European Transport / Trasporti Europei (1996) 04

Transport activities of any kind that must covered by public service have recently received much attention by both EU and Italian legislation. In particular. As far as railways are concerned, the most significant measures passed by EU institutions include Directive 440/91 on railway transport in EU member states, and in Italy Law 549 was passed as a part of the 1996 budget provisions. The latter replaces the State with the Regions as the negotiator in the quantity of the offer of railway transportation. These two measures combined mean that Italy’s public transport offer can now be significantly revised, and its is against this very backdrop that both laws are analysed in the present article.

In this article reference is made to a speech delivered by the Managing Director of CEMAT (the Italian national company for combined transport) illustrating the current outlook in the field of land intermodality in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as other issues connected to intermodal traffic relations between these countries and Western Europe. Particular attention is paid to the market for Combined Road rail Transport, both as accompanied and as non accompanied transport. These two sector are examined in an effort to detect the obstacles that are still preventing the expansion in Eastern and Central Europe of non accompanied transport techniques, now a minor phenomenon elsewhere. The analysis of the present outlook and the identification of current problems are followed by the initial steps that national governments and railway companies in these countries should make in order to upgrade transport to and from these areas. Lastly, reference is aimed to the action undertaken by national governments and transport companies of the three Western European countries having the largest share of intermodal connections with Eastern and Central Europe (Austria, Germany and Italy), particularly with reference to the Italian company CEMAT.

As we draw closer and closer to a complete deregulation in this sector, looking back on the complex evolution undergone by air transport and its market may be a useful exercise. The intrinsic danger of its trend toward globalisation is due to the fact that there is still no strict monitoring of fleets that can truly guarantee man’s safety. With reference to the relation between ethics and economics, the companies in charge of running airports and airlines must join forces in order to prevent aircrafts that have not passed the most rigorous test from flying over cities and countries. Sadly, this is not yet the case. Furthermore, national government and transport authorities ought to give top-most priority to the task of monitoring both the secondary market of aircrafts and spare parts and the reliability of operator.

Network externalities are the unpaid advantages that users of an interactive network benefit from when the number of network subscribers increases. Hitherto, as far as economic theory is concerned, this concept has mostly been applied to demand model aiming to account for the increasingly widespread phenomenon of new interactive telecommunications technologies. Drawing inspiration from the current literature in telecommunications networks, this article investigates the hypothesis of forming network externalities in the field of combined transport. Indeed, applying demand models with network externalities to combined transport would probably allow a better theoretical interpretation of this market, and lead to a number of practical suggestions. The widespread occurrence of network externalities, which would be achieved through state policies aiming to strength network connectivity, could be a precondition for a significant expansion of this new sector, which will augurably reconcile freight transport and environmental protection.