Regulation in freight transport – Impacts within the transport sector (SVI2009/004)
Overview
Background & policy context:
Freight transport is an important economic factor, a complex organisation (with different international actors) and a political factor at the same time. The high level of regulation in Switzerland illustrates the importance and the requirements of Swiss freight transport policy.
So far, the focus has mainly been on transalpine freight transport and related modal shift measures. In relation to this, the Swiss law on freight modal shift has defined a comprehensive policy package. The ongoing challenges in freight transport however claim for a broader focus, including all regulative measures, also non-transalpine transport (inland and import-export transport) and the national and international transport and logistics sector.
The research programme "Freight Transport" oft the Federal Roads Office and therein the project D focus on all transport segments and aim to analyse the interrelations between market and politics, to learn from foreign experiences and other sectors, to understand liberalisation processes, to look at blind spots within an integrated systematic approach. Based on this analysis, conclusions with regard to the further development of the regulative system will be drawn.
Objectives:
The project has the following objectives:
- To structure regulation instruments;
- To evaluate today’s regulation in Switzerland;
- To analyse international experience and trends;
- To conduct impact analysis of liberalisation in the freight transport sector;
- To analyse new regulation instruments: Reaction and impacts within the freight transport sector considering integrated logistics and transport chains and actors;
- To deduct consequences for transport research and policy.
Methodology:
An approach with six work packages was proposed. After structuring the regulation, the experiences from Switzerland and abroad will be evaluated in order to determine the basis for the assessment of the current regulative and good practices. The appreciation of the regulations is made in the context of a SWOT analysis. On this basis, individual measures and case studies with respect to their impact on the traffic and transport industry are evaluated in order to derive options for optimizing Switzerland's regulator.
The project defines:
- Modes: focus on road and rail traffic and combined transport chains. Here are (where relevant) inland waterway transport and air transport included (as part of the transport chain for combined transport).
- Segmentation of the market into the submarkets. The analysis refers in particular to the domestic and import / export traffic. Transalpine transport is used in particular as a reference for the assessment of measures.
- Spatially: Switzerland territory, with the involvement of the major axes of the individual import-export traffic axes. For the case study analyses individual regions are selected (eg delivery traffic in urban areas). The experience from Switzerland and Europe are included.
- Time: The overall analysis also includes the future development (forecasts).
- Trends, developments in the regulatory field
- Structuring of the regulatory framework
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