Activity: Capitalization Process
Authors: Central European Initiative
Preparation of Document: 06/2014
Version: Final
Contents
1.Supporting multimodal primary accessibility in the region – what does it mean?
2.Objectives of multimodal primary accessibility
3.Elements of multimodal primary accessibility
4.Contributions to other EU policies
5.Integrative approach
6.Core components – Multimodal Transport area in connection to the TEN-T transport network.
7.Core components of “Multimodal Primary Accessibility”
8.Cross-thematic view of Supporting a multimodal primary accessibility in the region with Greener Transport Systems through the use of Intelligent Transport Systems (SEE-ITS project)
9.SEE project results and capitalization
10.POLE 7: joint actions and outcomes
11.Other (non – SEE) project results and capitalization
12.Capitalization Strategy
13.Communication
1.Supporting multimodal primary accessibility in the region – what does it mean?
The cohesion and optimization of transport networks in South East Europe (SEE) relies to a large extent on competitive and multimodal transport systems. Taking into account the need for urgent measures that will contribute to overcoming the current economic downturn, together with the opportunity of creating a viable transport platform in the SEE area, the approval of the new TEN T guidelinesrepresent a valid precondition for enhanced cooperation in the whole region creating the basis for an efficient interconnections between primary and secondary network.
Moreover, the parallel effort for extending the EU transport networks to the Western Balkans can ultimately contribute to the creation of a coherent rail and road network in the whole Europe allowing a stronger network effect and improving the SEE multimodal facilities.
In this context, a simultaneous effect of a reinforcement and an enlargement of the European multimodal transport system is considered to be a pre-condition for creating a strong improvement overall gains in terms of efficiency, sustainability and quality of service of the transport systems operations.
The SEE projects in the current programming period have clearly identified a number of obstacles which prevent the extensive use of multimodal transport. These include the lack of relevant interconnections between transport modalitiesincluding a serious under-exploitation of existing multimodal facilities, the lack of harmonization of technical standards and redundant and complex cross-border procedures.
Moreover, there are uneven levels of performance and service quality among modes, not well defined levels of liability and a lack of transparency and information about multimodal services. As a result, mode-independent and seamless door-to-door passenger and freight transport is largely still underdeveloped.
In this context,the EU and national transport policies [reference to paragraph 4 of this document] are trying to set the appropriate frameworks that will foster sustainable development in the transport sector.
One of the most important measures, which aims at combining the concept of economic and transport growth in accordance with the need of sustainability over a long term perspective, is the promotion of multimodality (Lowe, D. (2005) “Intermodal Freight Transport”, Butterworth-Heinemann Publishing Company, Oxford, UK).
According to EU Council Directive 92/106/EEC intermodal or combined transport means the transport of goods between Member States in which road transport is used to perform the initial and/or final leg of the journey, while rail or inland waterway or maritime services are employed over a segment that exceeds 100 km of journey.
The aim is to provide more cost-effective solutions to satisfy the existing demand but also to reinforce the intermodal chain in order to attract new demand from the external countries of the EU. This will lead both to a strong efficiency improvement in the transport routes for the intra-trade traffic and form a pre-condition to a valid alternative to the northern transport routes for the extra-UE traffic.
This entails the coordinated movement of different types of transportation means (rail, truck, ship, etc.) to serve the needs of different actors such as shippers, freight forwarders, carriers and so fourth. Implementing a European intermodal transport system requires coordinated development of transport policy on European, national and regional level together with a strong involvement of all actors in the logistic chain. Four key strategies could provide the necessary impetus to the development of intermodal transport in the overall context of the Common Transport Policy.
In the context of passenger transport, several EU policy documents, white papers and action plans, including the White Paper "Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area", refer to the benefits associated with multimodal passenger transport, aiming to make transport systems more competitive, resource efficient and sustainable, to promote the use of public transport (including rail), to promote sustainable mobility (at urban but also at intercity level, including medium range trips, which are particularly related to the SEE area), to build upon existing knowledge related to demand management and new fuel sources and to exploit the proven benefits of applied technologies for transport and mobility management, traveller information (including multimodal journey planners) and decision support.
2.Objectives of multimodal primary accessibility
Together with other policies already proposed by the Commission, the actions proposed in this communication aim at eliminating existing barriers for the development of multimodal door-to-door seamless passenger and freight transport, and thereby promote a greater use of environmentally friendly modes of transport. By improving the performance of individual transport modes (e.g rail, road and waterborne), by increasing the interfaces among these modes (multimodality) transport and by offering, where appropriate, effective alternatives, multimodality will contribute to improved performance of the transport systems overall and to the reduction of the impacts of over utilized uni-modal networks (resulting to congested conditions). Performance improvements, the full internalization of external costs, the promotion of multimodality and the integration of innovative multimodal transport solutions are part of an overall strategy for sustainable mobility.
In this context, the POLE 7 should primary focus on multimodal passenger and freight transport, as well as on their interactions and interdependencies, in the context of creating innovative systems and platforms with regional, national and international actors that can integrate the operations of various related players from the SEE area.
In order to properly address the objective of an improvement of multimodal actions in relation to the SEE transport network, the POLE should take into consideration the main actors, who compose the multimodal transportation system:
• Planning layer refers to various approaches that are available for analysing, understanding and planning the complicated structures of multimodal transport systems in terms of flows, operations andmultimodal facilities.
• Institutional/organizational layer is a framework for harmonizing approaches at national and international level and for illustrating how actors and stakeholders interact.
• Operational and information layer refers to the application of innovative processes, techniques and information and communication technologies, including machine-to-machine communications, cooperative and collaborative systems. Recent advances highlight the possibilities offered for transforming highly hierarchised information systems into more horizontal architectures of local networks inter-connected with each other.
AS the success of a multimodal improvement on the transportation system depends on the degree of interaction between the three system’s architecture layers, the POLE should address them with specific actions:
- Enhancing co-operation for consolidating a common strategy on transport aimed at addressing focal infrastructure: trans-European transport networks and nodes;
- Enhancing the maturity of projects at territorial levels;
- Creating plans for the improvements of existing multimodal facilities;
- Creating platforms and innovation poles for related stakeholders (including but not limited to operators, infrastructure managers, regional and local authorities) for achieving harmonized approaches, regulations and competition rules with the primary aim of improving the services and reducing the costs;
- Actions for eliminating redundant procedures in cross-border points
- Clear identification and elimination of obstacles to multimodality;
- Implementing the Information Society in the transport sector (Intelligent Transport Systems)
3.Elements of multimodal primary accessibility
The main elements of multimodal primary accessibility can be described as follows:
- LINKS: capacity and quality of road, rail and maritime infrastructure in transnational corridors crossing the South East Europe Region, including cross-border sections.
- NODES: capacity and quality of intermodal terminals, dry ports and ports, quality and capacity of transhipment facilities, quality of connections with foreland and hinterland.
- SERVICES: availability and reliability of freight operations (regularity, frequency, speed, price), safety and security standards, traffic control solutions, performance quality and skills (e.g. in terms of labour force).
- SYSTEM TOOLS: planning and policymaking frameworks, regulations and principles steering the development of the transport system in the desirable directions, management and organisational approaches.
4.Contributions to other EU policies
Contributions to EU policies:
Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Union guidelines for the development of the Trans-European Transport Network / Optimization of the TEN-T network, interoperability issues, cross bordersREGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
establishing the Connecting Europe Facility / Promotion and optimization of TEN-T corridors
Extension of the TEN-T network to Western Balkans
Regulation (EU) No 913/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010 concerning a European rail network for competitive freight, OJ L 276, 20.10.2010 / Alignment between TEN-T corridors and TEN-T freight corridors
Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions “A Digital Agenda for Europe”, 26.8.2010, COM(2010) 245 final/2 / ICT applied to transport chain, easing cross border procedures
Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions “Single Market Act Twelve levers to boost growth and strengthen confidence "Working together to create new growth"”, 13.4.2011, COM(2011) 206 final. / Improvement of the multimodal transport and creation of a SEE multimodalplatforms ( maritime/rail/freight village)
European Council conclusions on a new European strategy for growth and jobs – Finalising and implementing the Europe 2020 strategy, 17 June 2010 / Support to Western Balkans’ development and support actions for booting investment
Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions “Mobilising private and public investment for recovery and long term structural change: developing Public Private Partnerships”, COM(2009) 615 final / Identification of majors bottlenecks and priority project for easing PPP in SEE
DIRECTIVE 2010/40/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 7 July 2010 on the framework for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems in the field of road transport and for interfaces with other modes of transport / Harmonized deployment of ITS across SEE and coordinated adaptation of national ITS Action Plans according to the EC’s ITS Directive
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE
EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
Action Plan on Urban Mobility / Harmonized deployment of ITS in urban areas across SEE
5.Integrative approach
POLE 7 Multimodal accessibility to primary networks should cooperate with POLE 8Enhancing regional mobility through connecting secondary nodes to the TEN-T network. Some minor space is left within POLE 9 Greener transport systems and POLE 1-4 and 5 .
# / SEE Thematic poles / Affine to POLE-7 / Comments1. / Innovation Governance and Policy / YES / Creation of a platform among national regional and operators
2. / Competitive SMEs Support Service / No / --
3. / Knowledge Transfer to SMEs / No / --
4. / Low Carbon Communities / Yes / Modal shift and co-modality
5. / Climate Change Adaption / Yes / Modal shift and co-modality
6. / Nature Protection / No / --
7. / Multimodal Accessibility to Primary Networks / N.A / N.A.
8. / Regional Mobility / Yes / Improved urban accessibility
9. / Green Transport Systems / Yes / Modal shift and co-modality
10. / Access to Quality ICT / No / --
11. / Employment and Demographic Change / No / --
12. / Urban Development / No / --
13. / Cultural Resources / No / --
14. / Hazard Management and Risk Prevention / No / --
6.Core components – Multimodal Transport area in connection to the TEN-T transport network.
- Mode specific systems
- Rail (transport services & infrastructure& technology & etc.)
- Inland Waterways (transport servicesinfrastructure& technology & etc.)
- Road (transport servicesinfrastructure& technology & etc.)
- Maritime (transport servicesinfrastructure& technology & etc.)
Multimodal systems : structures of governance level
Infrastructure managers
Transport operators
Logistic operators
Local authorities
Regulation authorities
National authorities
7.Core components of “Multimodal Primary Accessibility”
Supporting multimodal primary accessibility in the regions / A)SEETAC (South East European Transport Axis Cooperation)State of the art
(Benchmark) /
- Supporting planning development for a synergic corridor’s approach among EU and non-EU countries
- Frist level comprehensive view of traffic (road, maritime and rail) in THE SEE area
Main outputs of POLE 7 /
- DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
-Preparation of recommendations for the harmonisation of national transport database systems and establishment of a joint database management system for South Eastern Transport Axis (SETA) in coordination with national statistic agencies / EUROSTAT / EC DG TEN-T / EC Transport Agency ;
-Elaboration of specific softwares for joint database updating and scenario definition in coordination with EC Management and Information System (i.e. project SFC 2007-Electronic Data Exchange): the database will be constantly updated and published in an intranet section of SETA website. Overall data could be seen in this website to inform a wider public.
- SUSTAINABLE MULTI-MODAL TRAFFIC SCENARIOS
-infrastructure: capacity, speed, safety and security, social standards for employees in the transport sector, equipment of nodes (transhipment facilities, capacity, average duration of hubs, environmental impacts, maintenance of infrastructure ..)
-information for passengers and drivers on the road
-tracking and tracing the freight transport
-standardization of procedures (e.g. border crossing);
-improvement of corridors’ benefits for the regions
-feeder services in freight transport, optimized regional connections in public transport
-the influence of better accessibility on regional economic development
- corridor nodes attractive for business;
-analysis of the SEA (strategic environmental assessment) guidelines for corridors and of EIA (environmental impact assessments) guidelines of priority projects adopted by different member countries (with particular regard to cross-border transport infrastructures) and identification of the best practices;
-analysis of the existing national monitoring systems of SEE Member Countries in order to prepare yearly reports on traffic, environmental and economic data as well as on the activities of the management bodies for the whole South East Axis and related Pan-European Corridors;
- FINANCIAL PLAN FOCUSED ON SELECTED PILOT PROJECTS
-overview of successful financing instruments and recommendations and assistance to partner countries in the presentation of common proposals to donors (in particular EC) with particular attention to the cross-border priority projects;
-Assistance to National Transport Authorities in the preparation of joint project fiches / application documents for identified transnational / cross-border and multi-modal platform priority projects to be co-financed by the EC (TEN-T, ERDF/Cohesion Fund, IPA) & EIB budgets. Other projects financed by SEE Programme / Axis 3 could also be included in this list.
-Finalisation of the financial report and preparation of draft SEE Transport Axis Financial Plan including the financial recommendations for completion of the SEE transportation networks and the finalisation South Eastern Transport Axis Strategy.
- SEE SPATIAL PLANNING AND TRANSPORT AXIS STRATEGY
-Legislative analysis about the establishment of an European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) for the transport sector among the eligible countries, including all PEC Steering Committees’ members aiming at facilitating the development of the transport infrastructures in SEE.
-Drafting the agreements to:
• regulate the SETA framework activities
• establish an EGTC to implement the SETA Strategy in a regional perspective, coherently with the recent Transport Treaty for Balkan Region promoted by EC;
• promote multi-modality and support the development of tools and systems for the facilitation of multi-modal platforms
Main target group and benefits / EU and national/regional authorities responsible for infrastructural investments
National transport administration (to improve technical condition of the links)
Port authorities and real estate companies (for last mile infrastructure and terminal development)