Intermodal transport in the European Union

Abstract

Transport Policy has always been of central importance for the integration of all the peoples and the national economies of the EU in order to achieve an 'ever closer union. ' In fact, in the Treaty of Rome there was already an understatement to the establishment of a Common Transport Policy. Although the Treaty of Rome gave great importance to the concept of Transport, yet there were a series of issues which made it impossible to establish an efficient transport policy. One of these issues was that transport had a very negative impact on the environment due to a high number of vehicles thus causing serious problems of congestion. Moreover the ever-increasing number of vehicles and other means of transportation led to a great number of accidents which in tum led to reduced positive effects on the economy of the European Union. These issues formed the basis of the major debates in transport policy. Initiatives had to be taken in order to decrease the number of accidents and improve the transport sector. The establishment of the PACT or Pilot Action for Combined Transport Programme which has now been replaced by the Marco Polo Community support programme was extremely important in order to eliminate some of these problems. The aim behind the Marco Polo programme was to shift freight off the road towards the more environmentally friendly modes. Theseissues were directly addressed in the White Paper submitted by the Commission on l21h September 2001 entitled 'White Paper: European Transport Policy for 2010.' An important objective of this White Paper was to reduce the problems by introducing 'lntermodality.' This thesis hopes to outline how 'Intermodality' or combined transport is trying to reduce the severe impacts on the economy and the environment. In other words, I will be concentrating on two main objectives, the effect of 'intermodal transport' on the; o Environment o Economy I decided to deal with 'Intermodality' from both scenanos because since the two concepts may overlap with each other, it may be very difficult to deal with one concept without referring to the other. In this thesis, frequent references will be made to other important issues including safety, pricing and taxation, the reduction of fuels and pollution among others. I will focus on the role of intermodality and how has intermodality contributed in solving these issues. While writing my thesis, I encountered some difficulties due to the fact that intem1odality lacks glamour and completeness. In fact this concept is not given the importance that it deserves. It can be described as the 'Cinderella of Transport Literature' because there are no books on it and there has not yet been any jurisprudence dealing with intermodality. The aim behind thisthesis is to encourage intermodal transport so that much more emphasis and importance will be given to this concept, thus increasing the role of intermodal transport in the European Union.