Are we moving in the right direction? Indicators on transport and environmental integration in the EU: TERM 2000

Summary

Page Last modified 19 Apr 2016

4 min read

This is the first indicator-based report developed under the Transport and Environment Reporting Mechanism for the EU (TERM). It has been designed to help EU and Member States to monitor progress with their transport integration strategies, and to identify changes in the key leverage points for policy intervention (such as investments, economic instruments, spatial planning and infrastructure supply).

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Are we moving in the right direction? Indicators on transport and environmental integration in the EU: TERM 2000

Seven questions are addressed which policy-makers in the EU regard as key to understanding whether current policy measures and instruments are influencing transport/environment interactions in a sustainable direction:

Is the environmental performance of the transport sector improving?
Are we getting better at managing transport demand and at improving the modal split?
Are spatial and transport planning becoming better coordinated so as to match transport demand to the needs of access?
Are we optimising the use of existing transport infrastructure capacity and moving towards a better-balanced intermodal transport system?
Are we moving towards a fairer and more efficient pricing system, which ensures that external costs are recovered?
How rapidly are improved technologies being implemented and how efficiently are vehicles being used?
How effectively are environmental management and monitoring tools being used to support policy and decision-making?

To answer these questions, a selection of 31 indicators was made, dealing with the various aspects of the transport and environment system. The indicator set is, to some extent, a long-term vision of what an "ideal" indicator list should look like. Some of the proposed indicators could not as yet be fully quantified, as a result of data limitations. Where data availability has prevented an EU15 analysis, national examples or proxy indicators were used.

The report shows that although environmental regulations (such as vehicle and fuel-quality standards) have led to progress in certain areas, these are not sufficient to meet international and national environmental targets. Greater policy impetus is needed to redress current trends in environmental impacts from transport and to reduce the coupling between transport demand and economic growth. The concepts of demand management, accessibility and eco-efficiency are however not yet sufficiently reflected in EU transport policies and targets.

Although this first TERM report focuses mainly on EU developments, important lessons can also be learnt by comparing national performance, as this can yield interesting information regarding the effectiveness of various policy measures. It is therefore intended to develop TERM into a benchmarking tool for this purpose. A first attempt at comparing national performance is presented in Table 1, which gives a qualitative evaluation of a limited number of key-indicator trends with respect to a number of "integration" objectives.

There are several common features at Member State level. For example, transport demand, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions are increasing in most countries. The modal mix is increasingly biased towards road transport, and air transport is also expanding rapidly, to the detriment of more environment-friendly modes. There are, however substantial differences in approach to delivering transport systems that better address sustainability concerns. For example, Nordic countries make much more use of taxes, pricing mechanisms and land-use planning than countries in southern Europe. Some countries, such as Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, have developed environmental action plans and set national targets for the transport sector. Some have also established conditions for carrying out strategic environmental assessments of certain transport policies, plans and programmes. This enhances the integration of environmental issues and ensures the involvement of environmental authorities and the public in decision-making.

Table 1: Qualitative evaluation of key indicator trends
Integration question	Key indicators	Integration objectives	Evaluation of indicator trends
			A	B	D	DK	E	F	FIN	GR	I	IRL	L	NL	P	S	UK	EU
1	Emissions of: CO₂ NMVOCs NO_x	Meet international emission-reduction targets
2	Passenger transport	De-link economic activity and passenger-transport demand
		Improve shares of rail, public transport, walking, cycling
	Freight transport	De-link economic activity and freight-transport demand
		Improve shares of rail, inland waterways, short-sea shipping
3	Average journey length for work, shopping, education, leisure	Improve access to basic services by environment-friendly modes	?	?			?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?		?
4	Investments in transport infrastructure	Prioritise development of environment-friendly transport systems
5	Real changes in the price of transport	Promote rail and public transport through the price instrument	?	?	?		?	?		?	?	?	?	?	?	?		?
	Degree of internalisation of external costs (1)	Full recovery of environmental and accident costs
6	Energy intensity	Reduce energy use per transport unit	?	?			?		?	?		?	?		?			?
7	Implementation of integrated transport strategies (1)	Integrate environment and safety concerns in transport strategies

positive trend (moving towards objective);

some positive development (but insufficient to meet objective);

unfavourable trend (large distance from objective);

? quantitative data not available or insufficient

(1) no time series available: evaluation reflects current situation, not a trend

This evaluation is mainly made on the basis of the indicator trends. As there is an inevitable time lag between policy development, implementation, and the appearance of effects in the indicator trends, a . negative. trend does not necessarily mean that no positive policy developments are taking place to change these parameters. Monitoring these key indicators is the first step towards managing current and future policy measures. For example, tracking user prices, as is done in the UK and Denmark, is essential to manage measures to promote fair and efficient pricing.