FORESIGHT
for TRANSPORT represents the first attempt to:
-
Establish a foresight exercise tailored to the needs of the European
Common Transport Policy (CTP)
-
Establish
a procedure that assists in the cross-sectoral policy integration and
co-ordination and, more specifically, in the integration of non-transport
concerns in transport policies and vice-versa.
The
FORESIGHT for TRANSPORT project will help prepare the Common Transport
Policy for the future and in that will contribute to the preparation of
decisions that are demand-oriented, economically and ecologically reasonable
and socially acceptable, as well as consistent with other sectoral policies.
Background
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There
has been little systematic exploration of the influence of non-transport
policies on mobility and transport.
Transport
is a derived demand, thus its dependence on other intermediate factors has
always been acknowledged in theory. Typically, however, it is thought
possible to capture these intermediate pathways through one or several proxy
variables: for instance most traffic forecasts are driven by GDP / capita
growth rates; and most environmental assessments by vehicle kilometres.
Where
non-transport policies or associated societal trends have been studied more
comprehensively, as with land use or urban policy, the emphasis has tended
to be on how the latter are affected by transport policy rather than the
other way around: for instance, does transport (infrastructure) influence
urbanisation or the de/re-localisation of services or industry? In other
words, transport has been defined as the independent variable and effects
have often been studied ‘in vacuum’, i.e. with little attention paid to
interconnections and feedback loops.
In
recent work using the scenario approach attempts were made to overcome this
static or one-sided view: examples are the OECD EST project, the POSSUM
project as well as the SCENARIOS and CODE-TEN projects. Whilst these
approaches recognise the importance of non-transport policies and of dynamic
elements, the scenarios constructed are primarily of a strategic generic
nature which leaves much of the detail necessary for policy analysis and the
cross-fertilisation of policy agendas out.
Is
it necessary to go beyond this approach? We think yes.
Proponents
of sustainability or of sustainable mobility point out that sustainability
has also very importantly to do with the ability to cross-sectorally
integrate and co-ordinate policies. Multidisciplinarity is also for this
reason considered so important in evaluation. This was first recognised in
the environmental field where the integration of environmental concerns
across policy sectors is the lead argument for improving standards as well
as for overcoming the implementation deficit.
Even
though transport does not share the same far-reaching relevance for other
policies, it is nevertheless important to better co-ordinate the transport
policy agenda with those other policy agendas like enlargement, IST, energy
and environment that display the strongest interconnections with transport.
Developments in these fields are changing land use planning, economic and
trade organisation as well as urbanisation in ways that carry serious
implications for transport planning.
Furthermore
they tend to do this in variable ways. Thus, for example, the emergence of
new information technologies tends indeed to make distance irrelevant,
however with few examples this has not led to the relocation of industries
or the regeneration of depleted areas. Industries rather tend to cluster
together as there are now fewer constraints on location than when raw
materials and their trading was less abstract. This in turn undermines
transport planning aiming at increasing the accessibility of peripheral
areas within national borders in order to promote regional cohesion or for
removing the burden of congestion from cities. At the same time it makes the
idea of long-distance freight freeways or corridors more relevant. In other
words, the information society tends to increase rather than diminish the
need for long-distance (freight) transport. In parallel, innovative
solutions are called for to reduce mobility in urban areas as these reach
their environmental sustainable limits.
In
increasing the European economic area, the process of EU enlargement is
likely to add new economic centres in the European geographical space thus
shifting the centre of gravity of economic activity away from the North-West
towards Central Europe. Consequently new traffic routes are likely to gain
in importance and this will increase the environmental burden in areas till
now left largely untouched by direct economic development. Infrastructure
investment in rail and/or in combined transport can help balance these
negative externalities, however for this to be successful network effects
need to be better studied and understood. The economic imperative which is
largely short-term oriented works at present against this in the CEEC where
the development of the road networks is given priority.
Still
much hope is placed in the ability of cleaner technologies to promote
‘closed loop’ production and consumption that helps break the link
between economic growth and the use of environmental and energy capabilities
and resources and in turn the link between economic growth and transport (what
has been called
‘decoupling’ in the transport literature). Is this possible?
Sceptics fear not, unless accompanied with a change of lifestyle and
economic relations (within and across national boundaries). In any case it
is important to consider the technological developments in this field.
For
several decades transport was considered an endowment, a contribution to
societal capabilities and to social capital. This function it retains
especially in less developed societies. In post-industrial societies
displaying a well operating transport system on the other hand, next to
providing opportunities transport has become a risk producer. It is a utopia
to think that these risks can be entirely controlled. However, to make no
attempt to contain them would be a major mistake. This can only be done
through better policy co-ordination and integrated assessment.
The Method
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At
the core of our approach is the organisation of a strategic dialogue in the
form of a foresight exercise as already in practice in various countries.
This comprises the setting up of Expert Panels on various themes to develop
guidelines and/or targets in the form of Consultation Documents. These are
then submitted to a wider consultation procedure involving national experts
and policy-makers and the public (through the Internet).
Five
expert panels were organised in June 2002, namely,
The expert panel
resulted in identification of major factors driving developments in the area
under study and trends for the year 2020+.
The
results are being put through a Delphi survey which will be used to establish the degree
of impact of non-transport policies and societal trends on mobility and
transport.
On
the basis of the assessment results and the experiences made with the
strategic dialogue approach, we will develop a procedure for continuing to
monitor developments in the fields under study. This will be the theme of
the second round of the Strategic Dialogue.
The
use of the strategic dialogue technique to anticipate developments and their
interrelationships is in our opinion more likely to produce innovative
results in comparison to other more mainstream approaches to assessment and
analysis.