Bridging the high level policy context - conclusions and recommendations

This report summarizes and reflects the scenario and policy related activities of GHG-TransPoRD starting with the policy description of the Energy Framework (see D2.1) and the Reference Scenario (see D4.1). Concerning the latter it makes a qualitative exploration of the robustness of all scenarios tested by considering the possibility of alternative reference scenarios than the one chosen by the project, essentially by posing the question "if the world, and hence the EU, were to develop in a different way to that specified by the Reference Scenario, what difference would this make to the perceived success or failure of respective policy packages". In answering this question, it creates a framework of alternative (reference) scenarios which is consistent with recent thinking on scenario concepts provided by researchers associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Building on both indicator studies on sustainable transport and the available output indicators of the integrated assessment model tool box of GHG-TransPoRD an assessment framework is developed and filled by the results of the scenarios. The assessment framework integrates economic, environmental and social indicators, and is applied to identify the distribution of costs and benefits between users, government, urban and inter-urban trips as well as between Member States of the different scenarios. It is noted that the observed somewhat uneven distribution of costs and benefits between users, government, urban trips, inter-urban trips and between Member States suggests that a number of implementation challenges will exist. Policies which are inequitable are typically unpopular, furthermore policies which are expensive for government would be also difficult to implement. Transport policies will therefore be needed to address these imbalances, and economic policies will need to ensure growth is maximised, but without sacrifycing equality. The spatial variation in impacts between Member States would suggest that policy needs to be sensitive to local conditions. Finally, the report presents some alternative future images of society as well as their implications for transport and summarizes the recommendations of GHG-TransPoRD that have been developed building on the quantitative analysis (see D4.1) and taking into account the scenario and policy considerations in this report.