Sea terminals for passangers

Versión en español

The sea terminals for passengers are harbor terminals specialized in the passenger transport. They can be classified in three major groups according to the kind of traffic they are linked to and the type of vessel which conducts the service.

Health and Safety at the work place

Versión en español

The health prevention at the work place has been treated widely on the legislative level. Another matter is to actually know, if the existing laws are being obeyed and if the prevention systems are being implemented correctly. However, for this purpose the inspectors, the judges and the professional ethics of the responsibles in the administration of the organizations already exist. Occupational prevention is divided in two specialities: health care and Industrial Hygiene which treat “health” from two different angles. The first one is centred in the individual person and the second one in the work place.

The revolution of containers in cargo transport

(Ver versión en español)

When in 1956 the North American citizen Malcom McLean, owner of a truck company, conceived his first maritime container, I would like to know, if he already imagined the revolution which his design would cause in the transport of goods. The first shipment which was realized with this kind of cargo was made from Newark (New Jersey) to the harbour of Houston (Texas). The first intercontinental crossing goes back to 1966 (New York, Rotterdam, Bremen, Grangemouth). Since then the growth of its journeys has been exponential, and nowadays, the containers which travel through the world are counted in billions. The transport of containers by sea, added up to 13 % of the worldwide shipped traffic in 2012, as most of the products transported by ships are petroleum derivates or bulk freight. (UNCTAD/RMT2012)

¿Hacia qué modelo urbano nos dirigimos: la ciudad mundial o las ciudades-mundo?

Aeropuerto Charles de Gaulle.
Este tipo de infraestructuras resulta fundamental 
para el crecimiento de las metrópolis y la globalización

Estas Navidades he tenido la ocasión de leer el ensayo de Marc Augé: Por una antropología de la movilidad GEDISA (2007) en el que realiza unos planteamientos muy significativos sobre nuestra reciente evolución social y por qué resulta tan complicado comprender lo que nos sucede. Marc Augé lo resume con el concepto de sobremodernidad.

La primera pregunta que nos hacemos es: ¿qué es eso de la sobremodernidad? La sobremodernidad es una idea defendida desde hace años por este autor para referirse a determinadas características que tiene nuestra sociedad posmoderna; sometida a un exceso de causas que hacen muy complejo realizar cualquier tipo de análisis; donde la aceleración de la historia multiplica los acontecimientos y genera una superabundancia de información; las tecnologías producen un cambio en la percepción de nuestro planeta, cada vez es más "pequeño", al que nos aproximamos con constantes cambios de escala al referirnos a los múltiples acontecimientos con los que nos abruman los medios de comunicación; cambios de escala tambien en la forma de desplazarnos; donde se exalta el individualismo como una característica vinculada al éxito y al progreso en nuestra sociedad capitalista.

La universalización frente al particularismo

Sobre la maraña de acontecimientos que produce la sobremodernidad en la que nos movemos los seres humanos, Marc Augé pone su foco de atención en la lucha de dos corrientes ideológicas contrapuestas que compiten desde el siglo pasado por su supremacía dentro de nuestra cultura. Por un lado tenemos la visión universalizadora que recoge la tradición liberal por el crecimiento de bienes y servicios, así como el paulatino desarrollo de los medios de transporte y comunicación, reforzando la globalización y apoyándose en la exaltación del sujeto individual (del individualismo). Esta visión universalizadora también incorpora teorías ideológicas transversales de conciencia ecológica y social que el autor vincula con una idea de planetarización. Nuestro planeta es un cuerpo astrofísico que está en peligro (la Teoría de Gaia sería un ejemplo), al que hay que proteger con unos crecimientos económicos, ambientales y sociales sostenibles.  Por otro lado nos encontramos ante el ímpetu de ideologías que reivindican la identidad territorial y cultural como elementos aglutinadores de comunidades que no desean quedar desdibujadas bajo el peso de la  globalización, de la que deben defenderse o desean modificar. En este segundo grupo de ideologías, por contraposición a las anteriores, existe una clara exaltación del sujeto colectivo frente al individuo.

¿Estamos ante dos modelos ideológicos y urbanos, o tal vez no?

En esta obra Marc Augé también nos describe dos modelos urbanos vinculados con la dualidad ideológica entre la universalización y el particularismo. Bajo el soporte de la globalización existen tendencias urbanas que promueven el desarrollo de una ciudad mundial o de carácter planetario. Una metaciudad sin fronteras en donde el tejido urbano se extiende junto a los ríos y las costas, siguiendo las principales vías de comunicación como si de una extensa red de filamentos se tratara, donde puntualmente se desarrollan extensas megalópolis que funcionan como nodos de comunicación de una red mundial de circulación para las personas, los bienes, los servicios y las informaciones. Una utopía planetaria homogénea tanto en el orden cultural, como económico y lingüístico.

La otra corriente ideológica tiene una visión mucho más fragmentada del modelo urbano: las ciudades mundo, donde la población, que también se concentra en grandes núcleos urbanos, genera desigualdades y confrontaciones, pero son ciudades donde por el contrario pueden anclarse las diferentes identidades culturales. Se trata de ciudades-mundo receptoras de diversas migraciones que crean ecosistemas urbanos complejos, muy diversos  y difíciles de gestionar. Aquí no hay una utopía planetaria sino más bien una utopía territorial y cultural particularmente homogeneizadora en la que cada ciudad-región adopta su idiosincrasia.

Probablemente la realidad que se está configurando sea una combinación de ambos modelos urbanos sobrepuestos, donde hay individuos de éxito que se convierten en baluartes de una globalidad de marcado corte liberal, cuyos principales valores son la desterritorialización y el individualismo. Realmente no tenemos que hacer un gran esfuerzo para imaginarlo, podemos fijarnos en nuestros artistas más famosos, en nuestros deportistas de élite, en los políticos más destacados o en los altos ejecutivos para hacernos una idea del perfil de éxito que genera la ciudad mundial. Y sin embargo, también forman parte de este presente-futuro muchos individuos sometidos a un sedentarismo forzoso por razones económicas o culturales, que quedan segregados de la metacirculación de la ciudad mundial y de su hipermovilidad (aquí me reservo mis dudas en función de la evolución del negocio low-cost en los medios de transporte), ciudadanos distribuidos por los barrios de las grandes metrópolis con reivindicaciones identitarias, territoriales, culturales o religiosas. Actualmente ya podemos observar cómo se consolida esa realidad dual, que se superpone como en un palimpsesto. Finalmente quiero destacar un fragmento de la obra de M. Augé donde expone la lucha y el solape de esta dualidad paradójica:

“Asimismo, la ciudad-mundo y la ciudad mundial parecen estrechamente ligadas la una a la otra, aunque de manera contradictoria: la ciudad mundial representa el ideal y la ideología del sistema de globalización, mientras que en la ciudad-mundo se manifiestan las contradicciones –o, dicho de otro modo, las tensiones históricas- que genera el sistema. Asimismo, la unión de las ciudades-mundo y de la ciudad-mundial provoca la aparición de las zonas vacías y porosas que trata Philippe Vaset, que no son sino el lado oculto de la universalización o, al menos, el lado que ni podemos, ni queremos, ni sabemos ver.”   (pág.39)

Las zonas vacías y porosas a las se refiere en este texto forman parte de lo que el autor denomina los no lugares,  pero explicar este concepto requiere escribir unas cuantas líneas más que me comprometo a desarrollar en otro post.

New York, principal nodo de la red mundial de comunicación
  by Trödel in Creative Commons

Por cierto, si algún lector después de leer este post -por asociación de ideas- se pregunta cómo se llama el planeta-ciudad que aparece en la saga cinematográfica de Star Wars, le ahorraré la búsqueda en google: es CORUSCANT. En algunas novelas de ciencia ficción escritas por Isaac Asimov también se hace mención a un planeta totalmente urbanizado denominado TRANTOR. ¡Menuda pesadilla vivir allí!

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Otros artículos relacionados:

La globalización de la economía y sus consecuencias en la logística y el transporte

La evolución del transporte a la movilidad, una nueva visión

Carpooling el "autostop 2.0" del siglo XXI

Three viewpoints about human mobility (english version)

A road on Tenerife Island

Recently I have read an article in the magazine Ciudades signed by Blanca Rebeca Ramírez Velázquez of the “Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xoichinilco (México)” which refers to the different approaches and dimensions which mobility can have conceptually. In this post I will share some of the ideas put forward in this interesting article, adding nuances and examples which support them.

The “Real Academia de la Lengua Española” (Royal Academy of the Spanish Language) defines mobility as: Quality of moveable, whereas moveable comprises all that is moveable on its own or is capable to move by external impulse. The 13th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes that all people have the right to circulate freely and to choose their residence within the territory of a state. The “Movilia” survey which is elaborated in Spain, defines mobility as a strategy of the persons to organize their daily activities and which has as its prime objective to achieve the highest efficiency in their use of the different transport infrastructures. The law 9/2003 about mobility of the “Generalitat de Catalunya” defines the latter as the totality of movements of people and goods for labour, training, sanitary, social, cultural or private reasons or any other reason not stated here. Yet another and more simple definition, we find in “El libro verde del Medio Ambiente Urbano (2007)” (The green book of urban environment, 2007), which refers to mobility as a medium of access to goods, services and people.

Blanca R. Ramírez understands mobility as an attribute or a quality regarding the capacity to move, as explains the definition of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language. The mobility associated with persons and their activities is defined by historical evolution of technology, culture and society itself. Marc Augé introduced the concept of “supermodern mobility” when he talks about the current mobility of human beings, with a degree of complexity that overburdens us with its causes and multiple parameters to be kept in mind when we want to analyse it.

In her article B. R. Ramírez envisions three approximations to the concept of mobility in our society.

In the first place she differentiates between mobilities that are carried out the same day and those with a more permanent character, defined as migrations. This would be the first criterion for differentiation: the permanent or not-permanent character of mobility. The apparition of the various statistic techniques have been narrowing this line between the movements the population undertakes daily and the migrations human beings make. The spacial and temporal scale will determine when we speak of migration and when of mobility. And for this reason they observe the characteristics of the movement (interstate or intrastate, interurban or intraurban...) and their frequency in time.

The second criteria offered by the author of the article is that mobility is an attribute to the persons and their activities and not so much of the places. The delimitation would come with two different concepts: on the one hand there is mobility that actuates on persons (I would also add the goods that the will of persons wants to move) and on the other hand the transport which refers to the media which permit persons and objects to circulate from one place to the other. If we suppose that mobility is an objective with a finality (a right, a necessity, a pleasure), we understand that there are different strategies to carry it out, for example the design of the infrastructures which are built or different tactics for their use with reference to the necessary vectors for their execution, i. e. the transport means. The totality of these strategies and tactics of use will determine the final type of mobility, which generates determinate processes of appropriation, transformation and use of territory and which will change it constantly.

The third approximation to the concept of mobility concentrates on the accessibility and connectivity, which determine the frequency in which the traffic of the different media is generated. To understand the concept of accessibility we view the verbs “enter” and “leave”, as accessibility is an attribute proper to places, defined by the transport means that accede to a building, a district, a town, a region… The diversity, the quality, the frequency of the infrastructures and of the media, will improve or deteriorate the accessibility level of the place. The concept of connectivity we understand better if we view the verb “unite” as connectivity refers to an attribute proper to networks, which in our case is formed by the combination of infrastructures and the transport means. Today mobility in modern societies disposes of a level of connectivity to an extent that it is able to generate interactions between different places without the necessity of a physical accessibility of the same. Telephony, internet and all the telecommunications in general do so. The rural areas are an example for this change or as an extreme case the mountaineers who from the top of a peak they have conquered they call a relative or friend by mobile to tell them that they have arrived. A greater extent of connectivity means a lesser extent of accessibility?

As we have seen, mobility has a polyhedral nature proper to whatever human attribute. The investigators classify and dissect it to better understand this phenomenon. Concepts and attributes that we see change with time and that make themselves more complex. However, we must not forget, that mobility also has ideologies due to its proper finalist nature, but this will be material for another post.

We perceive mobility since ours first games.

For more information view this link:

BlancaRebeca Ramírez Velázquez: “Alcances y dimensiones de la movilidad: aclarando conceptos.” Revista Ciudades nª 82 (2009)

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

Fatal road accidents can be avoided:Principal elements of "Vision Zero"

Tourism and urban mobility "ad hoc"

Fatal road accidents can be avoided. Principal elements of the "Vision Zero" (english version)

The “Vision Zero” is a policy for driving safety, which was developed in the 90s of last century in Sweden. The Vision Zero was approved in the Swedish Parliament in 1999 and is based on the definition of basic elements on top of which a conceptual body and measures are built in order to avoid that road traffic produces deaths or heavy disability in the people that use it.

The Vision Zero was approved in Sweden in 1999

The principal elements of this driving safety policy are the following

The first element has an ethical character: Life and health are superior values. For the Zero Perspective they are not negotiable and are above any changes that favour mobility; such as speed, accessibility, comfort, efficiency, respect for the environment…all these have to submit to the ethical value of this policy. The loss of a human life is inacceptable.

The second element is based in the global concept of responsibility. Up to now responsibility for the collisions in traffic was principally and uniformly attributed to the users of the public infrastructures. The Vision Zero defends the concept of shared responsibility between the providers of the service, the users, their designers, the authorities of the transport infrastructures, the automotive industry as well as the police. They all are the responsibles for the correct functioning of the system and that the traffic rules are respected. With this policy it is no longer only the users that have the responsibility that the rules are obeyed, it is also the designers, the authorities and the security corps that hold the responsibility for the voluntary and induced compliance of these rules. Also the automobile producers are responsible to comply with certain production parameters which contemplate minimum security standards in defence of life and health. 

The third element is the establishment of a security culture which comprises the whole of society and which contemplates the human factor of the phenomenon. The exclusive responsibility of the user of the public infrastructures disappears and a new focus on two new premises is established: the first of these is the human factor. Human beings commit mistakes. People can misjudge, distract themselves, fall ill,... and so its a logical consequence that we make mistakes, however, the traffic system must not fail. For example, today the system still permits that we reach 140 km/h driving at a minimum distance to another vehicle that circulates in front of us. The system should impede these situations. The second premise is the critical limit, when once exceeded, the survival and the recuperation of a traumatism is no longer possible. We have to respect the biomechanical tolerances of our bodies, which the road system should protect. We know that the transport system combines human beings with heavy and speedy motorized machines which are controlled by people. For this reason the instability is inherent to our transport system itself, as it is based largely on the human factor.

The Vision Zero has to take into account the human factor, as “error” is integrated in the ADN of the transport system. For this reason the design of the transport system has to be laid out in such a way that it avoids heavy injuries or deaths, although a certain level of collisions with light traumatisms might be assumed. The essential objective of this security policy is to avoid the chain of incidents which result in severe collisions which cause deaths and permanent disability. In the transport system people should not subject themselves to kinetic forces which exceed the human tolerance level and which put their health in danger, however, while the technology permits it, prudence and training should guarantee the integrity of the person.

What measures have been adopted in Sweden since the introduction of the Zero Perspective?

Regarding the technology of the vehicles: 

• Wide support of the Euro-NCAP programme (European New Car Assessment Programme)
• Use of restraints in all vehicles. Use of retention systems in all vehicles. The intention is to guarantee a generalized application
• Generalization of the active and passive security systems in the vehicles
• Generalization of the air-bag technologies
• Implementation of the automatic break
• Improvement of the technologies for energetic saving

In the infrastructures: 

• Encourage the local authorities to establish 30 km/h zones in the high risk areas for the less protected users
• Increase the number of cameras for detection of excess velocity
• Change of perspective in the design of the infrastructures and the speed administration with new engineering concepts in which security predominates

In control and monitoring: 

• Increase of the random breath and drug testing of the drivers (Alcolocks) 
• Promotion of road safety as a competitive factor between companies for the adjudication of transport contracts
• Promotion of evaluation systems with procedures for information intake and processing generated in the system
• Implementation of intelligent traffic systems
• Establish controls in the web to collect determined atmospheric parameters which generate better information and which facilitate the decision making of the authorities and the drivers

In the service sector and education: 

• Promote security as a competitive factor in the transport contracts. New social responsibility policies for companies which are generalizing themselves in the professional world: (CSR) Corporate Social Responsibility
• Tax incentives for road security
• Promotion in the media and in the training centres of the values in which the Vision Zero is based

Avoid fatal accidents on the roads is possible.

There are places, where road safety is taken seriously. In this post I explained what has been achieved in Sweden. In Spain there are still many people who think that traffic accidents are the price we have to pay for modern mobility. Nothing lies further from the truth. The idea that road accidents are inevitable or unforeseeable is proving false. We should be less tolerant to have fatal accident victims. Vision Zero is an ambitious goal, but not impossible to achieve. 




Bibliographical sources consulted: 
http://www.visionzeroinitiative.com/ 
WHO (2004) World report on road traffic injury. 

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

Tourism and urban mobility "ad hoc"

Using Twitter in Public Transports (english version)

In an article published in the daily newspaper La Vanguardia by Joana Bonet titled “Burbujas con pin” (bubbles with pin), the important changes which smartphones, eBooks, ipod and other electronic devices have on our manner to communicate and to relate ourselves with other human beings are mentioned. In this article three of these changes were pointed out:

The protection these devices provide us, with regard to strangers who share the same space with us (like metro or bus stations, corridors in public installations, etc.) where “people don’t look themselves openly in the eyes any more, but take refuge in their screens”. This vision clashes frontally with the one defined by George Amar and his concept of “religance” in transportation, which has been explained in a number of articles of this blog. This term maybe responds to the multifaceted vision of a human phenomenon sufficiently complex as to explain it with a single paradigm.

Significant is the autosufficiency which we gain with the use of these devices, as we no longer have to ask a stranger how to reach a certain place or our current location. The GPS and all its applications have given us access to the immediate knowledge of our position in a system of worldwide reference. But it also has been a great progress for conjugal live, of which I can bear witness, as I’ve made a lot of kilometres on the European roads accompanied by my wife. First with a voluminous atlas and later on with the GPS receptor Tom-Tom: its many hours of stupid discussions over interpretation and execution that this little electronic commodity has spared us. It’s obvious that – although put aside – we have not abandoned the old Shell Atlas, as the technology sometimes still succumbs to various incidents which this traditional road book can endure.

And in the third place, the article highlights a new “private bubble”, expression created by the Israeli city planner Tali Hatuka to name the isolation from the phisical world, these technologies provide for us. They seduce ourselves with new forms of communication and entertainment which occupy our time, especially the time we need to move ourselves. Now we find ourselves in the strange circumstance that while travelling we can be at 20 cm of another person and easily ignore him or her. The small device creates an invisible bubble around us, which isolates us from the other passengers, more or less anonymous companions of our commute flows to and through the big metropolis.

Barcelona's underground

A few months ago I had the luck to assist to a conference organized by AMTU in Martorell, in which Sanderijn Baanders was explaining in her speech "Impact of social media in public transport. Use of Twitter in The Netherlands" some of the conclusions from the studies about the impact of the use of the social networks in the public means of transport.

Communication via internet has diversified notably: from the more conventional means as websites, newletters, electronic mails or SMS, over social networks (Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter and Youtube) until the most recent applications apps disigned for use in smartphones, as for example the QR codes. It is interesting to observe, what influence for example Twitter has on the transportation (in the conference the case of the Netherlands was explained) with the flow of information that circulates between operators with passengers and vice versa or between the passengers of public transport themselves. The speaker pointed out that depending on the kind of fluctuations, the type of information interchanged also varied. Sanderijn Baanders classified three groups of information interchange:

Of the operator to the users:
The information given in this flow of information is basically about the stops, time-schedules, news about the operating company, incidents, delays, interruptions of the service or answers to the most frequent questions of the clients.

Of the users to the operator:
The information basically refers to complaints about the service rendered by the operator, concrete or general questions, information about vandalism and to a lesser extent about suggestions for the improvement of the service.

Between the users:
The information usually are messages of sympathy, compliments and encouragements, also information interchanges about ticket controls, discussions of passengers and information about events, incidents, flash mob, even accidents that might produce themselves in the infrastructure of the transport network.

Baanders gave data of two Twitter users: @NS_online  (National Railways) Dutch train operator, now  while I'am writting this post has 46.000 followers with an average of 500 – 1.000 tweets per week and @TotalOVNL a user who informs about the ticket controls via Twitter with 11.900 followers and an average of 250 – 1.200 tweeds per week. At the end of the speech different operators present confirmed that also in Spain information systems about ticket controls to users had been detected. Nowadays, information no longer is an exclusive good for only a few, the new technologies are at the disposition of everyone (and reasonably priced); there will always be new tools for the old objectives.

Twitter is a very easy tool to use, with a rapid growth in wide sectors of the population and in which the messages send by the operators to inform their users about incidents or news related to public transport have a very good reception. Twitter is converting itself into an important information tool in comparison with the low quality of other communication means about the interruptions or incidents in the public transport. Let us keep the evolution of this tool and its utility in the mobility of the human being in mind.

 Twitter user

Do you think that Twitter is a threat for the ticket controls in itinere?

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

Tourism and urban mobility "ad hoc"

Six goals for the european transport market development (english version)

Intermodal station "Quatre Camins"

The European Commission puts great importance in its strategy to strengthen the political body, which is the union of the European continent, with the development of a potent infrastructure network to join its vast territory of more than 4 million m2 and a population which already surpassed 502 million inhabitants in the year 2011. The working document:  (White Paper) Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a Competitive and Resource Efficient Transport Area System, is the most recent report which I was able to read about European infrastructure. Published in 2011 by the European Commission, this report highlights the importance of transport infrastructures for the economic activity: for job creation, the stimulus of Commerce, the improvement of geographic accessibility and the mobility of goods, services and persons which travel through its territory. I think the mentioned document might be quite interesting because of its proposition to project and plan the European Communities’ vision of the future European transport system concretizing the major operative lines to be developed in the next years, which can be classified in three big blocks:

INFRASTRUCTURES:   
Creation of a European transport market on the basis of the infrastructures project TEN-T, the objective of which is the reduction of the current traffic congestions and a substantial improvement of the accessibility to the whole European territory on a small and medium scale level (continental and regional).

ENERGIES:
Reduction of the big dependability of the European transport system on petrol and the design of new contingencies for the foreseeable scarcity of fossil fuel in the near future (Peak oil). In the report the following fact is pointed out: In 2010 the imports of petrol to the European Union amounted to approx. 210 billions. €.

ENVIRONMENT:   
Reduction of the greenhouse gases in order to minimize their effect on the climatic change.

This document proposes quite concrete actions for each of these three fields for the next four decades (comprising a horizon until the year 2050) which I tried to classify in the following 6 major goals as indicated at the beginning: 

1. Reduction of the greenhouse gases by  60 % before 2050 for the complete transport system, with the milestone to reach a reduction of 20 % in 2030 in comparison to the emissions produced in 2008.

2. Change of the transport model: Development of considerably cleaner vehicles, a strengthening of the collective transport where the individual transport only will be used as the “last mile” of the journeys, creation of high speed train lines and corridors for the rail transport of special goods at medium range, thus enabling a sutureless mobility within the territory with a good intermodality between the different means of transport. A change of the transport model based on the intensive use of technology, not only to improve the transfers between the different modes of transport, but also in order to improve its infrastructures (ITS, SESAR, EMTS, SafeSeaSafety, RIS…) and in order to reach with this model a level of economy of scales that permits the apparition of multimodal and multinational logistic operators.

3. Creation of a multimodal transport network between the major cities of the European Union, with train corridors and motorways, by strengthening the intermodal character of the sea ports as well as of interior waterways and by connecting the high speed train network with the European airport network. The creation of a unique European airspace, the creation of a unique train space and the creation of a “blue belt” for the European network for short distance sea shipping.

4. Implantation of a sustainable urban transport system, by using mobility plans in the cities or in the companies and big public installations; by introducing intelligent transport tickets and by using tariff systems by areas and not by mode of transport, by car-sharing, Park & Ride systems near big connecting stations, by potentiating active mobility (like walking, biking,…) and by harmonizing movements of the commuter traffic in the big metropolitan areas.

5. Maintaining the European Union as world leader for road and labour security, by the development of politics of security, responsibility, accessibility and quality of the services and working places in the transport and logistics sector. The European Union has the objective to reduce the number of traffic victims by half until the year 2020 and to reach 0 deaths by traffic accidents in 2050.

6. Internalization of transport costs. Costs on a global scale with the raising of taxes for energy use and with the creation of a market of the emission of greenhouse gases. For the costs on a local scale (noise, pollution and high traffic accumulation) a “toll” for the use of the infrastructures will be introduced and fiscal adaptations in the sector will be made according to the prerequisite: “who pollutes, pays”. This will be established in two phases: In the first phase until 2016, the taxes applied to the sales of cars with combustion engines will be revised. This means, on the one hand, the application of the regulation of the “Eurovignette” (road tax disc) – “who uses, pays” and on the other hand the modification of some of the tributes (those that allow for it) by highlighting the environmental impact they produce to discriminate positively the cleanest vehicles. In a second phase (between 2016 – 2020) this fiscal policy will be consolidated and the costs for pollution and noise level of the harbours and airports will be included. Obviously this document is a lot more extensive and those interested in its content can access to the original via the link which I mentioned at the beginning.

With the ongoing crisis we are informed “through the grapevine” by the media of new reductions and fiscal changes applied to different aspects of our mobility (a right our governments should preserve for us). Many of those measures are more than simply rumours, provoked by economically burdened Governments, and are part of a strategy designed by Brussels to achieve the change of model for our transport and mobility system, which leave little manoeuvring space to the national governments (such as for example delay of measures like the introduction of the “Eurovignette” (Euroviñeta), in the case of Spain, or the modification of the contribution levels which can be applied in different fees). We’ll have to be more and more aware of what is happening in Brussels, as what is decided there, will be more important than what is being legislated in any of the capitals of the member states of the European Union.

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

Tourism and urban mobility "ad hoc"

Versión en español


In anterior articles of this blog I’ve described the evolution from mere transport to mobility, a change which is not brought about by substitution of values and concepts but by addition of new values and new concepts to the existing once and thus causes the expansion of this phenomenon. If we add to the interest transit or comfort have for transport and mobility, “religance” and health, we will advance in a concept of mobility that does not deny the past but one that enriches it with its own evolution. These changes are producing themselves as a consequence of a more ecological and mature social perception of our economic system and of the dominating ideology which manifests itself in other social contexts as planetfriendly or slow food.

George Amar supports the idea that mobility is an integral part of the city. The adherence of each type of transport is linked to its users, to a greater or lesser extend to the territory and probably has an influence on the relations we establish while travelling. When we decide to move we do not only want to go from point A to point B; in most cases we also want to make a different use of our time. This concept of time while we travel is of greatest interest for one of the most important economic sectors of Spain: tourism. Let us draw our attention to the use tourism makes of some of the aspects related to mobility.

Tourism finds in time and landscape two of its most important economic resources, and mobility – in the widest sense of the word – is the vector that puts them at its disposition. For this reason the integration transport shows with the sector of tourism is not at all strange. In this article I will focus on tourism and a determined urban mobility.

Mobility is an essential asset for tourism when we link it to pleasure (to drive a car, to ski, to blade, to climb mountains, to walk,…). The pleasure to move is a value that is exploited by many tourist companies as we are going to see in the next paragraphs. Tourism is framed by activities which are centralized in mobility – which can be active like hiking or biking – or passive like renting a car or a motorbike – and capable to attract many people in order to pass an agreeable and attractive time. The clearest example for mobility and leisurely time use are the cruises and the touristic trains, where the combination of the factors time and landscape are appreciated with a common denominator which gives a special sense to the journey: the itinerary, which is commissioned with a value of its own, the payment is not so much for the distance, but for the time and the services enjoyed.

The localities employed for tourism create their own mobility in answer to the necessities of this kind of economic activities. Very peculiar transport means emerge which only make sense if there are tourists to use them. The photos I’ll show you in continuation are taken in an area very close to the harbour of Barcelona with a comprehensive touristic usage. I would like to stress the promiscuity of the transport means offered by the city in these spots, so that the tourists can get to know their surroundings in a short time. It took me less than an hour to take photos of the vast variety of the means of transport which are circulating there.

Trixi near to Barcelona's harbour

Rickshaw in Barcelona

However, this economic sector also has negative aspects, which should not be forgotten. Tourism tends to consume very concrete spots of a city (normally the symbolically most significant) and it is effectuated in a very concrete time. The intensive use of these spaces increases notably the problems of mobility between tourists and locals. In an article in the newspaper La Vanguardia “Ciutat Vella Low cost” (11.06.2012) this set of problems is reflected in one of the districts of Barcelona. In this article concepts are mentioned like the vulgarization of the city by the appearance of touristic itineraries centered in alcohol, a derivation from the phenomenon of globalized mass tourism, which can affect the relationship and social coherence in the most affected places. Another clear example in Barcelona would be the intensive usage of the space surrounding “La Sagrada Familia” where the stationing of the tourist buses and the streams of guided tourists are restraining daily the neighbourhood of the monument, and make the intervention of the authorities to regulate the usage of this public space necessary.

Tourist coach

Guided visits by segway

Barcelona's Port "Las golondrina"

Touristic bus

On the other hand, urban mobility generated by tourism could be a partially unknown reality for many citizens living in more remote districts of the town and they only come across this phenomenon punctually in certain places or streets.

Another aspect which attracts our attention is that the majority of the activities connected with the touristic mobility related to the mass tourism repeat themselves in the same way no matter in which city of the world we are: Gocar, Tuk-Tuk, Vesping, Ricksaw, Trixi, Segway, touristic buses,…in short its an urban mobility designed for tourists.

A last aspect to be mentioned about mobility and tourism is the slow but steady implementation of digital mobility, Internet and the geo-localization of any place of interest. This relation is being developed on the basis of a new concept: The infomobilty. The virtual world is full of information which explains, how, when and where we can go, an information which is available to millions of human beings, thus creating a potentiality which could be exponential and which could provoke mass tourism. The places we see through the screens of our computer, smartphones or tablet-pcs can generate in many people (for circumstances which sometimes are difficult to explain) the necessity to go and actually be there. This phenomenon in the on-line world is reactivating mobility in the physical (off-line) world. Infomobility is creating new opportunities and activities for tourism and interchanges between individuals, who travel to or from any place in the world.  

By the way, if the crisis has not hit you too hard, have you already thought about where you want to spend your holidays?

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What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

In Europe the main hub of short sea shipping (SSS) is Rotterdam

For years, the European Union has been trying to potentiate intermodal transport. The policies which emerged in the year 2001 were orientated in passing part of the goods transport from the road to the rail. However, time showed that it made no sense to force reality, as a mistrust and competition between these two modes of transport was generated which prevented the creation of the necessary synergies for a sound development of intermodal transport. Comodality has been an intent to advance with the idea of a transport system that makes use of all the available transport modes in an economic and environmentally beneficial way. The focus of these policies is no longer in which mode has to be potentiated, but in the analysis of the itineraries and in efficient and effective modes which allow for a profitable and sustainable transport no matter which mode has been chosen. 

Over the last 10 years we have had a number of European directives which have tried to potentiate intermodal transport though at the moment not very successfully. The directives 96/48CE and 2001/16/CE indented to activate the inter-usability of the transeuropean high speed rail system and the conventional rail. In these directives the conditions for a secure and continued train circulation were laid down; with a competitive performance and without big technical or operative reglementary differences between the European countries. The attempts we have had in Europe to make the international markets of the rail transport more transparents have not received sufficient support from all the states of the European Union. Recently the European Commission has disciplinarily prosecuted various states for this reason. The first package designed by the European Union consisted of 3 directives which obliged to open competition in the goods rail market. The time for implemention expired in 2003. This package of measures obliged the member states to guarantee the right of access to the international services of the transeuropean net of terrestrial transport (TEN-T). Already in the year 1996 the European Community took the decision 1692/96/CE due to which the transeuropean transport network was created and 30 projects were declared of “European interest”. 

The investment projects TEN-T proposed by the European Commission which affected Spain were the following:

Project 3: Axes for high velocity railway in the southwest of Europe 

Project 8: Moltimodal axes Portugal / Spain – rest of Europe

Project 15: GALILEO network. Tecnology for navigation via satellites for the positioning and synchronisation of various services in Europe.

Project 16: Goods railway axis Sines/Algeciras  - Madrid – Paris. (Over the Central Pyrenean Crossing) 

Project 19: Inter-usability of railways of high velocity in the Iberian Peninsula. The main objective was to overcome the problem of the specific width of the Iberian rails to the construction of new rails with the European width. 

Project 21: Short Sea Shipping (marine highway). West Europe, south-east Europe and Mediterranean.

If we revise these projects, we will see that most of them have been accomplished only partially, some of them even have a considerable delay, but nonetheless they are fundamental in the structuring of the intermodal network of the Iberic Peninsula. 

The new European decree 913/2010, of 22.09.2010, defines the European railway corridors and its administrative organs. In this decree I would highlight the definition that is made of the supervisory boards of the European corridors, which superpose themselves over the stately administrators of the railway infrastructures, in order to achieve the necessary coordination in the inter-usability, a step forward in the potentiating of the European railway transport and intermodality. Of all the routes mentioned in the attachment of the decree, route no. 4 (via the Atlantic Ocean) and route no. 6 (via the Mediterranean) have to be pointed out, which have the 10.11.2013 as deadline for their beginning of operation. Both affect the peninsular territory and are in consonance with the projects of the European Transportation Network.  

Since 2004 the multi-sector association FERRMED, an initiative of the private sector, has been working with the objective to improve the goods transport in Europe. This associations has a variety of proposals, for example the introduction of standards in the railway network with regard to: Voltage, width of rails, the loading gage of tunnels and bridges, the ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) for indication and traffic administration, etc. Furthermore, they propose the design of new concepts for locomotives and wagons and even make recommendations for technological improvements for the automatic connection of the wagons. All these are aspects that open up new possibilities for new automated solutions in the administration of intermodal terminals. This lobby has achieved the support of the European Union and of various member states. The big commitment of FERRMED is the creation of a railways axis which will reach from Scandinavia, over the areas of central Europe of Rhine and Rhone, to the limits of the Western Mediterranean. In the area of Spain it is one of the principal defenders of the Mediterranean corridor.  

The European Union is updating anterior investment projects TEN-T, in which a big part of the claims the FERRMED association has raised are included. Let us hope that the European Commission will implement those projects supported by the member states that are best adapted to those parameters of economic efficiency and environmental benefit, which justify such an important investment in times of crisis. In Spain, as always, the big problem will be to fight with the inter-territorial tensions to reach Brüssel with an agreed on statement. 

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