Problems of trans-national transit traffic - CG (11) 6 Part II

Rapporteur:
Luigi PEDRAZZINI, Switzerland,
Chamber of Regions
Political Group: NR

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EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

1. Analysis

1.1 Basic situation – need for policy measures

European transport policy is at a crossroads. Efficient transport infrastructure is of basic importance to present-day societies and national economies, and for years too little attention has been paid to growing and justified concerns about ever more serious transport congestion and environmental impacts. Nor has any remedial policy approach been worked out.

It is becoming ever clearer that with the present transport framework no long-term sustainable transport development is possible. Unless changes are made, increasing delays, costs and environmental damage are inevitable. Any further postponement of decisions will ultimately disrupt the transport system.

In especially sensitive areas of the European transport network full capacity has already been reached. On the main Alpine routes restrictions have had to be placed on lorry traffic for reasons of traffic safety and on account of serious environmental impacts. As a result of tunnel accidents lorry traffic in the long St Gotthard and Fréjus and Mt Blanc tunnels (Switzerland and Italy-France respectively) has had to be restricted. On the Brenner route EU short-peak and mid-year limit values for NO2 emission have been exceeded in Tirol (Austria).

Transalpine transit traffic must be tackled not as a problem affecting the regions which have a route across the Alps (St Gotthard, Mont Blanc, Brenner, etc), but as part of European policy: the whole of Europe needs to be able to cross the Alps and the problem therefore requires a co-ordinated solution involving much of Europe.

The management of transalpine transit traffic should not, however, be a source of conflict among the various regions affected. On the contrary, they need to come up with a means of managing traffic as a whole, both road and rail traffic.

1.2 Transport development

The volume of freight increases at a faster annual rate than economic growth. This is due mainly to the low cost of road transport, which means it is more advantageous for the economy to bear transport costs and take advantage of the production cost differentials between European countries, if not worldwide, than to confine all its production operations to a smaller territory. Furthermore, the low cost of transport, combined with "just-in-time" production methods, is bringing about an increase in transport over excessively long distances.

For years the present transport policy framework has been producing unbalanced transport growth. While road freight transport in the EU has more than tripled in the last 30 years (with average annual growth of 4.1%), rail freight transport has fallen at an average rate of 0.5% in absolute terms. Rail’s share of the modal split in land transport (road and rail) has dropped from 40% to 15% in the last 30 years.

In contrast, rail has lost very little ground to road transport on transalpine routes in the last 20 years: in 2000 rail retained 40% of freight traffic. Especially in Switzerland and at the Brenner (Austria) there has actually been appreciable growth of rail transport in absolute terms. The largest increases have been at the Brenner, with sustained average growth of just over 4% per year in the 1980-2001 period. Rail’s largest market share is in Switzerland, however, at 67%. Particularly in Switzerland, but in Austria as well, there have been huge efforts to keep rail’s share of the modal split high, despite which transalpine road freight traffic has grown by around 5% a year.

In the Alps the crucial factor in transport development is the general rules applying to the specific route. The factors influencing choice of route include tolls. Constraints on use of one corridor directly affect traffic volumes in the others. Lorry tolls on the main routes vary considerably, decreasing markedly from west to east. For comparable distances (300 to 350 km) a 40-tonne truck will pay 217€ on the Fréjus and Mont Blanc Alpine crossings, 140€ on the Gotthard route and 111€ on the Brenner route. In the next few years, under an EU-Swiss land transport agreement, tolls on trans-Switzerland routes will be brought roughly into line with the Fréjus and Mont Blanc routes. The Brenner route will then be even more out of line, with the Franco-Italian and Swiss transalpine routes costing around double the Brenner one despite the fact that all are of similar length. This is likely to affect route choice even more and consequently traffic volumes on the individual transversals.

Long-distance transport accounts for an exceptionally large proportion of transalpine journeys: at the Brenner, for instance, the average lorry journey exceeds 1,000 km. The figures confirm that a growing number of heavy goods vehicles going through the St Gotthard tunnel are transporting goods from one European country to another: in 1981, 42% of the heavy goods vehicles that went through it were registered outside Switzerland; in 2000 the figure was 71% and in 2001, 76%.

The heavy traffic through the St Gotthard tunnel, in particular the large number of heavy goods vehicles, has sorely tried the capacity of the motorway. The number of hours spent queuing for access to the tunnel in a year has increased enormously. The same is true in Chiasso, at the border between Italy and Switzerland. A few figures will illustrate the situation: in 1990, 550 hours were spent queuing, whereas in 2000 the number of hours exceeded 1,100 (though private traffic was obviously responsible for some of the queuing).

According to EU forecasts the trend in north-south traffic over the next few years is set to continue. Freight traffic is growing around twice as fast as passenger traffic, and long-distance freight traffic is growing more than short-distance. The above-average growth in transalpine freight transport is linked to the large proportion of long journeys. As a result of EU enlargement other routes will inevitably experience similarly disproportionate traffic growth.

There are a number of reasons for this imbalance in the development of the different transport modes in the EU:

1.3 Geographical features of mountain valleys

In mountain regions transport infrastructure necessarily uses the valleys, and transalpine traffic flows are concentrated in a small number of corridors. The regional road network, railway lines, motorways and new or planned high-speed routes are all sited in densely populated areas. While the overall population density in the Alps is low (around 53 people per km2 in Tyrol, for example), only 12% of the land is suitable for permanent settlement, so that we find exceptionally high population densities in the main valleys. In Tyrol 80% of the population lives on 4.3% of the land. Such valleys are subject to multiple use: residence, economic activity, transport and recreation compete within a sensitive natural landscape, certain features of which afford protection against avalanches and landslips. The competing claims on the landscape inevitably generate use conflicts.

Topography and weather are key factors in both pollution and noise. In valleys, temperature inversions and low wind speeds impede air mixture and vertical air exchange. For a given emission level, impacts measured in valleys are up to nine times worse than in flat country. As a result, tolerance levels are reached more quickly in mountain valleys than in flat or hilly country, and the effects are more pronounced in winter and during the night than in summer or daytime.

1.4 Transport-related emission

Growth of energy consumption in Europe and increased pollutant emission are driven by a clear increase in passenger and more particularly freight transport. Despite technological advances, therefore, energy use is steadily increasing. It is mainly traffic in general, and heavy goods vehicles in particular, that are responsible for air and noise pollution. The lie of Alpine valleys and the thermal inversion phenomenon are factors that cause pollutants to stagnate for longer and have a more lasting harmful effect on local communities and the environment.

In the case, too, of particulate and Nox emissions, which medicine regards as especially worrying, improved vehicle technology is outweighed by increased transport volumes. Reductions in car traffic are cancelled out by increases in lorry traffic. According to the latest research (Artemis), Nox emissions caused by lorries have fallen far less with the newer Euro II and Euro III truck models than might have been expected from the limit values used in prototype testing. Consequently, since 1995 or so no reductions have been found in traffic-related particulate or Nox emissions. This fits in with results of impact measurement close to motorways.

In South Tirol (Italy) emission records point to transport as the main source of CO, Nox and particulate emissions, being responsible for 80% of such emissions. 50% of particulate emissions for the province are caused by traffic on the A22 (Brenner Pass) motorway. In Tyrol (Austria) traffic is responsible for approximately 85% of total Nox emissions in the densely populated lower Inn valley. Lorries cause around two thirds of total vehicle Nox emissions on the A12 (Inn valley) motorway. The proportion has gradually increased, from around 40% in 1980. With lorry exhaust legislation rather slow to take effect and growing lorry traffic there is no immediate prospect of any reduction in transport-related Nox emissions. By 2007, lorries are expected to cause just under 70% of Nox emission while accounting for only 15% of traffic.

In Ticino, traffic was responsible for 77% of emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), 39% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and 34% of emissions of volatile organic compounds in 2000. The rise in emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds seems to be under control but, in order to combat the increase in carbon dioxide, Switzerland has passed the law providing for the possibility of introducing a tax on CO2.

The health effects of air pollution caused by road traffic have been the subject of a three-country study (France, Switzerland and Austria). Air pollution from road traffic was found to cause more than twice as many premature deaths as road accidents.

In Tyrol high levels of traffic pollution can be assumed to have an adverse effect on the local economy by making permission to set up or extend businesses harder to obtain.

There is a further problem caused by ozone. In summer 2003 the ozone alert prompted the Government of the canton of Ticino to introduce a speed limit of 80 km/hour on the motorways for a limited period of time.

The noise pollution situation in Ticino is also considered serious. It is necessary to install sound barriers over 40 km out of a total of 100 km of motorway in the region, at an estimated total cost of some 230 million Swiss francs (about 160 million EUR).

Apart from pollution, the increase in traffic causes road accidents. The massive increase in heavy goods vehicles has come up against the physical limitations of the road infrastructure. These limitations are particularly obvious in the Alpine valleys and are increasing the risk of serious accidents. Unfortunately, Europe's main Alpine tunnels have shown, in recent years, that this risk can become a tragic reality.

After the tragic accident in October 2001, which caused eleven deaths and forced the St Gotthard tunnel to close, another tragedy was narrowly averted in the tunnel a few months ago. It was only the courage of the driver, and the fact that he kept his head and continued driving his vehicle, which was on fire, until he had left the tunnel, that prevented a full load of baby's nappies from burning inside the tunnel. Note that the lorry load of nappies (which are non-perishable goods) was being transported from Holland to Italy. The question springs to mind as to whether rail transport is all that disadvantageous.

Pollution and accidents, quite apart from the direct consequences for the physical and mental health of the people affected, generate extremely high costs, which are mainly a burden on the community.

2. Transport policy measures and their effect

For many years reports, green papers, white papers and EU Council of Ministers meetings have formulated transport objectives and produced blueprints and measures aimed at altering the pattern as regards the modal split in European freight transport. In the light of developments, either the effects have been miscalculated or there has been an implementation failure.

With the exception of Alpine transport, rail transport in Europe has lost out in comparison with road transport. The causes have been known for a long time and may be summed up as follows: the lack of standardisation at European level, the lack of a co-ordinated development policy and the fact that prices are not competitive in comparison with road transport.

The present proposals amending the Eurovignette directive are an example of miscalculation. The aim of the directive is to take better account of external costs in transport charges. But the only factors that toll levels are to reflect – other than motorway construction, operation and maintenance – are anti-noise infrastructure, direct costs in terms of environmental damage and accident costs not covered by insurance.

Anti-noise infrastructure is part of highway maintenance in any case, so is not an external cost. The direct costs mentioned seldom actually arise, so the effect on tariffs can only be marginal. The European Commission itself assumes that user charges will not increase. At the same time, however, the express hope is that the amendment proposals will have a corrective effect on road use charges and produce freight transfer to piggy-back systems. The further strategic weapon in the proposals of allowing up to 25% toll increases in vulnerable areas is in principle a positive initiative. However the effect on route choice and choice of transport mode will be very slight relative to distances covered. If around 100 km of a journey is through a vulnerable area, only a tenth or so of the average journey distance in transalpine freight transport would be affected by the 25% toll increase. That would increase whole-journey tolls by a mere 2.5%.

When Austria became a member, the European Union issued framework regulations in June 1994 dealing with the environmental problems caused by lorry transport. The regulations were to apply to the whole EU area. As a transitional measure the ecopoint system was retained with the aim of a 60% reduction by 2003 in Nox emitted by lorries in transit through Austria. Pollution reduction has in fact fallen far short of the 60% aimed at and the framework regulations have yet to be transposed.

As the European Environment Agency (EEA) showed in a 2001 study, technological measures, on their own, are insufficient to achieve environmental aims and meet limit-value targets for mountain valleys on the main transversals, since improved vehicle technology is counterbalanced by increased traffic. The EEA considers additional measures essential to curb traffic growth. Transit of lorries particularly needs restricting in sensitive areas. Technical standards introduced to reduce pollutant emission in the transport sector have not been wholly successful (see Artemis study). On the road, emission by Euro II and Euro III vehicles significantly exceeds the Nox maxima imposed in test conditions. Nox emission on motorways has not met the lower limit values.

To deal with emissions exceeding the NO2 limit values (EU directive 1999/30/EC), including tolerances that are still applicable, a ban on night-time lorry transport was decided in Tyrol (Austria) from October 2002. Further measures are needed to achieve environmental objectives. The planned sectoral ban on lorry traffic is currently pending before the European Court of Justice.

Some effects that are often classified as traffic problems are primarily the result of the transport sector’s treatment of scarce resources. For example, at present most of the cost of pollution, road accidents and traffic jams is borne not by those responsible but charged to other users or the community as external costs, and nothing is being done about it. The 1995 green paper on fair and efficient transport charging conservatively put such costs in the EU at 250 billion ecu per year, with over 90% of them attributed to road transport.

Charges paid by road users fall far short of covering them, and reform of transport charging, as advocated in the draft Eurovignette directive, is not going to reduce the shortfall. As discussed at the June 2001 European Council in Gothenburg, full internalisation of such costs is what is required.

The transport component of final cost is a good indication of how higher transport charges would affect economic competitiveness. According to a 1995 green paper the transport component averages a mere 2.8%. Production innovations like the just in time approach that does away with warehousing are heavily dependent on reliable transport and make European industry highly vulnerable to traffic congestion and transport system instability. The two things the economy mainly requires of the transport system are predictability and reliability.

Higher charges alone will not solve all the imbalances in the transport market or all the transport-related problems. In transalpine freight transport the ground also has to be prepared for supporting measures and co-ordination of them. Because traffic through the Alpine corridors as a whole reacts to changes in any one of them there has to be agreement on a set of measures, with a market-based approach to channelling of transalpine freight transport.

3. Summary and recommendations

Transalpine transit traffic is an issue that requires political co-operation on the part of all the countries concerned and, indeed, the whole of Europe.

Rail’s share of European freight transport has gradually fallen to 15%. In transalpine freight transport that share comes to around 40%. The policy of shifting freight from road to rail has clearly been more successful in the Alps than elsewhere. Commitment to transport efficiency has been reflected, in the Alps, by great efforts to make rail responsive to user requirements, resulting in a significant modal shift. It must be remembered that Switzerland is in the process of carrying out a multi-million franc project that involves building new high-speed rail tunnels through the Alps. This is the biggest Alpine railway project.

Main north-south transalpine routes go through densely populated, highly sensitive areas. Residence, economic activity, transport, recreation and other uses compete with each other in extremely confined and environmentally fragile spaces. In addition, certain landscape features give protection, from avalanches and landslips for example.

Because of the topography and climatic factors in mountain valleys, tolerance limits are more quickly reached than in flat or hilly country. In sensitive parts of the main transalpine corridors capacity in terms not only of emission load but also of traffic safety has already been exceeded. Restrictions on lorry transport have been imposed.

While traffic infrastructure has a saturation problem in central parts of the European Union, the risk to the EU periphery is that of isolation. From the standpoint of European cohesion the need for improved links to central markets has to be catered for. Reliability of the transport system is a prime consideration here.

Completion of the internal market, with unrestricted movement of goods and services, is central to Community law and EU policy. Equally EU law requires member states to take steps to protect health and the environment if impact limit values are exceeded (see EC directive 96/62/EC together with supplementary directive 1999/30/EC. Environmental damage has an effect on the local economy in that permission to set up or expand businesses becomes harder to obtain.

Ecological considerations, local economic interests and the requirements of the transport market need giving priority in sensitive regions. Sustainability of the overall system (in terms of ecology, health, maintenance of economic performance and guaranteed long-distance transport facilities) can only be achieved if local requirements are met. In transport decisions, the requirements of health protection must be given priority over freedom to choose mode of transport.

All Europeans must enjoy the same standard of protection and security. Achieving this necessitates regional differentials as regards the measures taken, which means adopting responsible transport policy at the national and municipal levels alike.

The problems with rail transport and the advantages of road transport have led to a further delay in the modernisation of rail transport infrastructure and facilities. The fact that rail transport is not very profitable has prompted many governments to allow it to take second place, in practice, to road transport. Today, in an attempt to offer carriers a viable alternative to the road, European countries are having to invest enormously in rail infrastructure. This raises the problem of how to finance large-scale investment in the railways.

Building transport infrastructure in the Alps is particularly expensive on account of the required construction methods. However, given the large proportion of transit traffic, the financial benefit to the Alpine regions is comparatively small. Allowing cross-financing of an alternative mode of transport, as advocated in the draft amendments to directive 1999/62/EC, is very important in vulnerable regions as a source of finance that can be set up very speedily. The proportion of road tolls to be used for cross-financing should be set flexibly, according to the European urgency and importance of the particular project, but with an upper limit of 30%.

Financing of major infrastructure projects (like the Brenner base tunnel or the Lyon-Turin rail link) requires PPPs, and therefore needs to be attractive to the private investor. Projects of that size raise the question of whether transport policy can be relied upon to maintain a long-term steady direction which guarantees that infrastructure will actually be used and that the specific project justifies private investment. As matters stand, with rail’s falling share of freight transport, no such guarantee exists.

Even if the financial resources needed to build the railway infrastructure are found, it will still be necessary to ensure that it is actually used by carriers. This will not happen as long as road transport is as cheap as it is today. The risk that little use will be made of the railway infrastructure gives governments cause for financial concern and means that private backers, who are interested in the profitability of their investments, have absolutely no desire to get involved.

Switzerland has decided not to enter into a financial agreement with other countries or even resort to private finance in order to fund the new tunnels through the Alps. It intends to fund the investment by means of the tax on heavy goods vehicles, money pledged direct by the Confederation and fuel taxes.

The declared aim of European transport policy is a pronounced shift of freight traffic to rail. The present trend, however, is the diametrical opposite of that. The June 2001 Gothenburg European Council noted in its conclusions that sustainable transport policy must encourage taking full account of social and environmental costs. To alter the modal pattern in European freight transport entails adopting the Gothenburg approach and fully internalising external costs.

In transalpine freight transport the average journey distance is exceptionally large – over 1,000 km at the Brenner for example. Raising charges in particular regions is not, on its own, a very promising transport sustainability measure if only a short part of most journeys is in those regions. Firstly it will not alter the modal pattern in freight transport, and secondly it distorts competition. The proposed amendments to Eurovignette directive 1999/62/EC will consequently not relieve the pressures on vulnerable Alpine regions sufficiently.

In any event, the transfer of a proportion of freight traffic to rail (particularly long-distance traffic) is the only feasible means not just of countering the serious environmental and noise pollution in the Alpine valleys, and not only there, but also of ensuring that the main European road arteries are more practicable. The objective is a modal split of freight traffic that makes optimum use of rail and road infrastructure, which means that the railways must regain their share.

So in addition to road transport charges that reflect the real costs, making rail more competitive is a prerequisite for bringing about a modal shift. Simply extending the rail network will not significantly alter the freight transport pattern. Further liberalisation of rail transport is required, together with continued opening up of the networks. Guidelines are needed on technical and administrative harmonisation in rail transport.

The objective is to change the modal split for freight traffic in such a way as to make optimum use of rail and road transport infrastructure. To this end, the whole of Europe must accept the need to transfer a proportion of goods traffic from road to rail, and all the instruments needed to put this into practice must be drawn up. These instruments should be based on the "push and pull" model, the idea being both to exert pressure to move from road to rail and to entice those concerned to use the railways rather than the roads.

The main measure on the "push" side could be to introduce means of taxing road freight transport on a flexible basis, differentiating according to the features of the regions affected and the type of traffic. The tax should provide a strong incentive to transfer long-distance freight from road to rail without unduly penalising internal freight, which it is often preferable, for specific reasons, to transport by road (it would in fact be uneconomical and ineffective to suggest transporting goods by rail over short distances if this is going to occupy a time slot that could be used to allow an international goods train to pass).

With regard to the idea of introducing a tax providing an incentive to change to rail, an increase of 100 francs in the toll for St Gotthard tunnel (from Basle to Chiasso) has a substantial impact if the transport is taking place purely within Switzerland but only a marginal effect if the lorry is going from Denmark to central Italy. In the case of trans-European traffic, the journey across the Alps is only a small section of the total journey.

To avoid lengthy detours it is necessary to promote the shortest-route principle by harmonising the tariffs and general rules applying to transalpine freight transport. As detours only make sense in long-distance freight transport, it is essential that charges on the Alpine sections (300-350 km) of the different transalpine routes be comparable.

Another measure on the "push" side would be to introduce a set of instruments, co-ordinated at European level, to manage road traffic across the Alps in accordance with the principle adopted for managing scarce resources. This would saddle road transport with more constraints and therefore make it somewhat less attractive.
Improved lorry-engine technology on its own is not enough to achieve environmental targets and keep within pollution maxima on the main Alpine-valley routes. Additional strategic measures are needed to curb traffic growth. Particularly in sensitive regions, lorry transit will have to be restricted.

Switzerland has advocated introducing a booking system for heavy goods vehicles wanting to cross the country. Instrument of this kind, which will restrict the freedom of movement of road transport, will serve as indirect inducements to transfer goods to rail.

Another spur to transfer traffic from road to rail would be to step up checks on heavy goods vehicles to ensure that the regulations are complied with, particularly as regards rest hours and alcohol consumption. Such checks are important for two reasons: firstly, they protect the safety of all road users (a tired or drunken driver represents an enormous potential accident risk: investigations showed that the driver of the lorry responsible for the accident in the St Gotthard tunnel in 2001 had drunk alcohol) and, secondly, strict enforcement of the regulations deprives road transport of some of the unfortunate "flexibility" (particularly in terms of hours' driving and rest) that helps to make it more advantageous than rail transport.

When the St Gotthard tunnel was reopened after the 2001 accident, a system of limiting the number of heavy goods vehicles was first introduced, followed by a "drip-feed" system. The Swiss authorities also asked the police forces concerned to step up checks on heavy goods vehicles to ensure that safety standards were met. In 2002 the Ticino cantonal police spent over 10,000 hours carrying out checks and, unfortunately, found quite a number of offences.

There are many measures of the "pull" kind, designed to entice carriers to use the railways for goods that are currently transported by road. The first is the modernisation of rail infrastructure throughout the Alps. The existing infrastructure does not meet modern transport performance standards. Taxing road transport should be a means of financing investment in rail infrastructure and facilities.

Another incentive should be the standardisation and harmonisation of the technical and administrative aspects of rail traffic to make the various national rail networks more integrated and more open. It is important that the outlets north and south of the new tunnels through the Swiss Alps should be efficiently connected with the Italian, German and French networks.

The third inducement should be a strategic change in the management of rail freight, which should be modelled on passenger traffic management so as to reproduce the advantages of road freight. In a nutshell, the carrier should be able to have clear departure and arrival times for the goods, so that the "just-in-time" method can also be used with rail transport.

A fourth "pull" factor, and possibly one of the most important, is price: rail transport must be able to compete in price terms with road transport. This can be achieved partly by means of the "push" factors mentioned, which would increase the cost of road transport, but the fact remains that the price (and the service offered for it - and this brings us back to traffic management and infrastructure performance) must be attractive.

4. Conclusions

The various existing regulations on lorry traffic in the main transalpine corridors were introduced in the light of local requirements. As any one route closely interacts with the others, responsible transport policy necessitates agreement on instruments for channelling transalpine traffic. The approach needs to be market-based and consistent with thrifty management of scarce resources, and should therefore include such devices as reservation systems, an Alpine transit exchange and trade in emission rights. Tools of this type should be developed by the European Commission, in agreement with the countries affected.

In connection with transport costs and prices, it is necessary to clarify a few points. For a start, the issue of the internalisation of the external costs of traffic, which would increase taxes/costs, should not be addressed from an ideological point of view. The principle is correct, but it would be extremely difficult to apply in practice, for two reasons:

Firstly, both road and rail transport have external costs. If internalisation were applied to the roads, it would also have to be applied to the railways, which would create further difficulties for them. In fact, in most cases the railways, unlike the roads, do not even cover their internal costs (management and infrastructure), which the roads do by means of fuel taxes and road tax.

Secondly, it is extremely difficult to calculate external costs scientifically. First and foremost, it is necessary to determine which external costs are concerned (health costs, damage to buildings from pollution, environmental damage?); then they must be calculated and charged to the various means of transport. The exercise, although conceptually correct, is liable to founder and be impossible to translate into practice.

It is therefore better to apply (and this is the main tool in the "push" category) more empirical but immediately applicable taxes (such as the tax Switzerland has introduced on heavy goods vehicles, which is adjusted in the light of the service they provide). The tax is to be introduced progressively, with increases clearly scheduled (dates, amount of increase and final level). This is the only way to ensure that the market incorporates the tax into its development strategy.

A second conclusive point concerning rail prices concerns the funding of infrastructure to be built under such difficult conditions as occur in the Alps. There is no question of the cost of such infrastructure being financed by the railways themselves: construction costs are too high. The situation is obviously different in the case of railways in the plains, where the cost of building per kilometer is lower. In the case of Alpine railways, the authorities need to fund some of the infrastructure without receiving any return on their investment. It is not a question of wasting public money, but of an investment which, although not directly profitable, will help to make the railways more competitive and make it easier to transfer goods from the roads to the railways. It is worth pointing out in this connection that, a few years ago, when private-sector business practices were introduced in the federal railways, Switzerland wrote off debts of 13 billion francs (almost 9 billion EUR) which they had accumulated when building infrastructure.

It must be realised that the efforts made will be amply remunerated in terms of the quality of life of the inhabitants of regions carrying traffic through the Alps, road safety for all and a reduction in damage to the environment and to the health of the resident population. This last point is of key importance: investment for the benefit of human health and the environment is something that pays off. It is now a question of agreeing on how to go about such investment and setting aside the ideological differences that pit environmentalists against the business community in order to concentrate on sustainable development concepts and hence work towards the common good.

Appendix: Final Declaration


Parliamentary Assembly
Assemblée parlementaire

Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe
Congrès des pouvoirs locaux et régionaux de l’Europe

Conference on the Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions, European Transit Policy and the Challenge of Globalisation

Cavalese (Trento, Italy), 16-17 June 2003

Final declaration

The participants at the Conference on the Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions, European Transit Policy and the Challenge of Globalisation representing mountain municipalities, regions, parliaments and associations, held in Cavalese (Trento, Italy) from 16 to 17 June 2003,

Thank:

Welcome the work the Council of Europe has been doing for many years to help mountain regions and enable them to benefit from sustainable development, thereby guaranteeing their social and economic development and the preservation and enhancement of their cultural, natural and landscape heritage;

Underline, in particular, the work undertaken in 1995 by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, with strong support from the Parliamentary Assembly, on the preparation of a European Charter of Mountain Regions with convention status, as adopted by the Congress (Recommendation 14 (1995)) and approved by the Parliamentary Assembly (Recommendation 1274 (1995)).

Regret that the proposal was not taken up at the time and welcome the fact that the CLRAE seized the opportunity of the International Year of the Mountains to reiterate the principles of the European Charter of Mountain Regions in Recommendation 130 (2003) to be submitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for adoption, which they fully support;

Reassert the need to take account of the specific features of mountain regions and the role they can play in the integrated and balanced development of the European continent, as well as the obligation to ensure satisfactory social and economic conditions for the population of mountain regions.

In addition, they also underline that sustainable management of the forestry resources, of mountain regions in particular, is essential to counter climate change across our continent;

Moreover, development opportunities in mountain regions are largely governed by climate change resulting from inappropriate energy policies, which the Kyoto Protocol seeks to curtail;

In this connection, underline the need to enable mountain regions to meet the challenges of globalisation without suffering its negative consequences and point out that the specific and original features of mountain regions give them a chance to assert their identity against the standardising trends of globalisation, thanks to their biological, cultural and socio-economic diversity. To that end, special importance must be attached to awareness-raising, training and educational measures in both the education system and information systems and electronic media;

Are aware of the crucial importance that must be attached to sustainable transport policies and particularly to the problem of transit traffic, which should not pose an unacceptable threat to the environment of the regions concerned. Where freedom of choice of means of transport conflicts with public health, the latter must take precedence. They therefore call for the development of base tunnels to enable lorry traffic to be transferred to railways, drawing on the Swiss authorities' policy choices; gradual harmonisation of pricing and regulations applicable to transit traffic across Europe's mountain ranges is also necessary;

Believe that all policies on mountain regions, including transport matters, must fit into the overall framework of a pan-European regional/spatial planning policy, while nevertheless being based primarily at local authority level and involving cross-border co-operation and co-operation between different authorities, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity;

In this context, they consider that territorial units such as the Italian “comunità montane” provide a model for local governance that should not be undermined, but on the contrary encouraged and promoted;

Consider that mountains should not only be protected natural areas, tourist areas and dormitory areas for urban regions, but should be regarded as living areas capable of providing their inhabitants with employment and high-quality public services. European society should remunerate mountain regions for the resources with which they supply it, especially water, a high-quality environment, quality products and irreplaceable landscape assets;

In this connection, special thanks must go to farmers in mountain regions for the services they render in protecting the environment;

Are convinced of the potential advantages of a Charter for Mountains, setting out the principles of a European policy on mountain regions that would provide a coherent framework for action by European authorities, in particular local and regional authorities in the areas concerned, as well as for European co-operation processes such as the European intergovernmental consultation on sustainable development of mountain regions initiated in 1996 by the United Nations as part of the follow-up to Agenda 21, which it would be well worth reactivating under the aegis of the Council of Europe;

In view of the above, call on:

- the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe:

- the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe:

- the governments of member States of the Council of Europe and the European Union: