Report

STISE – Sustainable Transport Infrastructure in the Strategic Urban Region Eurodelta

The main objective of this STISE study is to assess to what extent the Strategic Urban Region of the Eurodelta (SURE) is moving towards greener mobility and which additional policies could be introduced to speed-up this development. The study shows that business-as-usual will not be sufficient to reach the ambitious European sustainability goals. The Eurodelta will need to move up a gear by making bold policy choices to achieve the targets set in European agendas.

In this study, a baseline scenario for the entire Eurodelta until 2050 has been developed, which shows that, given the generally expected growth in transport (+30% to 2030 and +59% towards 2050 for freight, +10% in 2030 and +18% in 2050 for passengers), sustainability appears to be far out of reach. The transport flows are combined with expected developments in emissions, which slightly changes the picture regarding the focus and the opportunities at hand.

The study assesses the impact of four policy measures and develops high-level policy roadmaps for implementation. The policy measures and the main conclusions are:

  1. Shift from aviation to high-speed rail for short and midrange distances
  2. Harmonising Zero-Emission Zones (ZEZ)
  3. Potential of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)
  4. Improving regional cross-border passenger rail transport

This Final Report is conducted within the framework of the ESPON 2020 Cooperation Programme, partly financed by the European Regional Development Fund. The ESPON EGTC is the Single Beneficiary of the ESPON 2020 Cooperation Programme. The Single Operation within the programme is implemented by the ESPON EGTC and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, the EU Member States and the Partner States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.