FUNDING Infrastructure: Guidelines for Europe (2005 - 2007) |
| Client: |
European Commission, 4th, 5th and 6th RTD Programme |
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| Partners: |
AdpC, Aristotle Universit of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki), Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) (Kiel), Free University Amsterdam (Amsterdam), Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Jerusalem), Institute for Transport Planning and Traffic Engineering, University of Vienna (Vienna), Katholieke Univeriteit Leuven (Leuven), Tampere University of Technology (Tampere), Transport & Mobility Leuven (TML) (Leuven), Workgroup for Infrastructure Policy, Berlin University of Technology (Berlin) |
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The trans-European transport network (TEN-T) includes 30 priority projects, which are predicted to cost €225 billion. The White Paper \\\\\\\'European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide\\\\\\\' raises the difficulty of mobilising capital as one of the main obstacles to carrying out infrastructure projects. Recent EU research projects have covered optimal pricing of existing infrastructure and good use of transport revenue in the presence of social marginal cost pricing. In this project the emphasis is placed on optimal charging and investment to fund new infrastructure.
The principal aim of the FUNDING research project is to develop a scientifically sound approach to the funding of large transport infrastructure investments in the EU. Two different avenues are explored for the funding of these investments. The first is the creation of an EU transport infrastructure fund financed by mark-ups on transport activities. The second is the use of mark-ups on the users’costs charged by the infrastructure suppliers that make the investment.
The economics of infrastructure funds and the mark up method are first explored conceptually. The conceptual phase leads to the formulation of a limited number of alternative scenarios for a European infrastructure fund and for the use of mark-ups. These scenarios are adjusted as a function of the financing gaps that are calculated for the horizon 2020 by mode and country given the accepted TEN investments. The financing gap is computed using the SCENES – TREMOVE baseline 1995-2020.
Two models are used to test the performance of the alternative infrastructure fund and mark-up scenarios: a multi-modal spatial general equilibrium model of the EU (CGEurope); and a multi-modal pricing and investment assessment model (MOLINO II), which is applied to five important “TEN” infrastructure projects. This case study approach will enable the effect of infrastructure fund scenarios on each of the investment projects to be examined in terms of financial structure, advancing or delaying the investment decisions, the pricing decisions and on welfare.
The specific objectives of FUNDING are:
- to develop a scientifically sound methodology for the use of a EU transport infrastructure fund and or mark-ups to fund investments;
- to estimate the financing gap for investments by mode and by country at horizon 2020;
- to develop alternative scenarios for investment infrastructure funds and mark-ups that range between heavy reliance on a European fund and low mark-ups and at the other extreme a small role for the European fund and an important role for the internal funding of investments via mark-ups;
- to test the effect of different infrastructure fund scenarios on the transport investments and network developments in the long term using network models as well as project level models;
- to develop research in the area of pricing and investment in transport.
The task of RRG is, together with CAU Kiel (Germany), to test the effects of different infrastructure fund scenarios on the regional development of NUTS-3 regions in Europe. What are the effects on cohesion? Who is benefitting? Based on its GIS transport network database, RRG is calculting transport time/transport cost matrices based on the different scenarios as input to the CGEurope model.
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