Mobility 2000+ Declaration

All citizens aspire to mobility that for most people has become the most modern expression of freedom.

The irreversible process of globalisation leads to new interdependencies, travel and business relations, and will increase society's demand for greater personal mobility as well as availability and choice of goods.

Given the fast pace of the "new economies" and modern information technologies, one of the greatest political and socio-economic challenges of the new millennium will be to ensure the sustainable mobility of people and goods. Restrictions on mobility will constitute an infringement of individual rights and freedom, a hindrance to economic growth and to a better distribution of wealth.

Road transport is the only mode of transport available everywhere. Everybody is dependent on road transport. Operators of trucks, buses, coaches and taxis, represented by the IRU and its Member Associations, face the greatest challenge, under extremely competitive conditions, in meeting the growing demands of society and industry in the face of increasing obstacles to mobility.

The road transport industry is committed to ensuring the sustainable mobility of people and goods 2000+ through the provision of high quality, reliable, cost effective and environmentally friendly services. In view of this commitment, the road transport industry has undertaken several initiatives to maintain and further improve the high quality and sustainability of its services:

• through its Agenda for Sustainable Development, the IRU and its Member Associations are undertaking substantial efforts for achieving sustainable development;
•  through its Safety Management Manual and strategic partnerships, the road transport industry is improving road safety;
• through the IRU Academy and various training programmes, the industry is improving the qualification of transport managers and drivers;
• and  through its international quality/comfort star rating system for touring coaches, the IRU is setting technical and performance criteria for coach operators.

• work in partnership with the road transport industry to develop policies that aim at facilitating, rather than impeding mobility, making best use of existing technologies and allowing users the freedom to choose their preferred means of achieving mobility;
• alleviate traffic congestion due to inappropriate use of existing infrastructure and inadequate road infrastructure investments that halt mobility;
• put an end to ever-increasing taxation that tends to make mobility a luxury for the rich and penalises the ability of an economy to enlarge its markets and create employment, due to non-competitive transport costs;
• establish equal conditions of competition for all modes of transport;
• introduce incentives to promote use of the safest, cleanest, most efficient mobility that best practice and current technology will allow;
• promote the complementary use of transport modes, notably of combined transport; and
• liberalise all other transport modes and extend the freedom to provide transport services to increase competition and efficiency for the benefit of economies, transport users and sustainable mobility.

• accelerate technical progress that can quantifiably improve environmental performance and road safety;
• work more closely with the road transport industry, as the natural partner and necessary link in all pick-up and drop-off operations and the link between all modes, to ensure efficient door-to-door mobility;
• stress to governments that barriers to road transport have an even greater negative effect on their own operations and mobility;
• make best use of all transport capacities, to optimise the mobility solution offered by each modal partner; and
• develop common information technology solutions to increase modal interoperability and enhance mobility.

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