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

  • Buttigieg 'to put $150bn' into public transit
    January 20, 2021
    Cash part of proposed $1 trillion infrastructure package from new US administration
  • Infrastructure projects ‘should be software-ready as well as shovel-ready’
    May 21, 2014
    In his blog in The Hill, Siemens president of Infrastructure & Cities Sector, Daryl Dulaney claims that, while physical improvements to transportation systems are essential, more consideration needs to be given to incorporating more intelligent technologies. He claims, “Significant improvements in mobility can be made, with minimal investment as compared with large-scale physical transportation projects, by utilising intelligent transportation software in our cities and municipalities. Integrating the us
  • €86bn needed by 2030 if Europe is to achieve sustainable mobility, says report
    November 14, 2023
    EIT Urban Mobility research say there will be return of €3.06 for every euro invested
  • Support for US transportation bill
    November 6, 2015
    The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) and the Teamsters have given their support to the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015 (the STRR Act), which was overwhelmingly approved by the US House of Representatives after three days of debate. The bipartisan, multi-year surface transportation bill to reauthorise and reform federal highway, transit, and highway safety programs helps improve US surface transportation infrastructure, refocuses programs on address