Colin Sowman reports from a two-day meeting where industry leaders, academics and political advisers presented their thoughts on the future of mobility.
Most governments do not dare to introduce tolling systems… they are too frightened.” So said Georg Kapsch in his capacity of chief operating officer of
The statement came in response to a question about the effect on the company of the slowing economy in Europe and beyond, to which he said: “Normally slowing economies usually lead to increasing budgetary deficits which require different sources or financing; so our industry should be booming at the moment, but this is not the case. Why? Because most governments do not dare to introduce tolling systems. Most governments are frightened.
“On the other hand the infrastructure is deteriorating from day to day and in Germany there are many bridges that will, or are already, closed to heavy traffic and may be closed to light traffic too because there are no financing options in the public budgets.
“So in the end governments will have to explain to the population that either they have a functioning infrastructure and have to pay, or deal with rotten infrastructure and don’t have to pay.
“But frankly I think we have not yet reached that point in most countries.”
Even beyond any political indecision, there remains a real question about what form any type of tolling should take and Kapsch voiced particular reservations about geo tolling.
“We do provide a GNSS system – satellite based. But from an economic approach you can’t toll all the roads because either you have huge operating costs or you don’t enforce. Enforcing every road in a country is a financial challenge so the operational cost is too high.”
He cited Germany as intending to charge a higher price on normal roads than motorways but said this would create problems for rural areas where industries far from motorways would be at a disadvantage. “The result will be that industries will relocate and this will increase unemployment in rural areas so I would really recommend not to think about this proposal.”
He said: “In general people tend to travel for the same time each day, so if travel gets quicker they will travel further.
This has been observed over the past two decades. If the transport system gets slower due to congestion, then people have to travel longer or won’t travel as far which is one reason why some people are moving back into the cities.”
While highlighting that car travel in Austria has grown 31% since 1990 and that 72% of passenger kilometres were done in a car, he said those increases are levelling out and car ownership was now falling in many cities. He cited a study in Berlin which showed car ownership among young males (aged 29 and below) has fallen from 50% in 1994 to 26% in 2011. The study also found the younger generation were increasingly multimodal with almost 10% using a bicycle, car and public transport each week (up from 6% in 1997).
This trend is noted in another study which found that between 1996 and 2012 the distance that 20 - 30 year-olds travel by car decreased by 30%, while their use of public transport more than doubled. The study also found an increase in mobility in those aged over 80.
“This big change with the young generation will move along as they age and it is likely that in the future we will have fewer cars in urban areas,” he said.
While he said one car share vehicle typically replaces 9 – 11 private cars, he added that authorities can view free floating car sharing (where the vehicle does not have to be returned to the same place) as a competitor to public transport.
He said for individuals to dispense with their own car public transport services need to run throughout the night and at weekends, while adding that public transport is only energy efficient when 40% or more of the seats are occupied.
The story was even less positive in regards to ride sharing where a study undertaken at Graz found the potential is relatively low with only between 1% - 2% of trips could be replaced by ride sharing.
He highlighted the use of ‘push-pull techniques’ to reduce car travel in cities while increasing the use of public transport, bicycling and walking. ‘Push’ techniques include reducing the maximum car parking duration, congestion charging and tolling systems while the ‘pull side involves improving public transport and bicycle networks as well as providing mobility information covering all travel modes with price information and a ticket purchase option.
He forecast a growing divide between towns and rural areas with poor public transport where there may be little alternative to owning a car. This is one reason why, despite falling car ownership in cities, many countries are still registering increasing overall car ownership.
In his presentation,
AustriaTech is owned by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology as a neutral partner and advises on the content of government decisions.
He highlighted the need for data sharing: “Multimodal traffic management cannot be done by individual operators. We need to look at how we can come to a cooperation arrangement between the modes rather than one against the other where organisations concentrate solely on operating their own infrastructure.”
Key to this is data that is accessible to everyone – but he said operators need to know that they will receive data from the other parties and that the data they provide will be used correctly.
Böhm also emphasised the need for cooperation between neighbouring countries, highlighting Austria’s position as a European crossroads. “When we have bad weather problems in Austria, we need to advise travellers about this long before they cross our borders - especially truck drivers. If they know about our weather problems when they are in Belgrade they can choose a different route. Currently each country has its own weather information system but not across borders.
“So it is very important to discuss these factors with neighbouring countries’ authorities and those even further away.”
He warned that if such cross-border cooperation does not happen then travellers will use the likes of Google to get their information and authorities will lose the opportunity to have any input or control.
As a way of achieving these aims, a project called Crocodile has been set up which includes countries from Poland to Greece. Members will exchange information on weather conditions, truck parking availability, along with road sensor and camera data relating to traffic flows and safety alerts.
“The good thing about Crocodile is that it is data that is being exchanged so there are no language problems to overcome,” said Böhm.
When ITS International asked what AustriaTech’s advice to the ministry was regarding funding, Böhm said: “In principal tolling would be the right answer. But in politics they often say ‘don’t do tolling’, so then we have to make individual transport completely non-attractive.
“What we are currently discussing is funding from the public side. Austria can afford these things and is making public transport cheaper - but the European Commission’s White Paper says each transport mode must pay its real costs.
“We are doing completely different things – putting all our money into public transport and forgetting individual transport. I think we need a broad discussion – not only in Austria – about ‘how to achieve policy goals on a European level.’ If it is tolls I am happy with that [but] how can I make the real cost for public transport. If you want to go with real costs, then we can close all public transport.”
According to Professor Fellendorf all Austrians pay for Vienna’s public transport (but not for other cities) and in Germany half the mineral tax revenue was used in funding public transport – both of which he said contravened the European regulations. “In public transport issues something strange happens in every country,” he said.
“We need to start a discussion on how to make the whole multimodal transport system achievable and cooperative,” added Böhm.
These needs and trends are central to Kapsch’s thinking. “It’s all about mobility and that’s the core of our future strategy whether it is road, rail or public transport,” he said, adding: “We want to configure a new strategy taking into account the major trends in society and that broadens our scope.”
