Abstract
Towns and cities interact increasingly in polycentric systems, notably in Europe, due to the specific features of its urban network, as well as the common policies aimed at preserving and enhancing the territorial cohesion in the European Union.
These systems, however, are confronted with barriers of different typologies along the internal borders that still hinder citizens’ mobility and freight flows, thus limiting positive interactions between nodes and the internal market potential.
This chapter examines the implications on mobility and logistics for towns and cities as nodes of functional—not administrative—polycentric systems, focusing on a sample of functional systems that span across national borders of the EU, building on the knowledge gathered in European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion (ESPON) since its inception.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
EU Cohesion Policy aims at ensuring the Union’s economic and social cohesion—as defined in the 1986 Single European Act—by “reducing disparities between the various regions and the backwardness of the least-favoured regions”. This concept has been qualified by the Lisbon Treaty referring to “economic, social and territorial cohesion”. Accordingly, the cohesion policy promotes more balanced, more sustainable “territorial development”—see also DG REGIO website http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/faq/
- 2.
The Common Agricultural Policy includes, among its goals:
-
ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources, and climate action, as well as
-
achieving a balanced territorial development of rural economies and communities including the creation and maintenance of employment;
Among its most meaningful elements are:
-
the ad hoc fund for rural development (EAFRD);
-
a wide use of agri-environmental measures (voluntary environmentally conscious schemes that go beyond mandatory standards, covering more than 25% of the total utilised agriculture area, according to Eurostat (2009) data). Such an articulated land-use policy calls for a diffused network of centres in parallel with territorial cohesion vision aimed at tackling depopulation and ensuring the provision of services/a diffused network of centres.
-
- 3.
Almagro, M.-Gobrea (1994). “From Hillforts to Oppida in ‘Celtic’ Iberia”. Proceedings of the British Academy 86, 175–207.
- 4.
The network density is anyhow relatively uneven: denser in the centre (from the UK to Northern Italy, passing through Benelux, Southern France, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic—see FUAs map in the text), and along the EU coastal areas, hosting more than 200 million people, due to the historical connectivity function of the sea, notably in the second millennium (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/iczm/index_en.htm) that has fostered trade and finance (inter caetera: Luis Lobo-Guerrero, Insuring Security: Biopolitics, security and risk and productive activities, 2011, Routledge), and evolved in network of nodes such as the Hanseatic League.
- 5.
European Commission, Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy—United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2016). The State of European Cities in 2016 – Cities leading the way to a better future.
- 6.
Only three mega-cities are present in Europe as a whole (Paris, London and Moscow, to which the diffused system of the Ruhr-Rhine is added by some analysis).
- 7.
As appraised by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2014), World Urbanization Prospects: “The urban population of the world has grown rapidly from 746 million in 1950 to 3.9 billion in 2014. Asia, despite its lower level of urbanization, is home to 53% of the world’s urban population, followed by Europe with 14%. By 2050, India is projected to add 404 million urban dwellers, China 292 million”.
- 8.
China urbanisation has been increasing over 1% per year over the last decade, as recalled in the In-Depth Analysis on China’s Economic Outlook (2015) by the Directorate General For External Policies of the European Parliament; this increase is linked to large cities urbanisation, rather than towns and suburbs, as shown is The State of the European Cities previously mentioned in endnotes 4 and 5.
- 9.
Due also to linguistic barriers, intra-EU mobility appears to be modest in comparison with the US, where the share of persons who lived a year ago in a different state accounted for 2.7% of the population in 2011–12, while mobility within the EU relative to the population represents roughly one tenth of that level (annual cross-border mobility rate estimated around 0.2%)—European Commission: MEMO on Labour Mobility within the EU, Brussels, 25 September 2014.
- 10.
European Commission (2015) Commission Staff Working Document “Examples of EU added value”, SWD(2015) 124 final: “EU added value is best defined as the value resulting from an EU intervention which is additional to the value that would have been otherwise created by member states alone, and can be assessed on the basis of the following 3 criteria:
-
Effectiveness: It may be more effective where it is the only way to get results to create missing links, avoid fragmentations, and realise the potential of border-free Europe.
-
Efficiency: It may also be more efficient where the EU offers better value for money because externalities can be addressed, resources or expertise can be pooled, and action can be better coordinated.
-
Synergy: It may create synergies; where EU action is necessary to complement, stimulate, and leverage actions to reduce disparities, raise standards”.
-
- 11.
European Commission (2008) Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion: Turning territorial diversity into strength. COM(2008) 616 final.
- 12.
European Council of Ministers responsible for Spatial Planning (1999). ESDP—European Spatial Development Perspective: Towards Balanced and Sustainable Development of the Territory of the European Union (http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/reports/pdf/sum_en.pdf)
- 13.
European Commission – Eurostat (2017). Statistical explained - glossary. Eurostat Website: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Functional_urban_area
- 14.
An urban area is formed, according to Eurostat and ESPON, by contiguous elements (cells) of a grid of 1 km × 1 km with population exceeding 1500 ab (or, which is equivalent, with population density above 1500 ab/km2).
- 15.
ESPON EGTC (2014). Poster—Functional Urban Areas in Europe: https://www.espon.eu/topics-policy/publications/posters/poster-functional-urban-areas-europe
- 16.
Kai Böhme Philippe Doucet, Tomasz Komornicki, Jacek Zaucha, Dariusz Świtek (2011). Report based on the Territorial Agenda 2020 prepared at a request of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
- 17.
Fabrizio Barca (2009). An Agenda for a Reformed Cohesion Policy – A place-based approach to meeting European Union challenges and expectations.
- 18.
OECD (2015). Divergent Cities Conference, Cambridge.
- 19.
For an overview of NUTS—Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics—Eurostat website provides an up-to-date overview: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/overview
- 20.
The generalised cost of transport for a given user is assumed in its simplest definition equal the financial cost of transport plus the value of time—for the latter as EU references refer to Artem Korzhenevych, Nicola Dehnen (DIW econ), Johannes Bröcker, Michael Holtkamp, Henning Meier (CAU), Gena Gibson, Adarsh Varma, Victoria Cox (Ricardo-AEA) (2014). Update of the Handbook on External Costs of Transport: Final Report for the European Commission.
- 21.
“Interoperability” in the transport sector means the ability, including all the regulatory, technical and operational conditions, of the infrastructure in a transport mode to allow safe and uninterrupted traffic flows which achieve the required levels of performance for that infrastructure or mode, as defined by Regulation (EU) No. 1315/2013—Union guidelines for the development of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).
- 22.
Such systems can be quite cumbersome in terms of administrative and financial agreements, including agreements on toll collection/transfer, to proceed to a clearing in more general terms; notwithstanding this, it is worth remarking that integrated ticketing does not necessarily require electronic ticketing in principle (as shown by the EU-wide, mono-modal examples of BIJ or Inter Rail, or by early multimodal public transport systems)—electronic ticketing, however, is useful to gather information on the demand, to fight frauds, and is necessary to perform ex post clearing between different transport operators according to the actual journeys, thus incentivising the operators that capture more public and compensating additional investments.
- 23.
ISO/IEC 14443-1:2008 Identification cards—Contactless integrated circuit cards—Proximity cards: http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=39693
- 24.
More than 10 million passengers in Eurostar and around 6.7 million passengers using Thalys Network—Source: European Commission (2012) and press releases by Thalys and Eurostar.
- 25.
Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2010 on the framework for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems in the field of road transport and for interfaces with other modes of transport Text with EEA relevance.
- 26.
Jean Hopkin (TRL), Mark Wedlock (Arup), Simon Ball (TRL), Nicholas Knowles, Jonathan Harrod Booth, Mark Fell (TTR), Alan Stevens (TRL) (2016). Study on ITS Directive, Priority Action A: The Provision of EU-wide Multimodal Travel Information Services @ European Commission.
- 27.
Technical Specification for Interoperability relating to the subsystem “Telematics Applications for Passenger Services” of the trans-European rail system—Commission Regulation (EU) No. 454/2011 eventually amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No. 527/2016.
- 28.
See Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking website https://shift2rail.org/
- 29.
Agence de l’Eurométropole (2013). Strategie Eurométropole Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai 2014–2020.
- 30.
Currently merged with Poitou-Charentes and Limousine in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region.
- 31.
Formally Trentino and South Tyrol are autonomous districts, or provinces, endowed with the same power of autonomous regions (and provinces) by the Italian constitution—they are considered NUTS 2 Regions with reference to EU policies.
- 32.
See also Fokus Oresund n. 2—May 2010.
- 33.
A specific feature relevant to the Baltic states, which interconnects the 1520 mm-wide “Russian” gauge with UIC gauge, and to the Iberian Peninsula—where a strategic plan of the gradual deployment of UIC-gauge rail infrastructure is needed to set up adequate freight terminals and ensure efficient long-range and international connections of the “Iberian”-gauge (1668-mm-wide) network.
- 34.
As defined by Directive 2008/96/EC.
- 35.
Ministry of Economy, Labour and Transport of Niedersachsen (2011). Freight Villages in Lower Saxony.
Bibliography
Almagro, M.-G. (1994). From Hillforts to Oppida in ‘Celtic’ Iberia. Proceedings of the British Academy, 86, 175–207.
Barca, F. (2009). An Agenda for a Reformed Cohesion Policy – A Place-Based Approach to Meeting European Union Challenges and Expectations. European Commission.
Böhme, K., Doucet, P., Komornicki, T., Zaucha, J., & Świtek, D. (2011). Report Based on the Territorial Agenda 2020 Prepared at a Request of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. European Council.
Burger, M. J., et al. (2014). Borrowed Size, Agglomeration Shadows and Cultural Amenities in North-West Europe. European Planning Studies, 23, 1090–1109.
Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2010 on the Framework for the Deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems in the Field of Road Transport and for Interfaces with Other Modes of Transport.
ESPON EGTC. (2014). Poster – Functional Urban Areas in Europe.
European Commission. (2008). Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion: Turning Territorial Diversity into Strength. COM(2008) 616 final.
European Commission. (2015). Commission Staff Working Document “Examples of EU Added Value”. SWD(2015) 124 Final.
European Commission, Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy – United Nations Human Settlement Programme. (2016). The State of European Cities 2016: Cities Leading the Way to a Better Future.
Fokus Oresund n. 2 – May 2010.
Hopkin, J., Wedlock, M., Ball, S., Knowles, N., Booth, J. H., Fell, M., & Stevens, A. (2016). Study on ITS Directive, Priority Action A: The Provision of EU-Wide Multimodal Travel Information Services.
Korzhenevych, A., Dehnen, N. Bröcker, J., Holtkamp, M., Meier, H. Gibson, G., Varma, A., & Cox, V. (2014). Update of the Handbook on External Costs of Transport. Final Report.
Meijers, E. J., Burger, M. J., & Hoogerbrugge, M. M. (2016). Borrowing Size in Networks of Cities: City Size, Network Connectivity and Metropolitan Functions in Europe. Papers in Regional Science, 95(1), 190–191.
Ministry of Economy, Labour and Transport of Niedersachsen. (2011). Freight Villages in Lower Saxony.
OECD. (2015). Divergent Cities Conference, Cambridge. Divergent Cities Conference Presentations. http://www.cpes.org.uk/divergent-cities-conference-presentations/
United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs. (2014). World Urbanization Prospects.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
De Grandis, C. (2019). Polycentric Functional Structures Across EU Borders: A Transport Perspective. In: Fernández-Prado, M., Domínguez Castro, L. (eds) City Policies and the European Urban Agenda. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10847-2_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10847-2_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-10846-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-10847-2
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)