Sustainable Transport Infrastructure in the Strategic urban region Eurodelta

27 October 2022

Dagmar Keim

STISE - ESPON research initiated by the SURE Eurodelta

Mobility growth

The study, which was produced by the ESPON network, shows that mobility in the Eurodelta is set to grow considerably until 2050. Freight transport will increase by almost 60%, and passenger transport by 18%. This growth will significantly contribute to the emission of CO2, nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter, which is already hampering broad wellbeing in the Eurodelta. Increasing noise levels, especially in cities, can also have a hefty negative impact on quality of life.

The study yielded the following insights:

1. Commit to replacing air travel by rail travel. In terms of the spatial development of the Eurodelta as a whole, intensifying the use of high-speed lines is particularly important because of the effect on passenger and air traffic. With the intensification of high-speed lines, passenger transport by rail could potentially more than double, thereby reducing air and road traffic. Moreover, the shift from aviation to high-speed rail for short and medium distances will have a major impact on CO2 and noise reduction at and around the four primary airports in the Eurodelta.

2. Implement harmonised Zero Emission Zones (ZEZs) in all major cities (>100,000 residents) in the Eurodelta for cars and trucks by 2035. This will lead to significant CO2, NOx and particulate matter reductions.

3. Make efforts to increase the possibilities of Mobility as a Service (MaaS), e.g. by investing in digital and physical infrastructure.
4. Improve cross-border rail connections in the Eurodelta between Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Removing the barrier of national borders in daily transport between areas is important for local economies in the border regions.
Collaboration is complex but necessary

The proposed measures have been raised before, but they do provide a detailed roadmap to what is needed in terms of coordination on environmental zones or what needs to be developed internationally for ticketing in cross-border rail travel. In addition, the conclusions help underline the crucial importance of collaboration and coordination between governments as well as between private companies.

The project was initiated by the SURE network.

ABOUT THE STISE PROJECT

Scope

The Strategic urban region Eurodelta (SURE) comprises the lower river basins of the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt. A polycentric area, comprising a network of metropolises with medium-large cities and cross-border regions. In its capacity of an entrance gate for goods and persons to Europe, it has developed into a densely populated and economically strong area.

Within 3 hours of travel, over 50 million people can be reached. This makes it a global hub for goods, services and knowledge. This role has brought economic prosperity but also major territorial, environmental and liveability issues.

For instance, transport is responsible for a substantially large share of CO² emissions in the region, with further increases forecasted, while EU ambitions and national climate debates or policy plans point to the need for a drastic reduction of them.

The Strategic urban region Eurodelta faces indeed major challenges: energy transition, climate adaptation, accommodation of economic and demographic growth, ensuring connectivity and accessibility of urban networks, and sustainable land use. Decarbonising the transport sector plays a crucial role in tackling these challenges.

The area has four internal national borders (NL-DE, NL-BE, BE-FR, DE-BE) that European integration and globalization have tended to abolish. These borders are crossed by people, goods or services and national and regional/local policy makers feel the urgency to collaborate more closely on policy solutions to address this wide range of flows and achieve more sustainable development.

The analysis considers the research area against its surroundings, but not in a static way. International flows can concern transport and secondary spatial flows to and from megacities in the ring around the SURE, like London, Paris or up to Frankfurt and Hamburg. This can give a measure of the strength of the relationship between the SURE and these cities.

Finally, responding to current events, it has become clear again that crises can affect transport severely. The COVID-19 crisis affects drastically, besides the health of people, free movement of persons and has a huge impact also on free movements of goods with the sudden and unexpected recurrence of borders. It could also bring an economic crisis. On the long term, we may face more sanatory crises, economic crises and crises of other kinds, e.g. energy or digital crises, which may affect cities, cross-border movements and transport.

Results

The Eurodelta needs to move more towards greener mobility that contributes to the European sustainability goals, and therefore to more attractive and sustainable urban regions. Business as usual will not be sufficient to reach such a goal. The baseline scenario in the STISE study (Sustainable Transport Infrastructure in the Strategic urban region Eurodelta) confirmed that without any intervention in the policies, sustainability will not be reached.

Pursuing bold policy choices is required to (help) achieve the targets set in European agendas. The four policy measures – as they are scoped in this study – have been studied for a first time at the scale of this region. These policy measures can affect the entire Eurodelta area and/or its
border crossings, including better connections in or between its (major)
cities for the better.

Aviation shift on short/mid-range distances
The aviation shift measure in the STISE study concerns a policy ban of all the regular aviation services on short and mid-range distances (< 500 km to 700 km) within, to and from the Eurodelta, to high-speed rail. At the moment this short- and midrange aviation concerns some 25 million passengers to,
from and within the Eurodelta, each year, although there is a sufficient HST alternative with even, sometimes even less travel times.
This shift will have a major impact on the CO2 and noise reduction in and around the four relevant airports in the Eurodelta (Schiphol, Zaventem, Düsseldorf and Köln/Bonn). It will give a boost to HST and it will possibly double or even quadruple the volumes of HST travel on the existing tracks. Furthermore, it could also have a major impact on domestic and short-range travel within the Eurodelta and lead to a shift form car to train. This policy measure is becoming even more realistic, given the aviation impact for several airports of the current nitrogen discussion.

Zero Emission Zones in all major Cities in the Eurodelta
This measure concerns the implementation of harmonized Zero Emission Zones (ZEZs) in all major cities (> 100.000 inhabitants) located in the entire Eurodelta for passenger cars, Light Duty Vehicles (LDVs) and Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDVs), by 2035. Harmonising ZEZs could gain substantial efficiency and societal benefits, but specific population groups and economic actors could be adversely impacted if no accompanying measures are implemented. Although at first sight it might seem difficult to harmonize access criteria due to the subsidiarity principle and the absence of institutional frameworks to carry out such a process at Eurodelta level, but harmonizing ZEZs would gain maximal green impact, due to the high number of cars involved. An appropriate forum for policy dialogue should be set up to assess political feasibility, options for harmonization and their impacts. If areas for consensus are identified, a structured concertation process involving national and local authorities needs to be launched to design, plan and implement the harmonization process.

Enhancing the potential of MaaS
In the STISE study, this measure explores Mobility as a Service (MaaS) with focus on passenger transport. Perhaps this measure needs to be combined with the above, since the raw materials might be insufficient to realize a complete greening of the existing car stock in the Eurodelta and beyond. Nevertheless, we have investigated both measures separately, in order to mark each impact. The preconditions for new technologies have been looked into, including accompanying measures of the authorities to realize this benefit. The measure shows a huge potential in realising more sustainable transport. But this needs to be linked to the position public authorities take and the necessary investments in both digital and physical infrastructure to facilitate a larger modal shift. This being said, the prerequisites as defined (regarding standardisation and sharing of data and information) are no-regret measures that can be started immediately.

Improving the regional cross-border public train transport.

This measure focuses on the improvement of regional cross-border public train transport in the three STISE project corridors Rhine-Waal, Rhine-Scheldt and Lille-Brussels. The goal of this measure is to enhance rail transport for regional cross-border passenger travel. The study shows that in essence there is sufficient demand to operate profitable rail services, provided the cross-border connections are well integrated with the national rail and bus services and passenger-friendly services are present.
The measure has the potential to contribute to more sustainable transport and is in line with the European Green Deal. However, compared to the overall emissions in transport, the potential emission reduction of this measure is limited. Nevertheless this policy should be seen in the broader
context of a shift from road to rail, contributing to the further integration of the Eurodelta reducing the barriers of its four internal national borders as well.

Policy roadmaps
The study concludes with four policy roadmaps for the immediate, mid-
(2030) and long term (2050). These roadmaps are now being discussed by
the respective local, regional and national authorities, towards conclusive
arrangements on the Eurodelta level.

See Policy Highlights

See full report

Map the research findings according to your needs and interests

Passenger transport: https://analytics.omnitransnext.dat.nl/public/vzYDW5PrvGYBMmIVFM7R3NA0

Freight transport: https://analytics.omnitransnext.dat.nl/public/wGpCiiC4EQO6M1PKC392FRLA

Reflections on the report

During the final conference on 13 October 2022 the SURE secretariaat presented an booklet in which conversations with policy makers on the results of the reports were presented: Propelling sustainable mobility.

Stakeholders

Province of Zuid-Holland (NL) - Lead Partner
The Municipality of The Hague (NL)
The Flanders Region (BE)
The Metropolregion Rheinland (DE)
The Province of Gelderland (NL)
The Metropole Europeenne de Lille (FR)
The Municipality of Amsterdam (NL)
The Brussels-Capital Region (represented by perspective.brussels, the Brussels Planning Agency) (BE)
The Regionalverband Ruhr (DE)