Skip to main content

EU investment fund ‘important for transport’

The new EU Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, said that the US$392 billion investment fund unveiled by President Juncker last week will have big significance for the transport sector. In a speech today to the Committee on Transport and Tourism at the European Parliament, Ms Bulc said that the new European Fund for Strategic Investment set up with the European Investment Bank (EIB) offers new opportunities to finance transport needs, particularly in urban mobility. “Investment needs in urban mob
December 19, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The new EU Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, said that the US$392 billion investment fund unveiled by President Juncker last week will have big significance for the transport sector.

In a speech today to the Committee on Transport and Tourism at the European Parliament, Ms Bulc said that the new European Fund for Strategic Investment set up with the 4270 European Investment Bank (EIB) offers new opportunities to finance transport needs, particularly in urban mobility.

“Investment needs in urban mobility are massive since they are generating most of the traffic and most of the emissions,” she told the Committee. “The infrastructure and the fleets for new collective transport systems, to make our cities smarter, need to be put in place.”

Ms Bulc said that more investment was needed for cleaner modes of transport, particularly at borders, to have a unified and more efficient European transport system and to bring it into the 21st century.

She said: “Intelligent Transport Systems should be deployed at European level to make the best use of the existing and future infrastructure and to develop a transport system which is at the service of the users— citizens and companies.”

The new fund, Ms Bulc emphasised, will complement and not substitute financial instruments already in place, such as the Connecting Europe Facility, the Cohesion and EIB loans. It will also target more ‘risky’ transport projects not currently funded by the EIB.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Atlanta ponders Mobility as a Service for seamless transit
    June 29, 2018
    Drivers in Atlanta spent 70 hours in peak-time traffic jams last year. As the MaaS Market conference moves to the US’s fourth most congested city, we ask how Mobility as a Service can help. Colin Sowman winds down his window to listen. It is not by accident that ITS International’s first MaaS Market conference outside London is being hosted in Atlanta. The event is being supported by Georgia State Road & Tollway Authority and the City of Atlanta – and again not without a reason as metro Atlanta is looking
  • Robin Chase interview: Heaven and hell
    June 13, 2018
    A shared vision - or even much of a conversation at all - about what a better mobility balance looks like has been lacking…until now. Andrew Stone speaks to Zipcar founder Robin Chase about fairness – and the importance of not demonising cars
  • Conscience versus convenience
    June 8, 2015
    David Crawford looks at new ways forward for public transport. By 2025, nearly 60% of the world’s population will be living in towns and cities, increasing their extent and density, and the journeys that people make within and between them. In response, the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) wants to see public transport’s global modal share doubling (PTx2) by the same date. “Success in 2025,” a spokesperson told ITS International, “will save 170 million tonnes of oil equivalent and 550
  • The long road to Spanish enlightenment
    October 22, 2018
    Julián Núñez, immediate past president of ASECAP, gets his teeth into the vision of a European strategy for toll roads. David Arminas reports from Madrid. Getting European politicians to agree to a long-term cross-border highway infrastructure programme for toll roads is extremely difficult. It’s a bit like pulling teeth: people want to avoid the pain. But pain is something that Spanish operators, including Abertis, OHL, ACS, FCC and Acciona, have been going through for the past decade. The country has