Territorial Impacts of EU Transport and TEN Policies
(2002-2005)
The project ESPON 2.1.1 was to assess the territorial impacts of EU Transport and TEN policies with
respect to how much they contribute to the objectives of the European Spatial Development Perspective
(ESDP) competitiveness, spatial cohesion and polycentricity. It was to show the influence of transport
and telecommunications policies on spatial development at the regional, national and European level and
the interplay between EU and sub-EU spatial policies and to recommend further policy developments in support of
territorial cohesion and a polycentric and better balanced EU territory and appropriate instruments
to improve the spatial co-ordination of EU and national sector policies and the ESDP.
For this the project assessed several retrospective and prospective scenarios of European transport and telecommunications infrastructure and related policies with respect to their impacts on traffic congestion, regional economic performance, spatial cohesion and polycentricity of urban systems using state-of-the-art regional economic models. S&W contributed to the project by using the SASI model for the scenario simulations.
The transport infrastructure scenarios were implemented using the GIS-based pan-European road, rail, waterway and air network database developed atthe Institute of Spatial Planning of the University of Dortmund (IRPUD) and now maintained and further developed by the Büro für Raumforschung, Raumplanung and Geoinformation RRG, Oldenburg i.H., Germany. The strategic networks used for the modelling are subsets of this database comprising the TEN and TINA networks plus a substantial number of additional links to guarantee connectivity of NUTS-3 regions in the European Union and equivalent regions in non-EU countries. The evolution of the road and rail networks over time is established in five-year intervals for the years 1981 to 2021. The telecommunications scenarios were defined as different strategies of promoting maximum growth or maximum equalisation of telecommunications diffusion. In addition, the project looked into institutional and implementation issues of European transport and telecommunications policy and made suggestions for how to overcoe national interests in favour of a common European perdspective.
The project was a co-operation of research institutions from seven countries: the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel as lead partner, Spiekermann & Wegener (S&W), Urban and Regional Research, Dortmund, and the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning, Bonn, from Germany, the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, from Italy, the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, from the Netherlands, the Royal Instiutute of Technology, Stockholm, from Sweden, the Universit of Kent, Canterbury, from the UK, with contributions by the Institute of Transport Economics, Oslo, Norway and the Federal Office for Spatial Development, Bern, Switzerland.
The Final Report of ESPON 2.1.1 can be downloaded from the ESPON website:
Bröcker, J., Capello, R., Lundqvist, L., Meyer, R., Rouwendal, J., Schneekloth, N., Spairani, A., Spangenberg, M., Spiekermann, K., van Vuuren, D., Vickerman, R. Wegener, M. (2005): Territorial Impacts of EU Transport and TEN Policies. Final Report of ESPON 2.1.1. Kiel: Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel.
Summaries of the results of the projects are contained in
Spiekermann, K., Wegener, M. (2006): Accessibility and spatial development in Europe. Scienze Regionali. Italian Journal of Regional Science 5(2), 15-46.
Bröcker, J., Schneekloth, N. (2006): European transport policy and cohesion: an assessment by CGE analysis. Scienze Regionali. Italian Journal of Regional Science 5(2), 47-70.
Capello, R., Spairani, A. (2006): Territorial impact of European telecommunications policies. Scienze Regionali. Italian Journal of Regional Science 5(2), 71-92.
