Danube Macro-Region, projects prioritisation

Transport Study for the Danube Macro-Region

The study was conceived for the EU Strategy, specifically for the Priority Area 1b of Mobility and Multimodality, addressing road, rail and air transport modes. The EU Strategy tackled mobility challenges and aimed at identifying opportunities to support the development of transport networks within the so-called Danube Macro-Region, whose geographical scope embraces fourteen European countries.

The overall objective of the study was to create an integrated multimodal transport study. The tasks of the study were organised to cover the following activities:

• perform an extensive review of studies, at national and supranational level, and databases to collect information on the transport sectors, socio-economic characteristics, future demand projections as well as proposed transport projects.
• elaborate a baseline scenario of the Danube Macro-Region analysing (i) the transport demand and forecasts, (ii) physical and non-physical bottlenecks and (iii) environmental and safety issues.
• identify relevant linkages to ports emerged from the Inland Waterway 1a study that could be tied with the three modes considered.
• split the Danube Macro-Region in a number of Functional Regions to go beyond a country centric approach.
• evaluate current priorities and developments in linkage to the TEN-T core network corridors.
• carry out a stakeholders consultation for projects identification.

The study identified 23 relevant projects representative of the broadest types of transport problems identified in the Danube Macro-Region, or that could be faced in the future.

The projects were all considered relevant for the development of the transport sector and the final list stemmed from a long list of interventions proposed by the CNCs studies, the SEETO Multi Annual Plans, the updated REBIS study, as well as the national transport plans and strategies. Also, other projects proposed by interested stakeholders were taken into consideration.

The proposed projects were selected taking into account relevant criteria: estimated investment costs, timing of implementation, ability to address bottlenecks or safety issues and geographical and modal distribution. The analysis rendered a comprehensive description of the proposed projects despite the fact that some information was missing.

The approach followed and the screening and data collected for all the projects from the various studies, plans and strategies gathered, could be a useful starting point for further and specific analyses and for the identification of a lively pipeline of relevant projects in the region. The framework of the identified Functional Regions could give additional guidance in this sense.