HIGH-TOOL - Strategic high-level transport model
Overview
Background & policy context:
The European Commission’s General Directorate Mobility & Transport (DG MOVE) follows a challenging objective: to develop transport policies that benefit all sectors of the Community. The European Commission’s White Paper on Transport (2011) addresses the challenges related to this mission by – among other things – presenting a 'vision for a competitive and sustainable transport system'. This vision includes targets such as decreasing the transport sector’s Green House Gas emissions by 60% until 2050, to develop an 'efficient core network for multimodal intercity travel and transport', to foster sustainability and competitiveness of the European air and maritime transport markets, and to support 'cleaner urban transport and commuting'. In the ‘Roadmap for moving to a competitive low carbon economy in 2050’, the transport sector’s contributions to the objective are summarised by the key words 'fuel efficiency, electrification and getting prices right'.
Decisions concerning transport policy measures elaborated by the European Commission (DG MOVE) that are proposed by the European Union, have important long-term implications for society, the environment and the economy. Transport policy measures can sequester capital for decades and result in manifold effects, both beneficial and detrimental. Policy measures may thus have large impacts, all the more if taken at the European level.
Objectives:
The key objective of the HIGH-TOOL project was to develop an open source, high-level strategic assessment model for use by EU policy makers and policy analysts to assess economic, social and environmental impacts of transport policy measures: The HIGH-TOOL model. The model has two purposes. It can be applied to strategic assessment of transport policy options, and to support identification of policy options for further analyses by more detailed assessment instruments.
To answer a key user requirement, the HIGH-TOOL Baseline needed to be aligned with the EU Reference Scenario 2013.
Methodology:
The HIGH-TOOL model was developed sequentially under careful consideration of user requirements. The model development was divided into three stages: prototype, pre-final version and final version. Three User Workshops were conducted in order to gather user requirements in terms of scope of policy measures to be evaluated, scope of output variables, usability and operability of the system and the User Interface. The prototype and the pre-final version of the model were presented to the future users in these User Workshops.
The assessment tool was developed on the basis of existing tools (e.g., Vaclav, NEAC, TREMOVE), and was, where necessary, complemented by new models. The core of the model are transport demand models for passenger and freight, which are supplemented by models for demography, economy, vehicle stock, environment and safety.
The model development was accompanied by an extensive validation and testing approach: Robustness tests were carried out to ensure that the model works correctly in the presence of invalid inputs, and significant effort was spent to calibrate the HIGH-TOOL modules to the EU Reference Scenario 2013. Furthermore, sensitivity checks were carried out, and the model was tested through application to case studies.
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