwork quilt of fine landscapes. We are destroying habitat, ecology and biodiversity.  We are destroying regional identity, regional food and local jobs and we are making our children ill.  We are creating a polarised and divided society where the poor and the weak will be expected to absorb the environmental and health consequences of the hyper mobility of the rich.  To add a final layer of insult most of the damage is being done by governments committed to sustainable development, by businesses fully accredited to the international environmental management standard (ISO 14001),  and by a European Union that is large enough and strong enough to supply the large amounts of cash that are needed to bring about the final destruction of space through the conquest of time. 

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