Boguslaw Marian LIBERADZKI
Member of the European Parliament

Road transport keeps Europe moving

1. Let us start with basic data in table 1.

Table 1 - Annual growth of freight transport EU-25 (%) 

What we can read from table 1:

• GDP increase was lower than rate of growth of freight transport
• European economy needs more and more transport per unit of GDP increase, despite that services sector contributed most to the increase,
• road transport strengthened its market share.

2. Road transport market success is caused by its answer to customers expectations.

Customers are driven by their transport utility function. Utility function ( Ur ) can be expressed:

• UT = C rate + C time + C risk
• UT - means total value (expressed in currency) of costs generated by transport. Higher value of UT means worse solution.
• C rate - costs paid to transport operator.
• C rate = tkm * price / tkm
• C time - costs of time. C time = number of units * value of time unit,
• C risk - expected loss due to inappropriate quality of services.

3. Road transport and energy consumption.
After year 2000 energy consumption by transport per GDP decreases. During 2000-2005 transport energy consumption increased by about 6%, while GDP growth was 9 % (for EU -15), and respectively 8% and 10 % for EU-27.

Road transport consumed 82% of total transport energy consumption. Road transport market share was 76,5 % in freight (t km) and 93,5 % in inland passenger services (including cars, buses and coaches).
Road transport radically improved its energy consumption since the year 2000.
Road fuel prices in 2007 were dramatically higher than in 2000.

Table 2 - Fuel prices 

Let us mention, over the period 1991-2000 the price of petrol rose at an average annual rate of 3.5%, which was more than twice the diesel rate.

4. Intra EU-27 trade.
Road transport contributes most tothe Member States intra EU-27 trade.

Table 3 - MS intra EU-27 trade (1 000mln €).

Rate of growth for EU-27 was about 30%.

5. Policy Guidelines of the transport White Paper.
Transport, especially road transport, is a key factor in modern economies.
The transport system has to be optimized to meet the demands of sustainable development. A modern transport system must be sustainable from an economic, social and environmental point of view.
The strong economic growth in the New Member States and better links with outlaying regions, will also increase transport flows, in particular road haulage traffic.
Principal measures concern also improvement of quality in the road transport sector. European Commission will propose legislation allowing harmonisation of certain clauses in contracts to protect carriers and enable them to revise their tariffs in the case of sharp rises in fuel prices.

[ top ]