The guidelines for the development of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) require the development of methods for strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of the network and individual corridors (Decision 1692/96/EC). This is to ensure that the full environmental impacts of the policy initiative are assessed, and not just the impacts of individual sections of infrastructure. In response, the Commission co-ordinated a number of research actions to perform a pilot SEA of the TEN-T using existing techniques. However, it was also apparent that new approaches (such as life-cycle assessment) and new technologies (such as remote sensing) offered potential for improving the SEA procedure.