FINANCING EUROPEAN TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

Transcription

1 FINANCING EUROPEAN TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

2 Also by Sheila Farrell FINANCING TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE (editor)

3 Financing European Transport Infrastructure Policies and Practice in Western Europe Sheila Farrell Honorary Research Fellow Imperial College London

4 Sheila Farrell1999 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any Licence permitting Limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Totten ham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be Liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act Published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN DOI / ISBN (ebook) This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Transferred to digital printing 2002

5 The preparation of this book was funded by The Leverhulme Trust

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7 Contents List of figures and tables Preface ix xii 1 Introduction 1 National characteristics 2 Existing transport infrastructure 4 Transport demand 6 Investment in transport infrastructure 9 Key issues 13 Conclusions 16 2 Organisational framework 17 Political structures 17 National transport plans 18 The role of the European Union 22 Private finance 34 Conclusions 39 3 Roads 41 Road traffic 42 Responsibility for road construction 43 Road user charges 50 Toll roads 62 Conclusions 81 4 Railways 83 The separation of infrastructure and operations 85 Track pricing policies 94 Financial planning 100 High speed rail networks 102 Regionalisation 115 Private finance: The Arlanda Link 119 vii

8 viii Contents 5 Urban public transport 125 Forms of urban public transport 125 Organisational structures 127 Financing mechanisms Inland waterways 155 Existing infrastructure 155 Traffic 157 Organisational structures 158 Investment and finance Airways 165 Existing infrastructure 166 Past performance 167 New investment 169 Institutional reform 171 The financing of air traffic control systems Airports 179 Ownership structures 181 Financing mechanisms 195 Airport pricing policies Seaports 203 General trends within the ports industry 203 State aid 213 Public-private partnerships 221 Towards a common European ports policy? Funding mechanisms for the future 233 Organisational structures 233 Pricing policies 234 Private finance 235 Government intervention 239 Conclusions 242 Notes 245 Index 255

9 List of figures and tables FIGURES 1.1 European population and income levels (1995) Public expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product(1993) The comparative density of road and rail networks (1996) Personal mobility and income levels in different European countries (1994) Real investment in transport infrastructure versus real GDP Average traffic densities Switzerland: the use of hypothecated road taxes, French long-term real interest rates The funding of French provincial public transport Commercial flights by type, Percentage of European flights delayed by more than five minutes AEA proposals for institutional change 174 TABLES 1.1 Growth in European passenger transport Passenger transport in Western Europe: public transport market shares Growth in European freight transport Freight transport in Western Europe: the share of rail and inland waterways Maritime trade in relation to population, EU Structural Funds: proposed expenditure on transport projects, Distribution of Objective 1 funds by mode of transport, EU Cohesion Fund expenditures Public sector road construction expenditure, Road infrastructure: revenues and expenditures 51 ix

10 X List of figures and tables 3.3 Proportion of vehicle-related taxes and tolls paid by heavy goods vehicles, Sources of road-related income (taxes, tolls and grants) Advantages and disadvantages of hypothecated road taxation The Netherlands infrastructure Fund revenues, European toll road networks, Italian toll motorway concessions Funding structure of Spanish motorways, Shareholding structure of Spanish motorway companies, Spanish motorways: tolls and revenues Spanish toll roads: financial results, European railway investment plans Sources of railway investment, The growth in European railway deficits and debts Swedish rail track charges TGV projects included in the 1992 Schema Directeur Changes in the financial position of proposed TGV schemes, The co-financing of railway infrastructure in Sweden Arlanda Rail Link funding structure European metro systems State grants for urban public transport infrastructure in the provinces Introduction of the versement transport to cities of different sizes Versement transport: maximum tax rates The financing of French public transport, The funding of the public transport component of the Dennis Package Inland waterway transport in north-western Europe Comparative network size, Inland waterway traffic loaded or discharged at major seaports, Distribution of investment in inland waterways, Voies Navigables de France: income and expenditure, The subdivision of European and American airspace Investment in European airports 179

11 List of figures and tables 8.2 Paris airports: traffic and capacity Size distribution of French provincial airports Sources of investment finance, Smaller airports: levels of debt relative to income, Spata Airport: funding structure Port employment and labour productivity Financial ratios for selected cargo-handling companies Original concession terms for the Genoa container terminals Port authority revenues and throughput, Comparative turnover of port authorities and cargo-handling companies, xi

12 Preface The origins of this book lie in work carried out for the European Round Table of Industrialists in 1990, at a time when there was grave concern about the failure of infrastructure investment to keep pace with economic growth, and fear that bottlenecks in the transport network would frustrate the operation of the single European market. Since then events have moved on. Environmental issues and search for sustainable inter-modal transport policies have become more important, making the concept of infrastructure pricing slowly more acceptable, but private finance has not yet come forward on the scale that was envisaged and public finance continues to be in short and unpredictable supply. The curiosity created by that original project about cultural differences in the way European countries build and manage their transport networks remains, even though they - like Britain - are going through a period of rapid institutional change. There are also varying attitudes towards the individual modes of transport arising from differences in their history, industrial structure and economic geography, so that innovations which work well in one country may not necessarily be applicable elsewhere. Although relatively little has been published in the English language about the organisation and financing of transport infrastructure in Continental Europe, this book does not set out to provide a comprehensive review. It is simply a reflection on developments since the mid 1980s, when the move towards transport deregulation first began to gather pace, illustrating comparisons between countries and modes with a selection of personally chosen examples. These highlight critical issues in transport policy rather than particular financial deals, which are well covered in the specialist journals that have sprung up to meet the information needs of the new market for privately financed transport infrastructure. The discussion is limited to Western Europe - the 15 Member States of the European Union plus Norway and Switzerland - as the inclusion of Eastern Europe would have raised too many additional issues to fit into one book. It concentrates on Continental Europe rather than the UK because its primary objective is to cover policies and projects about which relatively little information is easily xii

13 Preface accessible in the English language. Major financing initiatives such as the Channel Tunnel and UK rail privatisation, which have been extensively written about elsewhere, have therefore been deliberately omitted from the case studies, although they have been taken into account when drawing conclusions. The research work was carried out in on the basis of study tours to Sweden, France, Spain and Italy, funded by The Leverhulme Trust. My thanks go out to the Trust for its support, and to the many people who were prepared to discuss openly and frankly their perceptions of current issues, and provide access to their private collections of papers. I am particularly indebted to Imperial College London, which provided an honorary research fellowship during this period, and to the Observatoire Economique et Statistique des Transports (Paris), Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, and Centro Studi sui Sistemi di Trasporto (Rome) which also provided temporary homes. Inevitably a great deal of time was spent in Brussels, and this study owes much to staff of the European Commission who gave up their time to explain the origins and rationale for many of the European Union's current policies. Finally I would like to thank fellow participants in INTRA - a truly international group of transport professionals-who provided the stimulus for much of the thinking underlying the book. I have been very conscious while writing this book that the goalposts are continually on the move, and that many of its factual observations will become quickly out of date. I find this both daunting and challenging. On the one hand lies the impossibility of obtaining a complete awareness and understanding of what is going on; on the other hand, the cultural richness and diversity of what is, by world standards, a fairly small area. If we are to develop better transport policies for tomorrow's Europe we need to appreciate why each country is starting from a different position, with its own unique set of aims and objectives. Only then will we be able to identify common ground, and achieve consensus about a realistic framework for longterm action. xiii Sheila Farrell