Boosting investment in Europe's transportation infrastructure

The European Commission has set its Europe 2020 strategy, of which economic competitiveness and performance are major platforms. One of the key components in that plan is transport infrastructure. Facilitating sounder finance for infrastructure projects is the overall aim of the EU-funded I-C-EU (Impact of transport infrastructure on international competitiveness of Europe) project.

Work began by exploring the state of the art in the theoretical methodology of current assessment tools used to evaluate transport infrastructure projects, defining competitiveness with respect to infrastructure and growth, and analysing current and future European challenges. This led to a modified methodological framework for policy intervention and recommendations.

The framework was then tested on a representative sample of current transport projects. This was done through selected case studies that included all transport means and various EU regions. The case studies enabled project members to analyse economic growth and competitiveness. They looked at several transport and economic models in analysing competitiveness and regional growth.

Team members provided an overview of EU policy cases based on project outcomes. They developed indicators for use at national and regional levels that contain direct and indirect effects of transport infrastructure investment.

Lastly, recommendations were made on evaluating EU policy on transport infrastructure investment as it relates to competitiveness and economic growth.

I-C-EU shed light on the relationship between investments in transport infrastructure and economic growth and competitiveness. The European Commission is in a better position to boost the international competitiveness of Europe as well as between its Member States and regions.