Seamless transport - the need for connectivity and sustainability

At the beginning of August, 2011, Carole Coune took up her new role as Secretary General of the International Transport Forum at the OECD. Here, she tells ITS International of the challenges and opportunities the global sector faces. Transport is a growth industry. Despite the current financial crisis, the trend for transport is pointing upwards. Demand is mainly driven by global economic integration, a growing world population and rising incomes in emerging economies. As we head toward nine billion humans
January 24, 2012 Read time: 3 mins

At the beginning of August, 2011, Carole Coune took up her new role as Secretary General of the International Transport Forum at the OECD. Here, she tells ITS International of the challenges and opportunities the global sector faces

Transport is a growth industry. Despite the current financial crisis, the trend for transport is pointing upwards. Demand is mainly driven by global economic integration, a growing world population and rising incomes in emerging economies.

As we head toward nine billion humans by 2050, the challenge of providing the world population with their daily needs, with access to education, jobs and other activities, is being addressed by our transport system.

To succeed, transport is getting more and more efficient in moving people and goods. Access to mobility is becoming easier, and the use of transport services an increasingly positive experience.

The vision that encapsulates much of this is the idea of Seamless Transport. Seamless Transport is nothing less than the physical expression of today’s dominant mega-trend, connectivity. In the 21st century, ever more people connect seamlessly in cyberspace; it is for transport to strive for seamless connectivity on the ground, in the air, across oceans.

Seamless Transport is not least about the convergence of traditional infrastructure and the new digital universe. Electronic information pushes the envelope for connectivity into a new dimension. For policymakers, operators and transport users this creates exciting new options.

For all the promise, there are difficulties and pitfalls. Safety cannot be compromised.

International Transport Forum

The International Transport Forum at the OECD is a Paris-based intergovernmental organisation that acts as a global platform for transport policy issues.

It serves as a think tank for its 52 member countries and organises an annual summit, at which transport ministers debate strategic issues of the sector with business leaders, top academics and representatives of civil society.

The 2012 summit will be held in Leipzig, Germany on 2-4 May 2012. The theme will be ‘Seamless Transport: Making Connections’.
Efficiency may be put at risk by growing uncertainties and potential disruptions – extreme climate conditions, energy failures, social unrest, demand overload or the multiplication of transport operators, to name a few.

To give another example, harmonising the conditions for goods transport between the urban centres of the European Union and those beyond is a prerequisite for more seamlessness, in particular with a view to the growing traffic flows between Europe and Asia. Yet this requires in-depth understanding of the different markets and their evolution. Cooperation and coordinated policies remain the key issue for still more efficient cross-border operations.

Therefore, when Ministers from the 52 member countries of the 998 International Transport Forum meet for their annual summit with business leaders, experts and NGOs in Leipzig (Germany) on 2-4 May 2012, their mutual focus will be on ‘Seamless Transport: Making Connections’. Under the presidency of Japan, a country at the forefront of transport innovation, the sector’s key actors will test their new ideas and share their experiences, as part of a unique global opinion-forming exchange on the best ways to shape transport’s future.

It is my personal conviction that innovating for a globalised world in a sustainable way will remain at the top of transport’s agenda for the long term. And with well-calibrated policies we can go beyond narrow carbon-cutting objectives and make the greening of transport a showcase for how to generate economic growth in the long term all over the world.

Today, transport is a growth industry. We can make it a ‘Green Growth’ industry.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Enforcement needs automation and communication
    February 1, 2012
    TISPOL's Peter van de Beek questions whether the thought processes which drive enforcement technology development are always the right ones. Peter van de Beek sees an ever-greater role for technology in traffic enforcement but is concerned that the emphasis of technological development and discussion is not always in the right places. 'Old-fashioned' face-to-face policing remains as valid as it ever did, he feels, but adds that there should be greater communication with those engaged at the sharp end of saf
    Read More
  • ITS needs to talk the talk as well as walk the walk
    March 24, 2014
    The US automated enforcement market is in rude health as the number of systems and applications continues to grow and broaden. Jason Barnes reports. Blessed and cursed – arguably, in equal measure – with a constitution which stresses the right to self-expression and determination, the US has had a harder journey than most to the more widespread use of automated traffic enforcement systems. In some cases, opposition to the concept has been extreme – including the murder of a roadside civil enforcement offici
    Read More
  • Scorecard scores
    July 30, 2012
    For situations where normal cost-benefit analysis doesn't work, TNO has developed Scorecard. How can governments ascertain the best strategy for implementing innovative solutions that are influenced by knowledge and technology as well as political context, human behaviour, impact on process and organisation? TNO, the Netherlands-headquartered applied scientific research organisation, has created a scorecard that helps assess developments like SAFESPOT, the major European project which is designing cooperati
    Read More
  • MaaS Market Conference examines transportation’s new options
    January 9, 2018
    Second MaaS Market conference highlights pilots and fledgling services from around the world. That a revolution in the provision of transport services is underway is no longer in doubt. The only uncertainties are the precise form that revolution will take; who will be the winners and losers; and how long it will be before it takes root. Driven by passionate advocates of Mobility as a Service or – MaaS – a wide range of projects and different approaches are being developed worldwide. It is that move from
    Read More

Highlighted Content