FREIGHT TRANSPORT IN EUROPE: Policy Issues and Future Scenarios on Trans-Border Alpine Connections

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of European policy on the interconnected cross-border transport networks as well as severe problems in estimating empirically the avalanche of goods movements in the European Union (EU). In particular, it deals with the Transalpine freight transport case, which represents one of the most challenging operational and policy issues of the present and future – both international (EU) and national (the Alpine countries) – freight transport development. The paper is organised to briefly describe the main objectives of EU transport policy, to generally introduce the concept of intermodal transport with particular emphasis on intermodal freight transport and to describe past, present and future development of Trans-Alpine intermodal transport. The scenarios of future development of Trans-Alpine intermodal transport have been particularly analysed.