European Transport Policy

Introduction MAAT cruiser/feeder airship system is a transport system financed by European 7th Framework programme 2011. The project aims to realize a cruiser/feeder airship system, which can connect major populated centres worldwide. The MAAT cruiser feeder system is based on two different airships, the cruiser, which remains airborne for long times, and the feeder, which connects the cruiser with the ground and vice versa. This paper traces a detailed bibliography about MAAT project showing the actual state of the art of the project. This bibliographic review allows understanding the level of innovation related to this project. Methods Starting from the results of the preceding literature, the authors present a model of the cruiser, in terms of both mass and energy. According to the preceding studies, they have assumed the following minimal set of hypothesis: the buoyant gas is hydrogen; the shape of the cruiser is a discoid; operative altitude is in the range 15-17 km. It is well known that the major showstopper to actual diffusion of airships is related to the initial costs related to the use of Helium. The problem is more accentuated in Europe than in USA and Russia, because of higher unitary prices. An economic comparison with the possibility of using Hydrogen has produced. A further comparison has performed in terms of operations, focusing on the necessity of replacing the gas, which disperses in the external atmosphere because of the porosity of the tissues of the balloon system. The on board generation of hydrogen as an energy system is very

Globalization and constantly emerging markets ask for a steadily increasing mobility of passengers and goods and can be made responsible for a constant growth of travel demand, especially between the major economic powers in Europe North-America and Asia, at the same time one can witness a decrease of accessibility in many regions due to congestions on the roads as well as in the airspaces. This paradox has to be solved in order to secure a proper long lasting future development. This leads to the question what basic needs have to be satisfied in order to establish a sufficient and at the same time sustainable transportation system for the future?

The 2011 EU White Paper on Transport sets ambitious goals for phasing out conventionally fuelled cars in cities. Take-up and expansion of electric vehicles (e-vehicles, or electromobility) are one way to achieve this, as proposed by, i.a., the European Green Cars Initiative, the EU Action Plan on Urban Mobility, European alternative fuels strategy, and so on. This paper discusses incentives for the take-up and use of e-vehicles that are in place in different European countries. Especially, it analyses Norway and Austria, in order to establish and understand factors influencing the competitiveness of e-vehicles and potential market penetration. Norway currently enjoys the world's largest take-up of electric cars per capita, achieved through a package of incentives, which includes reductions in the cost differences between conventional vehicles and e-vehicles, preferential treatment with respect to parking, road charging exceptions, access to bus lanes, and a strategy for charging stations supported by the government. Austria, on the other hand, has used the concept of Model Regions with government support to stimulate market introduction. So far, this has been a less effective approach.

IT - I confini dell'Øresund Region sono delimitati ad ovest dall'isola di Zealand, con la Greater Copenhagen Area, e ad est dalla Scania con Malmoe e Lund (fig. 1). Dall'Unione Europea è stata eletta regione modello di cooperazione e sviluppo sotto molteplici aspetti. È regione transfrontaliera. Ospita la realizzazione di uno degli anelli mancanti di comunicazione individuati dall'Unione: l' Øresund Link. È esempio di integrazione e sostegno allo sviluppo. Una sfida in termini di studio, affascinante per le prospettive che porta con sé.

Objective The objective of this research was to evaluate the immediate impact of the demerit points system on speeding behavior of drivers in Al Ain. Al Ain is the fourth largest city in the United Arab Emirates, located about 120 Km from Dubai. Methods The spot speed data of randomly selected vehicles using speed guns was collected from three major arterial urban roads.The data was collected three months before and three months after the implementation of the demerit points system. The free flow conditions were considered during the data collection. The data was analyzed using SPSS program. Results and Conclusions The results revealed that the demerit points system has statistically no significant impact on the speeding behavior of drivers in Al Ain. One of the plausible reasons for insignificance affect of the demerit point system could be the lack of effective traffic monitoring system. This study recommends that to influence the drivers’ behavior an effective traffic monitoring system should be provided to achieve the desired outcomes of introducing tougher laws such as demerit point system. The study also recommends to collect more data to investigate the changes in the speeding behavior of drivers.

Wie hängen Innovation und Wandel bei den Schweizerischen Bundesbahnen zusammen? Woher kam der Druck zur Veränderung? Wer generierte innovative Ideen generiert und wie konnten sich diese durchsetzen? So lauten einige Kernfragen der Untersuchung von Gisela Hürlimann, die sich als eine „integrative Unternehmensgeschichte“ der SBB versteht. Die zweite Hälfte der 1960er-Jahre, in der die die Bundesbahnen in eine Defizitphase eintraten, stellt den Ausgangspunkt dar. Anhand der Projekte für eine automatische Zugsicherung, für den Taktfahrplan Schweiz und für eine Schnellbahn Bern-Zürich spannt die Autorin einen weiten Bogen in die Gegenwart. Darin zeigt sie, wie das Bahnunternehmen um die Mitte der 1980er-Jahre dank cleverem Marketing und dank dem Mega-Trend Umweltschutz den Turnaround schaffte und die historische Kurve von einer „public social railway“ zu einer „public business railway“ nahm. Zu dieser Erfolgsstory gehört die „Bahn 2000“, die 1984/85 das unbeliebte Projekt der „Neuen Haupttransversalen“ (NHT) ablöste. Dabei kommt auch die Sichtweise der Ingenieure, Betriebswirtschaftler und Generaldirektoren nicht zu kurz, mit denen die Autorin Interviews für eine „Oral History“ der SBB führte. Mit den Bundesbahnen steht auch die schweizerische Verkehrspolitik in ihrem Verhältnis zu Europa im Fokus der Untersuchung. Denn die Untersuchung bezieht systematisch Impulse mit ein, die von der „Internationalität der Eisenbahn“ und von der EG-Liberalisierungspolitik ausgingen. Gleichzeitig liefert die Darstellung am Beispiel des SBB-Spinnerclubs auch eine exemplarische Analyse vom Funktionieren eines intraorgansationalen Innovationsnetzwerks, dessen „Subversionen“ dem gesamten Betrieb nützten. Die Darstellung endet in den späten 1990er-Jahren, als die Bahn- und Unternehmensreform in Kraft trat und als die SBB eine Pionierrolle beim „European Train Control System“ (ETCS) übernahmen. Angesichts der Herausforderungen durch zukünftige Bahreformen, durch die NEAT und die Veränderungen der  Lebensgewohnheiten – Wohnen über den Gleisen und Reisen durch die ganze Nacht? – scheinen die Weichen wieder offen für eine stets neue „Eisenbahn der Zukunft“.

Introduction Evaluating the condition of transportation infrastructure is an expensive, labor intensive, and time consuming process. Many traditional road evaluation methods utilize measurements taken in situ along with visual examinations and interpretations. The measurement of damage and deterioration is often qualitative and limited to point observations. Remote sensing techniques offer nondestructive methods for road condition assessment with large spatial coverage. These tools provide an opportunity for frequent, comprehensive, and quantitative surveys of transportation infrastructure. Methods The goal of this paper is to provide a bridge between traditional procedures for road evaluation and remote sensing methodologies by creating a comprehensive reference for geotechnical engineers and remote sensing experts alike. Results A comprehensive literature review and survey of current techniques and research methods is provided to facilitate this bridge. A special emphasis is given to the E. Schnebele ( ) · G. Cervone · N. Waters challenges associated with transportation assessment in the aftermath of major disasters. Conclusion The use of remote sensing techniques offers new potential for pavement managers to assess large areas, often in little time. Although remote sensing techniques can never entirely replace traditional geotechnical methods, they do provide an opportunity to reduce the number or size of areas requiring site visits or manual methods.

The task of map-matching consists of finding a correspondence between a geographical point or sequence of points (e.g. obtained from GPS) and a given map. Due to many reasons, namely the noisy input data and incomplete or inaccurate maps, such a task is not trivial and can affect the validity of applications that depend on it. This includes any Transport Research projects that rely on post-hoc analysis of traces (e.g. via Floating Car Data). In this article, we describe an off-line map-matching algorithm that allows us to handle incomplete map databases. We test and compare this with other approaches and ultimately provide guidelines for use within other applications. This project is provided as open source.

This study reviews regulatory instruments designed to reduce environmental externalities from the transport sector. We find that the main regulatory instruments used in practice are fuel economy standards, vehicle emission standards and fuel quality standards. While industrialized countries have introduced all three standards with strong enforcement mechanisms, most developing countries have yet to introduce fuel economy standards. The emission standards introduced by many developing countries to control local air pollutants follow either the EU or U.S. standards. Fuel quality standards, particularly for gasoline and diesel, have been introduced in many countries mandating 2 to 10 percents blending of biofuels, 10 to 50 times reduction of sulfur from 1996 levels and banning lead contents. Although inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs are in place in both industrialized and developing countries to enforce regulatory standards, these programs have faced several challenges in developing countries due to a lack of resources. The study also highlights several factors affecting the selection of regulatory instruments, such as countries' environmental priorities and institutional capacities.

Purpose Aeronautic transport has an effective necessity of reducing fuel consumption and emissions to deliver efficiency and competitiveness driven by today commercial and legislative requirements. Actual aircraft configurations scenario allows envisaging the signs of a diffused technological maturity and they seem very near their limits. This scenario clearly shows the necessity of radical innovations with particular reference to propulsion systems and to aircraftarchitecture consequently. Methods This paper presents analyses and discusses a promising propulsive architecture based on an innovative nozzle,

Background and aim The paper focuses on the methodology for assessing Sustainable Mobility (SM) at the neighbourhood scale, and pays attention to two different ex-ante evaluation approaches: the Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) and the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). If MCA is an acknowledged technique for the assessment of sustainability at neighbourhood level, CBA is mainly used for infrastructure and large transformation projects. The aim of the paper is twofold: (i) highlight strengths and weaknesses of the two techniques, especially when assessing SM at the neighbourhoods scale; (ii) investigate the applicability of MCA and CBA to evaluate some relevant SM strategies and policies at the neighbourhood scale. To do so, a detailed description of MCA and CBA is presented and, when it exists, a review of their application to assess SM at neighbourhood level is described. Strengths and weaknesses of the approaches are, therefore, highlighted and their applicability to some specific SM measures are examined. Results and conclusions It results that the joint use of the two methodologies could overcome their mutual weaknesses, providing a coherent methodology for assessing both efficiency and effectiveness of SM policies and projects.

In academic literature, only limited research has been undertaken in exploring the value creation of B2B (Business-to-Business) e-Marketplace models in the aviation industry. The aim of this publication is a theoretical analysis to explore whether or not B2B e-Marketplaces can make a contribution to the achievement of competitive advantage in procurement in the aviation industry. The research focuses on the potential of B2B e-Marketplaces in terms of improving an airline’s competitiveness in its procurement value chain and discusses empirical results from a survey among international e-Marketplace / portal operators

Student Number: S0679305 Leiden LL.M. (Adv.) on Air and Space Law 2006/07 "…The weather was supposed to clear and the pilot wanted to keep his place in the take-off queue, so the passengers sat in muffled silence taking comfort in the drinks trolley. It was midday and Clive had ordered coffee, brandy and a bar of chocolate. He had a window seat in an empty row, and through gaps in the fog he could see other airliners waiting competitively in ragged, converging lines, something brooding and loutish in their forms: slit eyes beneath small brains, stunted, encumbered arms, […] -creatures like this could never care about each other…."

Purpose Quality is a complex and subjective concept, incorporating at any given time the true (expressed and implied) needs of all those involved. Over the last two decades, safety and security are becoming increasingly important to the extent that they may be considered to be synonymous or entirely integrated to quality. The aim of this paper is twofold a. to investigate contemporary issues for quality and safety/security systems integration within port industry and b. to empirically assess the penetration of quality and safety international standards in the major Greek ports. Methods A review of the literature is conducted and the results of a survey conducted based on semi-structured interviews to the top management of 10 out of the 12 Greek major ports are presented. Results The qualitative analysis provide evidence for the interrelation and integration of quality and safety/security standards; while the survey exhibit the benefits, the motives and the shortcomings of the quality and safety certification in the major Greek ports. Conclusions Integration of quality and safety management systems in ports has several advantages. The survey indicated that safety and environmental issues are a priority for most major Greek ports; while a growing interest on ISO 9001 certification is evident.

Background The intersection traffic signal control problem (ITSCP) has become even more important as traffic congestion has been more intractable. The ITSCP seeks an efficient schedule for traffic signal settings at intersections with the goal of maximizing traffic flow while considering various factors such as real-time strategies, signal timing constraints, rapid developments in traffic systems, and practical implementation. Since the factors constituting the ITSCP exhibit stochastically complicated interactions, it is essential to identify these factors to propose solution methods that can address this complexity and still be practically implemented. Objective The objective of this review is to provide a survey of problems, methods, and practices in the evaluation of the ITSCP. In this paper, a unified terminology for the ITSCP and a citation network of the current body of relevant research are accordingly presented, and various assumptions, constraints, and solution approaches a...

Purpose The purpose of the present paper is to present and discuss some techno-economic aspects of the impact of the automotive industry and its supply chain to climate change. Method In order to provide a well-structured estimate to this global concern nowadays, we will deal with the following: we will clearly define what is meant by climate change and will resume the origins, the extend and the contribution of the automotive vehicles to this phenomenon; we will give an account of the actual world-fleet of vehicles and of the expected increase of this fleet in the forthcoming future, taking into consideration the projected in the future contribution of the world-fleet of vehicles in climate change and of the actions that have been taken by regulation authorities to reduce this phenomenon by limiting the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) as well as of other pollutants by newly produced vehicles; we will provide a comprehensive approach of well-to-wheel studies regarding emission and energy consumption mainly performed in the USA, Japan and in the European Union. Results The above studies will permit us to evaluate alternative technologies that the automotive industry is considering in order to comply with these regulations and to contribute in reducing the impact of vehicles in the environment and, subsequently, in the climate change.

Background and aim The paper focuses on the methodology for assessing Sustainable Mobility (SM) at the neighbourhood scale, and pays attention to two different ex-ante evaluation approaches: the Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) and the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). If MCA is an acknowledged technique for the assessment of sustainability at neighbourhood level, CBA is mainly used for infrastructure and large transformation projects. The aim of the paper is twofold: (i) highlight strengths and weaknesses of the two techniques, especially when assessing SM at the neighbourhoods scale; (ii) investigate the applicability of MCA and CBA to evaluate some relevant SM strategies and policies at the neighbourhood scale. To do so, a detailed description of MCA and CBA is presented and, when it exists, a review of their application to assess SM at neighbourhood level is described. Strengths and weaknesses of the approaches are, therefore, highlighted and their applicability to some specific SM measures are examined. Results and conclusions It results that the joint use of the two methodologies could overcome their mutual weaknesses, providing a coherent methodology for assessing both efficiency and effectiveness of SM policies and projects.

The present draft lays the groundwork for a paper that envisages to provide a short historical perspective on the changing roles of the Commission and the Member-States in what regards the European Union External Aviation Policy, namely, the appearance and increase of the Commission role in the Aviation relations of the Member-States with third Countries through a shift of competence from the Member-States towards the Commission.
We further hypothesise on the effectiveness, advantages and disadvantages of such change ten years after the first mandate to negotiate an international aviation agreement attributed to the Commission.

The paper deals to the need of a new approach for the inland water transport. There is a great contradiction between the European official documents related to the inland water transport and the practice. The analysis was focused on evaluating the present status of this type of transport and its future goals in the context of the new challenges to the EU28. The first intermediate conclusion of the analysis is that the great economic disparities between the Member States led to great disparities related to inland water fleet and infrastructure. As the result, the economic importance of this type of transport decreased in the EU28. A distinct part of the paper is dedicated to the inland water transport in Romania and focused especially on the Danube sector. This chapter points out the real economic, logistic and environmental challenges for Romania regarding the transport on Danube. A great challenge for the analysis in this paper was the difficulty to find official statistical data related to inland water transport across the EU28. The main conclusion of the paper is that the inland water transport will be not able to recover and develop on short and medium terms.

Purpose The objective of current paper is to offer constructive criticism and expose some serious shortcomings in the paper published Clausen and Voll (Transp Res Rev 5:129-133, 2013) in the ETRR. Method A literature review method is applied for the current research paper. A technical and scientific discussion, including organizational and policy issues in relation to rail freight transport systems in Europe and U.S., is performed. Result Clausen and Voll [4] ostensibly set out to draw comparisons between North American and European railway systems. It claims to be focused on the management and operation of carload freight and how this is organized, planned and moved but does not develop this in adequate detail. The paper fails to address many generic contextual differences and influences that govern the management and operation of carload freight in both domains. It does not present a balanced or complete set of arguments as to why one scenario is to be preferred to the other.

Car evolution The car was born around a century ago and its evolution has been incredibly fast, both in technology and in style. We have to move through different social and cultural evolutions to arrive to the present state of the art. The technical and social acceleration of the 20th century is well visible looking at the different worldwide research programs. Nowadays digital content and ubiquitous computing are changing us and our life style. New concepts involving the full society are emerging and the term "personal mobility" becomes more and more used together with "co-operative driving" and "environmental compatibility". HMI evolution Human Machine Interaction (HMI), initially limited only to the primary in-vehicle commands, has been a major issue since the beginning. In which direction is it moving? Which technological efforts will be key factors to face the challenges of the future? We are in the middle of a transition phase where the world has to cope with and to solve big problems as energy and climate change that can strongly influence the future of the automotive industry and not only.

Introduction The overall aim of this study is to compare daytime driving with night-time driving looking at line crossings during self-reported sleepiness and long blinks. The hypothesis is that high levels of self-reported sleepiness (KSS 9) and long blink duration (>0.15 s) will be less associated with critical events during the daytime compared to night-time. Method The study is based on data from a driving simulator experiment with 16 participants driving 150 km on a typical Swedish motorway scenario twice: once during daytime and once during night time. In total data from 6 segments of 4 km each equally distributed along the drive was averaged and included in the analysis. A Mixed Model Anova was used to test the effects on KSS, Blink Duration and Line Crossings with factors for Session (Day/Night) and Road segment (1-6), and participant as random. In addition, a logistic regression was used to identify when there is a risk for line crossings. Finally, the proportion of line crossings in relation to high KSS values and long blink durations was tested with Fisher's exact test. Results The results show no differences in the percentage of Line Crossings to the left during high levels of Karolinska Sleepiness Scale during daytime (33%) compare to night-time (40%). However, there was a significant difference between day and night time line crossings while the driver had long duration blinks (4% during daytime and 35% during night-time). Despite these results the most promising predictor of line crossings in each segment of 4 km/h was KSS with an Odds Ratio of 5.4 with a reference value at Karolinska Sleepiness Scale level 5. Conclusion In conclusion, the results do not support the hypothesis that high levels of KSS will result in more frequent line crossings at night time compared to day time. However, the result supports the hypothesis that long blink durations are associated with more line crossings when they appear during night time than during daytime.

The so-called ‘Dieselgate’ was one of the major scandals of recent years, in which it has been revealed that several car manufacturers (and primarily the Volkswagen Group) manipulated with the computers of certain diesel-engine models. As a result the software of the cars could detect when the models concerned were being tested and adjust the car’s emissions to minimum requirements under laboratory circumstances. The starting point of the scandal was the notice of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued in September 2015, which obviously leads us to the dilemma, whether the EU would also need such supranational level watchdog instead of the current system of mainly national level-enforcement and supervision. The European Parliament’s Inquiry Report revealed several shortcomings and some MEP the need for an EU Road Transport Agency, though this option has not been followed by the Commission in related amendments. The article focuses on the different ways of EU ‘agencification’ with emphasis on the relevant factors such as major crisis events or transboundary effects (standardisation requirements) which clearly resulted in creating EU agencies. This has been the relevant factors in establishing the three (other) EU transport agencies just like in case of EU’s environmental agency. Therefore, it is the question of the future, whether the reluctance mentioned combined with the partly reformed enforcement framework with some increased powers given to the Commission (also to the newly created Forum inside the Commission), and the new requirements towards national authorities could adequately address the concerns revealed by the Dieselgate.

Purpose Multi-lane highways represent the majority of the total length of highway network at many countries. The geometric design of such facilities and the traffic volume which includes heavy vehicles percentage (HV) are considered the most important factors affecting the level of service (LOS), especially on the horizontal curves. Methods This paper aims to explore the relationship between the road geometric characteristics including horizontal curve properties and traffic volume including average annual daily traffic (AADT) and HV in one hand and LOS in the other hand by two methods. First is generalized linear modeling (GLM) procedure and second is the artificial neural networks (ANNs) procedure. In this research, the traffic and road geometric data are collected on 78 horizontal curves that are distributed on four multi-lane highways in Egypt. Two of them are located in desert area and the others in agricultural area.

T. GROSBOIS, Politique des transports, in Dictionnaire historique de l’Europe unie, éd. P. GERBET, G. BOSSUAT et T. GROSBOIS, Bruxelles, 2009, p.795-803.

Ce dictionnaire présente une originalité : il se place résolument dans la perspective historique, indispensable pour comprendre les singularités – qui paraissent parfois illogiques – des structures qui se sont développées pour aboutir au système européen tel que nous le connaissons aujourd’hui. Depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le “chantier européen” n’a cessé d’évoluer. L’unité de l’Europe s’affirme maintenant dans l’Union européenne compétente dans les domaines politiques, économiques et sociaux, dotée d’une monnaie unique et élargie à la plupart des États de l’Europe géographique. Il s’agit donc d’un phénomène très complexe, résultant du jeu de forces diverses, variable selon les époques, dont la compréhension est facilitée par la connaissance de l’évolution historique. D’où l’utilité d’un dictionnaire qui précise l’origine et le développement des éléments constitutifs de ce grand mouvement vers l’unité : les hommes dont les idées et l’action ont poussé à l’organisation de l’Europe, penseurs, militants, hommes politiques ; les idéologies politiques qui ont intégré progressivement la notion d’Europe ; l’opinion publique dans les différents pays, favorable en principe mais capable de s’opposer sur des problèmes particuliers ; les États nationaux, leur attitude à l’égard de l’Europe et leur rôle dans ses institutions ; les institutions européennes, leurs origines et leurs réalisations.

The paper considers the application to transport project assessment of multi-attribute value theory (MAVT). The aim is to compare the results of three weighting methods which are used in MAVT: ratio with swings, Saaty scale with swings, and trade-off. An experiment is set up for a decision problem relating to a public transport project. A sample of individuals is asked to provide judgments according to the three methods. The weights obtained by ratio with swings and by Saaty scale with swings show a high correlation, while weights obtained by each of these methods show a low correlation with trade-off. The weight attached to the cost attribute is higher in trade-off, which is implemented as pricing out, than in the other methods; two explanations for this result are proposed: the compatibility principle and loss aversion. The paper also provides insight on how the attributes of transport project alternatives should be described by indicators so that individuals can attach a value to them.

Background Sustainable mobility requires actions to reduce the need for travel, to promote modal shift, to reduce trip lengths and to increase efficiency of transport system. Public transport could play an important role to solve part of the needs previously reported. Starting from these remarks, the present paper analyse the role, the importance and the impact of land use characteristics to develop services able to compete with automobile use. This analysis is carried out by studying the real world case of the city of Rome in Italy.

Background: This study aims to examine to what extent sustainability has been incorporated into assessments of road infrastructure projects. It identifies promising approaches that include indicators reflecting core sustainability criteria, determines criteria that were insufficiently covered as indicators, and develops an integrated indicator set covering all criteria.

The formulation of policies requires the selection and configuration of effective and acceptable courses of action to reach explicit goals. A one-size-fits-all policy is unlikely to achieve the desired goals; as a result, the identification of a suite of alternative policies, together with clear indications of their trade-offs, is crucial to accommodate the diversity of stakeholders’ preferences. At present, the formulation of transport policies is done manually; this fact, together with the size of the space of possible policies, results in a large part of that space being left unexplored. A six-step framework to explore the space of alternative transport policies in order to achieve environmental targets is proposed. The process starts with a user-defined set of specific policy measures, using them as building blocks in the generation of alternative policy packages, clusters and future images according to the user's preferences and goals.The analysis framework is based on the visioning and backcasting approach used in the VIBAT report [Banister, D., & Hickman, R. (2006a). Visioning and backcasting for UK transport policy (VIBAT) project. Department for Transport's Horizons Research Programme 2004/06. The Bartlett school of planning and Halcrow Group Ltd. Retrieved 1/18/2008 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/∼ucft696/vibat2.html]. The framework is being implemented as a prototype decision support system around a case study: the formulation and analysis of policies required to achieve CO2 emission targets for the transport sector in the UK. Important insights on how to develop the framework have also been elicited from engineering design. The goal is to accelerate the task of policy-making and improve the effectiveness of the resulting policies.The proposed method and computer implementation is fundamentally different from the tools commonly used in the transport sector and is intended to assist (not replace) transport policy makers, and complement (not substitute nor compete with) existing mathematical modelling tools. This research constitutes the first step towards the development of a general family of computer-based systems that support the design of policies to achieve environmental targets—not only for transport, but also for other sectors such as energy and water.

Background and purpose The International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) decision to lower the allowable amount of sulphur content in marine fuels to 0.1 % in the so-called Emission Control Areas (ECAs) beginning in 2015 has outraged the Swedish forest industry. The seas around Sweden are included in the ECA and achieving the new sulphur directive requires shipowners to take actions that will increase the cost of transporting goods by ship from Sweden. Swedish forest industry exports are transported mostly by ship and there is a possibility that the forest industry will shift freight from sea to land transport because of the sulphur directive. How greatly the transport costs differ between different transportation options is affected by several uncertainties such as price trends for fuel. Other restrictions for shipping, such as nitrogen oxide emissions and ballast water treatment, are also expected to become stricter in the future. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the sulphur directive and associated uncertainties on the Swedish forest industry, its transport system structure, and its logistics strategies. Results and conclusions Previous studies in the field have forecast that the freight will be transferred to land because of the sulphur directive. Our results also show that companies will transfer the cargo to land transport. The transfer will be greater the further south in the country production facilities are located. Goods that previously were shipped from ports on the Swedish east coast will instead be shipped more frequently from ports on the west coast to reduce transport time within the ECA region. Furthermore, the results show that firms do not sign agreements with shipping lines that extend beyond the year 2015, but instead write long, flexible agreements with rail operators, enabling an increase in freight strategy to address the sulphur directive. In this way, they have created the capacity to transform the transport structure.

L'Italia, secondo i dati Eurostat, nel 2009 ha scambiato per via marittima 276,9 MT di merce (su un totale portuale nazionale di 472,5 milioni di tonnellate) con i Paesi appartenenti all'Area Mediterranea ed a quella del Mar Nero (nel seguito Area di Riferimento) risultando il principale Paese UE di interscambio.