Overview
ETIS-BASE is organised under the umbrella of key action 2 of the fifth Framework program of the European Commission, 'Sustainable Mobility and Inter-modality', objective 2.1 'Socio-economic scenarios for mobility of people and goods' and task 2.1.1/9, 'Development of a European Transport policy Information System (ETIS) as a basis for transport planning and policy formulation'. Other parts of the work are covered by: ETIS-LINK (promotion) and ETIS-AGENT (software tool).
The characteristics of current policies possibly assessed by ETIS are a guideline for the kind of information the reference database has to provide; these are:
- Measuring the extent of Community interest of infrastructure and others projects;
- Dealing with the enlargement of the EU;
- Addressing sections or corridors confronted with severe congestion problems;
- Related to the planning of new infrastructure;
- Making Europe close to the citizen.
The objectives of ETIS reference database are:
- To contribute to the building of a consensus view of the reference pan European transport modelling data set;
- To develop an open methodology to generate a version of such a set from existing international and national sources;
- To produce a first compilation of the data set by applying the methodology mentioned above, as on-line database.
During the kick-off of the project it has been decided by the European Commission that within this project the work should focus on:
- The development of an ETIS for TEN-T policies;
- the procedures and data should face especially a monitoring of the TEN-T corridors;
- the geographic scope has to be adjusted to the forthcoming 10 new members;
- the PAN European scope has to be defined along the geographic hemispheres;
- the degree of detail in general can be reduced including a concentration upon a few indicators mentioned in the white paper
- the results have to be available for further use within the GETIS system;
- the work tasks and responsibilities have to be adjusted in respect of the new focus and the limited budget.
The work plan of ETIS followed a four-phase approach:
- Phase 0: State-of-the-art; here all available material from previous projects is collected and classified;
- Phase 1: Development of a re-usable methodology to generate the data sets from known and available sources;
- Phase 2: Testing phase of ETIS on selected corridors Phase 3: Pilot version of ETIS.
Funding
Results
The work plan of ETIS followed a four-phase approach:
• Phase 0: State-of-the-art; here all available material from previous projects is collected and classified.
• Phase 1: Development of a re-usable methodology to generate the data sets from known and available sources.
• Phase 2: Testing phase of ETIS on selected corridors
• Phase 3: Pilot version of ETIS In Phase 0 which has been finalised in July 2003 and which has been reported in deliverable D2 the following main results have been listed:
TEN-policies 29
Performance indicators
Supporting indicators needed for calculation of the performance indicators
Models and their required input
This result is the basis for the identification of the data needs of ETIS on which the following activities focus. Within the Phase 1 of which D3 is the describing report (internal working document) the following elements have been added:
• Templates describing the calculation of the supporting indicators.
• List of variables to be considered
• Identification of the majo
Policy implications
The process of assembling and harmonizing data on the TEN-T is complex and the ETIS pilot reference database represents only the beginning of this process. It is also for this reason that it is referred to as a 'pilot' reference database and not as an end product. Similarly, the methods and models used in the developments of the reference database should not be seen as final but recognized as in need of continuous adaptation, improvement and extension.
This continuous improvement is necessitated not least as a result of the changing situation with regard to both data availability and the information needs of the various users at the supra national, national and sub-national levels of the European transport system.
The finalisation of the ETIS pilot is the conclusion of a long adventure; the database is the first tangible result and demonstration of the feasibility of the idea behind ETIS. At the end '70's, beginning '80's the European Commission representing at that time 9 countries, launched a tender for producing forecasts of transport flows of goods at the long term 2010 horizon. In parallel the OECD managed the famous COST33 study that was the first attempt to achieve passenger forecasts on a European scale. What has characterized the two studies, were the huge efforts spent to collect transport demand data in particular, and to build up a reference database.
The efforts spent to gather the information was enormous, certainly when compared to what has followed: a full survey on a European scale for the passengers, and a very detailed data collection by mode from the Member States and EUROSTAT, the statistical office of the EU. The resources spent were such and the obstacles to be won so big, that the Commission never engaged such efforts anymore.
However the needs for such data has not vanished, on the contrary; in addition a lot has been learnt from this first experience.
In the following period the Commission has launched numerous strategic tran