The role of indicators in assessing transport policies: an application to European transport scenarios

Indicators play an important role in the strategic assessment of policy packages. In this paper the role of indicators in assessing transport policies is examined. As case study, the European Common Transport Policy (CTP) is used. Its three main objectives may be summarized as ‘efficiency’, ‘environment’ and ‘regional development’. Based on empirical research from different sources and the general CTP objectives, the main indicators for assessing the CTP are identified and discussed. Next, concise scenarios are constructed for the above mentioned general objectives within two general external frameworks (cooperation and polarisation), after which qualitative scores for the distinct indicators are calculated and presented. It appears that environmental and efficiency objectives may go hand in hand to some extent, especially by introducing price measures; regional development may however be contradictory with the achievement of the other objectives. It is concluded that indicators are a useful tool for assessing policy packages, by making the impacts of measures clearer and easily accessible for policy makers.