Competition key to persuading public to switch from cars

Date: 21/09/00

By Renée Cordes

IF GIVEN the choice, eight out of ten EU citizens prefer travelling in their cars to taking the tram, bus or metro - even if it means getting stuck in traffic jams.

This is exactly the kind of mindset which the European Commission had hoped to reverse when it unveiled the affectionately- dubbed 'Citizens' Network' Green Paper in February 1996. The idea behind former Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock's pet project was to make passenger transport systems more efficient and accessible.

There was, according to Kinnock, a simple way to do this: encourage public transport operators to share information on pricing and efficiency with one another, carry out a study into the operators' performance in terms of quality of service, and create a policy and legal framework for achieving these goals.

"Public transport should ideally be a service open to all citizens in terms of accessibility to vehicles and infrastructure, affordability in terms of fare levels and availability in terms of coverage and service," declared Kinnock in the Commission's first-ever policy paper on public transport.

Four years later, his successor Loyola de Palacio still has a long way to go to make that vision a reality. Critics claim that public transport generally leaves a lot to be desired - the service is often poor, costs can run out of control and there is little financial incentive to improve efficiency.

In a bid to tackle these problems, the Commission adopted a draft regulation this summer which would allow operators to compete in transparent tenders for the right to provide services. While the move is partially aimed at harmonising measures already introduced in member states, it is also the first major legislative proposal to originate under the Citizens' Network plan.

Under the proposal, authorities would be required to ensure a decent quality of service and give operators the right to bid against each other for public contracts. "Attractive, efficient public transport is a vital component of a modern transport system," said De Palacio when she unveiled the initiative. "This proposal will make sure that public transport operators are under competitive pressure to offer passengers better services, keep costs under control and ensure the highest safety level."

However, these conditions would only apply to public transport services in larger towns and cities - and not to rail services. Cities where the entire network was run by a single company would also be exempt. Officials estimate that this could mean exceptions being made for up to 40 cities in Germany and 50 in other member states.

Those loopholes have prompted criticism from groups which claim that such an initiative would be futile unless it applies to all types of transport. "We are very much in favour of this kind of liberalisation which the Commission is proposing but we do not like the fact that there are so many exemptions," said Soren Rasmussen, head of the International Road Transport Union's EU delegation.

Article forms part of a survey on transport.