New Trends in Policy Making for Transport and Regional Network Integration

Transport phenomena are continuously changing in nature, making policy analysis in the transport field a fascinating activity, often dealing with new problems, whose possible resolution is fraught with conflicting interests and concomitant uncertainty. An important change that has become pertinent in recent years concerns the increasing threat of terrorism, as well as the vulnerability due to natural disasters and climate change. Another trend concerns the increasing ineffectiveness of policy makers to concretely realise transport infrastructure projects or to efficiently implement the major changes that are needed to meet the challenges of the coming years. Also, the current transport impact on regional development, possibly leading to regional convergence, has led to considerable debates. Equity issues cannot be ignored when one wants to develop plans to improve the performance of transport and communication systems. The present chapeter brings together a coherent group of issues to these themes, with the aim of providing a picture of new important research challenges, relevant for policy analysis and decision making.