Skip to main content

European Commission proposal to increase research and investment in Europe’s transportation sector

The EU is launching a new plan, Research and Innovation for Europe’s Future Mobility, that aims to develop a long-term policy strategy that among other goals, is to reduce road casualties to almost zero and greenhouse gas emission from the transport sector by 60 per cent in 2050. The plan doesn’t propose any new EU funding or regulations but instead proposes an initiative to meet with Member States and other relevant stakeholder to discuss policy priorities and objectives. Speaking about the plan, Vice Pres
September 24, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The EU is launching a new plan, Research and Innovation for Europe’s Future Mobility, that aims to develop a long-term policy strategy that among other goals, is to reduce road casualties to almost zero and greenhouse gas emission from the transport sector by 60 per cent in 2050.

The plan doesn’t propose any new EU funding or regulations but instead proposes an initiative to meet with Member States and other relevant stakeholder to discuss policy priorities and objectives.

Speaking about the plan, Vice President of the 1690 European Commission, Siim Kallas said: “This new initiative will help our transport system to develop into an even more efficient, sustainable and user-friendly system to reach our mobility goals. It will impact positively on growth and jobs in Europe.”

The transport plan joins an increasing range of ‘roadmaps’, Strategic Agendas, and other broad policy pronouncements from the Commission, that  aim to have a positive impact on growth and jobs in Europe.

It also follows on from a 2011 White Paper on Transport which laid out the vision, objectives and strategies for creating a single European transport area.

The Commission estimates that the additional investment needed to invent vehicles, equipment and vehicle-charging infrastructure to achieve the emission-reduction goals for the European transport system will cost around one trillion euros between 2010 and 2030, or about the same amount EU households spend on transport in one year.

Two main funding options have been identified. Should it be approved,  the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) which was proposed by the Commission in 2011 to fund €50 billion worth of investment to improve Europe's transport, energy and digital networks would be the primary source as it has a proposed budget of €31.7 linked to transport. The second major source of funding linked directly to these objectives is Horizon 2020, which includes a proposed budget of €6.8 billion euros for research and innovation on "smart, green and integrated transport".

Related Content

  • July 29, 2021
    EU mobility’s Covid escape route
    European Union roads could be more resilient after the pandemic ends, thanks to the goal of creating a more integrated mobility network, says ERF’s José Diez
  • March 28, 2012
    New European industry freight initiative launched
    Yesterday, the industry-led initiative formerly known as SmartWay Europe was launched under the new name Green Freight Europe. Founder members of the group comprise over 30 companies, including multinational shippers, carriers, retailers and associations. The group aims to establish Green Freight Europe as the leading independent voluntary programme for improving environmental performance of road freight transport in Europe. The launch event took place in Brussels in the presence of European Commission Vice
  • December 12, 2017
    European Commission: tighter rules for safer/cleaner cars
    The European Commission (EC), European Parliament and the Council have reached a political agreement on the commission proposal from January 2016 to raise the quality level and independence of type-approval and testing before a car is placed on the market. It would enable the EC to be able to initiate EU-wide recalls and impose penalties on manufacturers or technical services of up to €30,000 (£26,000) per non-compliant car.
  • February 3, 2012
    Progress of ICT transport research projects
    Juhani Jääskeläinen, head of the ICT for Transport Unit, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission, details the results of Call 4 for research projects in ICT for transport. Since the closure of the call and evaluation process during the summer of last year the European Commission (EC) has been negotiating and signing contracts with projects which were selected from proposals submitted to Call 4 of the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) fo