EU

All European Member States today face problems of road safety, congestion and pollution. This is an area, which has a serious impact on the daily lives of citizens. It also has a significant effect on most of Europe’s socio-economic indicators.

The European Commission in its White Paper ‘European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide’ September 2001, set the target to halve road fatalities by 2010. Although the situation has improved thanks to road safety action programmes, there are still over 40 000 fatalities on the Euro 25 roads every year, with 1.4 million accidents with a cost of around 200 billion € every year representing 2% of the EU GDP.

In the EU, congestion alone costs up to 50 billion € per year or 0.5 % of Community GDP, and by 2010 this figure could go up to 1% of EU GDP. The number of cars per thousand persons has increased from 232 in 1975 to 460 in 2002. The overall distance travelled by road vehicles has tripled in the last 30 years and, in the last decade, the volume of road freight grew by 35% contributing to 7 500 km or 10 % of the network being affected daily by traffic jams.

Concerning energy efficiency and emissions, in 2002 the transport sector consumed 338 million tonnes oil equivalent (MToe) representing 31% of the total energy consumption in the EU. Road transport consumed 281 MToe, or 83% of the energy consumed by the whole transport sector. Road transport CO2 emissions account for 835 million tonnes per year representing 85% of the total transport emissions. Investigations show that up to 50% of fuel consumption is caused by congested traffic situations and non-optimal driving behaviour.

Source:

‘Raising Awareness of ICT for Smarter, Safer and Cleaner Vehicles’, European Commission, Brussels, 15.02.2006