Skip to main content

Transport Ministers declare determination to improve global connectivity

“Seamless transport is a powerful and ambitious strategic vision for the future of transport systems,” Transport Ministers from 53 member countries stated in a common declaration agreed at the annual Summit of the International Transport Forum on Seamless Transport: Making Connections in Leipzig, Germany. Seamless transport, the declaration says, “drives the development of better mobility and sustainable economic growth”.
May 4, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSS“Seamless transport is a powerful and ambitious strategic vision for the future of transport systems,” Transport Ministers from 53 member countries stated in a common declaration agreed at the annual summit of the 998 International Transport Forum on Seamless Transport: Making Connections in Leipzig, Germany. Seamless transport, the declaration says, “drives the development of better mobility and sustainable economic growth”.

In their declaration, the Ministers also emphasised that sustainable transport systems are important for economic prosperity, environmental protection, safety and security of society.

“The International Transport Forum once again underlined that it is the worldwide, leading platform to discuss transport issues,” said Michael Kloth, acting secretary-general of the International Transport Forum. “We are glad about the commitment of our member countries to cooperate even closer to reduce inefficiencies at the seams between transport modes, jurisdictions, systems, sectors and countries. In this way, the transport sector can become a real driver for economic growth.”

At the Summit, Ministerial Roundtables with selected participants also discussed the issues of piracy at sea, cruise ship safety, volcanic ash clouds and the future of the car. Three of these Ministerial Roundtables issued Joint Statements which were noted by the Ministerial meeting and were annexed to the declaration.

The Ministerial meeting also welcomed Chile, the first country from South America joining the global transport policy body, as the 54th member country of the International Forum.

In their meeting, Ministers also elected Professor Jose Manuel Viegas from Portugal as secretary-general-elect of the Forum. Viegas is expected to take up his office this summer, taking over from acting secretary-general Michael Kloth.

The International Transport Forum is an intergovernmental organisation within the OECD family that acts as a global transport policy think tank. The annual Summit included a Ministerial meeting, panel discussions with leaders from business, research and civil society as well as bilateral and informal meetings.

Headlined “Funding Transport”, the next Summit of the International Transport Forum is scheduled to take place 22-24 May in Leipzig.

For a full programme and videos of key events at this year’s Forum, visit www.internationaltransportforum.org/2012

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • DG MOVE’s Christos Economou on the EU’s vision for road transport
    July 26, 2013
    Christos Economou, Deputy Head of Unit dealing with land transport within the European Commission’s DG MOVE, describes a new framework for road charging in Europe to Jason Barnes. Within the European Union (EU), two Directives shape the legislative framework on road charging. Directive 1999/62/EC sets up a number of rules to make sure that national road charging schemes do not distort competition on the internal market or discriminate between hauliers. It is misleadingly called ‘Eurovignette’ after the comm
  • New research helps planners address California's air quality and urban sprawl controls
    June 25, 2012
    The Mineta Transportation Institute has released a peer-reviewed research report, An Economic and Life Cycle Analysis of Regional Land Use and Transportation Plans. This study is the third in a series that applies a new form of spatial economic model to examine the economic effects, the distribution of those effects, and their implications for California's Assembly Bill (AB) 32 and Senate Bill (SB) 375 implementation. These bills are intended to significantly reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) and urban sprawl b
  • Study in Finland shows infrastructure is a good investment
    March 28, 2012
    VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the University of Oulu and Aalto University in Finland have analysed the financial statements for 2002-2009 of companies, public utilities, and municipal units that own infrastructure, including water services, as well as road, port, airport, railway and electricity networks. Owning infrastructure is relatively risk-free. The most profitable is the energy sector where the return on investment was about 13%. The average annual return on investment of ports was 10%. T
  • How does France’s HGV eco-tax suspension affect RUC professionals?
    November 14, 2013
    Following violent protests from HGV drivers in France, the country's planned introduction of their distance-based eco-tax scheme has now been suspended. French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici has announced plans to renegotiate the contract concluded with Italian-led consortium Ecomouv, charged with implementing the country's controversial heavy goods vehicle (HGV) eco-tax, to minimise the cost of the levy for taxpayers in France. He emphasised that although the HGV tax has indeed been suspended in the