Torstein Rudihagen

State Secretary of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communication

"Infrastructure policy towards year 2000"

Stockholm 29 April 1996

Opening

Ladies and gentlemen. It is an honour for me to be here today. The topic of my speech is infrastructure policy in Norway.

I have divided the subject into two main areas. To start with I would like to say something about the Norwegian transport policy. Secondly I want to focus on international transport.

Norwegian transport policy

My first main point concerns Norwegian transport policy.

It is important in a modern society that the transport system provides efficient mobility of people and goods. This will enable us to improve growth, competitiveness and employment. Transport has, however, negative impacts such as accidents, environmental and health problems. The challenge in the years to come is to achieve a transport system which provides good mobility for all, a good environment and high level of safety for each and every user of the transport system.

The Norwegian Government has over the last years focused on the importance of a good and efficient transport system. Substantially improvements have been and are beeing made, and this has increased the standard of the infrastructure and given better conditions for transport in all parts of Norway. There is, however, still a need for further development and upgrading of the transport system.

The Norwegian Government has recently presented a report to the Parliament which gives a short presentation of the main principles of the Governments transport policy. The Norwegian Government recognices a clear demand for a more co-ordinated transport policy across transport sectors. Thus there is a strong political eager to develop such co-ordination where priorities to a larger extent than in previous years have to be taken across sectors. A more co-ordinated policy where alternative modes of transport are seen in relation to each other, will enable us to reach a more efficient transport system which provides good traffic float and the least number of accidents, all within the frame of a good environment.

The report will form the basis of more detailed sector plans for road, rail, aviation and for harbour and coast administration which will all be put forward to the Parliament in the spring 1997.

I want to focus on some main points of the report.

The investment policy

The different transport modes have all different qualities and cover different transport demands. In many fields the competition between alternative transport modes is small which implies strong and expensive measures to influence the modal split. A co-ordination of the transport policy across transport sectors, with focus on the interaction between modes, will enable us to reach an efficient transport system with lower direct and indirect costs. On this basis the Norwegian Government wants to establish a more total investment policy in order to develop an efficient transport system which minimises the environmental problems of transport.

In order to improve traffic float and reduce congestion, there is still a need for high investments in roads. This will be important in order to meet the challenge of a good environment, especially in cities. Investments in roads will be balanced against use of other measures, for instance investments in public transport and use of taxes in the transport sector.

Railway has its advantage especially in areas with high transport volumes. Thus the Government wants to focus on railway in areas where it has a special importance. I would however highlight that even a large increase in the extent of railway will have a relative small effect on the transport on roads.

The Government wants to focus on safety, capacity and punctuality of the aviation system, and improve the technical and operational standard based on international agreements and the technological development. The transport standard will be considered in order to achieve the most rational split between different airports and different transport modes. The development of the new main airport for the Oslo area is important.

The Government focuses on the development of sea transport and efficient harbours for shipping, delivery of goods and reload between transport modes. The development of sea transport and efficient harbours must be related to the development of roads and railway. The Government wants to ensure good connection between important harbours, terminals and the land based transport system. The Government wants to give priority to some important harbours as part of the development of central transport corridors in and out of Norway. This will be very important for the future development of sea transport.

Existing transport systems

It is not only important to invest in new infrastructure, but also to have an efficient use of existing transport systems. To obtain an efficient transport system, the prices must reflect the direct as well as the indirect costs of transport. Further, the Government wants to continue the work on reregulations in order to provide good transport solutions for all parts of Norway. This depends on good cooperation between central and local authorities, and the Government will continue this work together with local authorities.

Telecommunication

Telecommunication will to a larger extent in the future affect and be an integrated part of the transport sector, for instance by distance education and training, teleworking and by transport telematics. It is however uncertaint in what way telecommunication will influence total volume of transport and the modal split, and how this eventually will influence the development of transport systems in the future. This depends to a large extent on how telecommunication is implemented. On the one hand telecommunication would replace physical transport and reduce travel demand. Teleworking would for instance reduce congestion in city areas and thus give environmental improval. On the other hand telecommunication would increase the contact between people, companies etc which may also increase the extent of travel.

The Government wants to support the development and implementation of telecommunication in order to increase the efficiency of transport.

International transport

My second main point concerns international transport.

Norway has a very open economy that to a large degree is pointed towards Europe. Hence a good infrastructure is important. This is not least important for our industry with high transport costs which thus strongly depends on good infrastructure to be able to compete. Lower transport costs will increase competition and give new market possibilities, and is very important in the work for increased growth, competitiveness and employment.

The EU has concentrated a lot of effort on the development of the trans-European networks (TENs) the last few years. The development and implementation of the TENs in transport-, telecommunication and energy infrastructure sectors is considered to be important in the work for higher growth, competitiveness and employment by strengthening the competitiveness and regional development. As part of the work with the TENs the Christophersen Commission made a list of projects which was considered to be the most important projects.

The development of infrastructure in Europe will increase the accessibility between the EU-memberstates and thus their relative competitiveness. Norway lies in the outer region of Europe, and thus has longer distance to the markets in Europe than the

countries in Central Europe. The development of transport infrastructure in the EU increases the accessibility between these countries, and Norways need for efficient transports.

Nordic co-ordination of infrastructure projects is important in order to improve the connection between the Nordic countries and the connection between the Nordic countries and Central Europe.

Over a long time the Nordic countries have worked together on transport issues, both within the Nordic Council and in more unformal ways. At the end of the 1980s the Nordic Council produced an action plan which strongly focused on the demand for good road and railway connections in the Nordic countries. The Nordic Prime Ministers also clearly said that the Nordic countries should speed up the work with projects which are of common Nordic interests. In 1993 an infrastructure report was presented, and a Nordic working group will spring/summer 1997 present a new Nordic infrastructure report. In 1993 a Norwegian-Swedish co-ordinating group was appointed. The group works for a rational and co-ordinated implementation of road and railway projects between Norway ansd Sweden within national approved plans and budgets, first of all projects along the corridor Oslo-Gothenburg.

In the Christophersen Commission Norway together with Sweden and Finland proposed a common project called "The Nordic Triangle". The project consists of the corridors Oslo - Gothenburg - Malmö, Oslo - Stockholm - Malmö and Helsinki - Stockholm - Malmö, and consists of both road- og railway connections, including necessary ferries and harbours. The Triangle connects the three Nordic capitals Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen through the Øresund link, and the project will be important as Norway becomes more economically integrated with the EU. The Norwegian part of the project contains of the roads E 6 Oslo - Svinesund/Swedish border including the Oslofjord connection and E 18 Oslo - Ørje/Swedish border and of the railways The Østfold Line Oslo - Kornsjö and The Kongsvinger Line Oslo - Magnor/Swedish border.

The Norwegian Government will develop infrastructure which includes the most important transport corridors abroad and the most important corridors for Norwegian industry. Good connection and co-ordination between landbased transport and sea transport in the harbours and better conditions for combined freight transports is important. These aspects are stressed in the report recently put forward to the Parliament.

The approval of transport plans are strongly connected to other national plans which might focus on other aspects, and within the transport sector there might be conflicts between different goals. The development of common infrastructure in the Nordic countries has thus from various groups been criticized for getting too slow. I find it important to say that both the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications

and the Norwegian Government wants as good co-ordination as possible. Further I would like to mention that next year new infrastructure plans for the period 1998-2007 will be produced both in Norway and Sweden. Thus, this time we have a better

opportunity than earlier to focus on an co-ordinated development across the borders than previous when such a concurrence in planning time did not exist. The two Ministries will stress this in the planning process.

Thank you for your attention.