The Greening transport package

July 2008

With this package the Commission aims to move transport further towards sustainability. This three-pronged proposed Commission package seeks to steer the European transport sector towards enhanced sustainability. It includes a strategy to ensure that the prices of transport better reflect their real cost to society in terms of environmental damage and congestion; a proposal to enable Member States to help make this happen through more efficient and greener road tolls for lorries; and a proposal for reducing noise pollution from rail freight.

The package has five parts:

Greening Transport Communication: summarises the whole package and sets out what new initiatives the Commission will take in this field until the end of 2009
Greening Transport Inventory: describes the large amount of EU action already taken to green transport and on which this package builds
Strategy to Internalise the External Costs of Transport: focuses on making transport prices better reflect their real cost to society so that environmental damage and congestion can be reduced while boosting the efficiency of transport and ultimately the economy as a whole.
Proposal for a Directive on road tolls for lorries: would enable Member States to reduce environmental damage and congestion through more efficient and greener road tolls for lorries. Revenue from the tolls would be used to reduce environmental impacts and cut congestion.
Rail Transport and Interoperability communication: sets out how to reduce the perceived noise from existing rail freight trains by 50% and the measures the Commission and other stakeholders will need to take in the future to achieve this