Thème 121 « Transport services and networks »

Thème 121 « Transport services and networks »ORATE – ESPON

Lead partner: Ph Mathis

University of Tours

ESPON 121 « Transport services

and networks » Espon 121 final report

1. Main maps and their interpretation

2. Key policy recommendations3. Main scientific achievements4. Short evaluation of the

networking activities (inside and outside the project)

5. Proposals for further research and improvement of the data availability


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Main maps and their interpretation

Endowment: Infrastructure supply - infrastructure capacity - service vulnerability

Traffics: Volume - flow Accessibility: Cost - Daily accessibility -

Potential accessibilityInnovative mapping approaches: Time space

maps - crumpled time-space maps and crumpled cost maps


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Major territorial imbalances (1)

In the European space, the first imbalance is geographical

The geographical constraints influenced the settlement

The territory is not compact

Transit space is limitedThe mountains zones are

barriers but the maritime transport potential is important


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Major territorial imbalances (2)

The centre-periphery organization (with either a pentagon or “blue banana” structure)

Moreover, there are other differentiations and finally very contrasted

Space becomes a very rare resource for countries with high density of population

The low densities attract the tourism and the settlement growth on the littoral

The modification of these imbalances seems hardly possible currently


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Hierarchy of the road network according to the size of cities linked


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Fractal dimension by countryFor the main road network


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Cartogram of population by NUTS 2 and main road corridors and weak links


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Time-space map:The shrinking

continent


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Cost tomotorways by car


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Cost to rail stations


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Cost to commercial seaports by car


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Roro traffic of major portsUnequal repartition of gateways


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Potential freight flows between and old EU members in 2019

Enlargment contributes to change the direction of the exchanges, from a north-south domination to an east-west one


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Network road vulnerability for truck transportation


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Transport externalities for transitNox emissions for trucks


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Container traffic 2002 and maritime routes


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From road networks to cities networksThe "potential Polycentrism of proximity”, as is showed by the map below for a criterion of distance of 100 km


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Multimodal potential accessibility


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City network’

daily accessibility by air


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Accessibility and GDP per capita in NUTS-3 regions


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Each modification induces imbalances. Imbalance is inseparable of the dynamic.

The increase of the capacities of road corridors is currently impossible for most of highways

Moreover, the capacities available on the railways are insufficient to permit a modal shift

In our domain, dynamic can be seen as a confrontation between two different temporalities.

The temporality of the transport supply that is expressed in the easiest way by creations of road and rail infrastructures (13 to 15 years)

The temporality of the transport demand that is those of firms for goods and that is roughly of 3 or 5 years, for the creation of a production unit and for a relocation

We propose to promote policies at short, medium, and long term

Global policy recommendations


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Global short term transport policy recommendations, already in application in numerous agglomerations:

• regulation of traffics to increase the capacities, diminish the pollutants, the casualties…

• pricing policies, • development of intermodality to facilitate a

modal shift and • the degradation of speeds on roads

Towards a sustainable transport: a reduction of the fuel consummation, so of the emission, of casualties, etc…

Key policy recommendations at the European level


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Global medium term transport policy recommendations

Support the modal shift with maritime transport

Presently, in conditions of concurrency really less favourable, rail transport is only competitive from 500 to 700 km.

Transformation of classical railways into freight-dedicated lines: to support the need of modern logistics, proposal for high speed and high frequencies rail freight transport (150 km/h: 1000 km in 8 hours)



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Global long term transport policy recommendations

A policy of creation of new infrastructures is also necessary: we must diminish the vulnerability of network by

• a minimum of modal redundancy when it is possible and

• a multimodal redundancy when it is not



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Zonal policy recommendations:• Atlantic Arc area• Mediterranean Sea area• Nordic area• Central area• Eastern Europe

Findings of the indicatorsPriority transport projectsPolicy recommendations



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Policy recommendations for the Atlantic area


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Policy recommendations for the Mediterraneanarea

Corridors Gateways


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Policy recommendations for the Nordicarea


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Policy recommendations for the central area


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Policy recommendations for the eastern area


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• 5 research teams, 47 indicators, 89 maps• Extension of existing indicators• Development of many new indicators• Promoting other types of maps: nodes,

networks, multi-scales, time-space• A common framework for the

presentation of indicators• From transport indicators to policy

recommendations• Confrontation of indicators: the variety of

the points of views, ie the accessibility

Main scientific achievements


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ESPON Project 1.2.1 is very well integratedNetworking within ESPON took place :

at the level of project co-ordinators, the level of National Focal Points, the level of overall networking at ESPON Seminars the level of bilateral contacts to other TPGthe level of involvement of project partners in numerous

other ESPON projects relevant for 1.2.1.

Exchanges on data issues, concepts, indicators and typologies were sought with a number of projects, in particular with 1.1.1, 2.1.1 and 3.1

Networking in the ESPON


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Structures (territories, networks, transport modes) will face deep changes

Classical econometric model for forecast can not be applied:

based on present trends and constant structure, they can only show amplified or reduced existing trend

New prospective models must be developed:To do this, we can use numerous new techniques:

percolation, cellular, Multi-agent system…This model must take the European special networks

into account to test various scenarii in the short and long term.

Perspectives for further researches

Documents

Thème 121 « Transport services and networks »