NPF-Urban Transport - National Policy Frameworks for Urban Transport
Overview
Background & policy context:
The European White Paper on Transport Policy identified the ever-increasing congestion, environmental pollution and consumption of energy based on imported fossil fuels as key causes for the deteriorating performance of Europe's transport systems, especially in urban areas.
The White Paper stresses that European transport policy has reached a critical point where a clean, well-functioning and less-fossil fuel based urban transport is considered as an indispensable condition for achieving the Community's overall objective of sustainable mobility in Europe. European Union policy and local, regional and national policies should mutually strengthen each other. In order for the European Union to be successful in its policies, it is essential that local, regional, national and EU policies match with each other within coherent policy-frameworks.
Only when there is a good match, can policies be successful in providing the right incentives for achieving the anticipated outcomes. In order to analyse this match between the European, national and the regional/local level, and to provide a comparative analysis of urban transport in the EU-15 Member States, the European Commission (DGTREN) initiated this 3-year long project.
Objectives:
The project aimed to collect information on urban transport performance at national level in the 15 'old' EU Member States, to provide comparative analyses between countries and on a temporal basis, and to draw conclusions in relation to performance and data collection issues.
Few countries in fact have something which could be termed a 'national policy framework' for urban transport, although all have certain structures, rules and procedures set at national level within which local authorities must act. The project therefore concentrated on data collection to assess performance of urban areas at national level, rather than reviewing national policy frameworks per se.
This assessment is both 'objective' (statistical) and 'subjective' (perception-based). The 'objective' part involves the collation and analysis of data for the EU-15 on a variety of urban transport indicators at the national level, where possible, such as capital investment, modal split, passenger-km or transport costs. This can in fact be more accurately termed as 'statistical' than 'objective', as the choice of data used, its interpretation, and selection of proxy data (in cases where the desired data at the national level is unavailable) means that such an assessment can never be wholly objective. The 'subjective' part of the study includes an EU-wide survey of public perceptions of urban transport policy among 3000 persons, in order to explore user-oriented urban transport issues and priorities within a pan-European context.
The outputs and recommendations of this project are primarily aimed at Member States' governments (including devolved administrations where these are responsible for setting the legislative and fiscal framework for transport and/or local government) and the European Commission.
Methodology:
The project is organised around five technical workpackages (WPs), plus a sixth for project management:
- WP1 - Definition of Indicators: The project started by selecting about 20 indicators, for which as much data as possible is publicly available for each Member State. The use of indicators already used by other important Europe-wide initiatives was considered and the indicators are validated by an Advisory Group (see WP4).
- WP2 - Data Collection and Reporting: For the indicators defined, data will be collected for each Member State covering four years: two 'base-years' (1980 and 1990), a recent year (2000) and the final full year before the end of the project (2004). This data will be at national level, preferably for urban areas only. Where appropriate data cannot be obtained, overall national data is used, supplemented by examples from a small sample of urban areas. The results will be presented in a series of data papers, with the key trends clearly shown.
- WP3 - Public Perception Assessment: This 'subjective' part of the study is required as the data collected in the above task will not necessarily provide a good picture of how effective and successful the citizens perceive these policies and activities to be. Around eight indicators on public perception will be defined (covering inputs, policy outputs, real outcomes and the 'national – regional/local policy match'). Data collection for each Member State (approx. 200 interviews per country, by telephone) will take place in summer 2004. The reporting will include a critical analysis of the differences between the 'objective' information and the public perception.
- WP4 - Guidance and Advisory Group: An advisory group has been established, consisting of five external experts from European and national organisations. In future, representatives from the Member States will also be invited to participate. The role of the advisory group is to offer guidance on the definition of the indicators and the data collection, to discuss the results presented in the reports and working papers, and to discuss the needs and the means to harmonise the indicators and the ways that data are measured at national level.
- WP5 - Recommendations, Final Results and Dissemination: The final results of the project will include information on national and European trends
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