Implementing the European Transport Information System

Abstract

The development of the Trans-European Networks and the formulation of a common transport policy are essential elements in the economic and social development of the European Union. Such activities require significant information about current status (passenger and freight transport volumes, congestion, environmental impacts, etc.) and reliable forecasts. The relevant information exists in dispersed, heterogeneous, and autonomous databases throughout Europe, as well as in pertinent transport studies. The European Transport Information System under development is intended to support decisions on transport policies and the Trans-European Transport Networks by accommodating policy-related information in a repository that will be kept up-to-date through well-defined procedures under the control of experts and will be accessible through an Internet-based software tool. A hierarchical structure of criteria, subcriteria, indicators, and variables is used to link policy questions to relevant data sets, which are populated by collected data and statistics or alternatively by data generated through the use of models. The scope of this current work is to give an overview of the structure, functionality, and current content (data sets, variables, indicators, etc.) of the information system above.