Planning a strategic motorway network for Europe

The proposed method used to investigate the long-term perspectives of traffic on the European motorway network, and the identification of a common motorway network of EC interest had been conducted in three fundamental analysis stages: road transport demand; the high capacity road network (supply); and the translation of this demand in terms of traffic (matching of supply and demand). For the demand analysis, a prior role is devoted to international trips by road due to the context and objective of this study: 'ease the free flows of goods and persons inside the EC itself and between the EC and its partners'. The international flows modelization relies on a regional breakdown covering 129 cells where freight and passengers are distinguished. For freight, an origins/destinations matrix is compiled using the available data. For passengers, the origins/destinations flows are generated by a gravity model integrating population, GDP per capita (income indicator), tourist attractivity, distance and resistance factors for border crossing. The various networks include: 'theoretical network', reference network 1990 and the long-term network which would result from the realization of the various national motorway master plan for the member states, and the TEM project in Eastern Europe. Scenarios of traffic for the 2010 horizon are designed with the combination of two economic growth contexts, and three levels for the increase in national traffic and modal substitution. The scenarios results, even in the case of a sluggish economic growth, show important increases in traffic volumes (90% average increase in total traffic on the trunk road network for the next 20 years). In the case of higher increase of road traffic, the modal transfer in favour of rail, everything equal elsewhere, do not supply a strong response. The diagnosis is slightly different if certain axes are considered, noticeably between Germany-Italy and Switzerland. This study strongly contributed to the EC Commission Transport Directorate in the definition of its road transport policy of which the brochure entitled: 'Trans-European Network: Towards a Master Plan for the Road Network and Road Traffic' is a summary.