The Report is entitled Transport and Mobility in the Alps and focuses on the impact of transport on ecological, social and economic areas. It is borne by all the contracting parties to the Alpine Convention, the Alpine states and the EU.
The Report analyses the way in which the demographic conditions, settlement patterns and economic outline conditions of a region or of tourism affect mobility and transport. Conversely it also examines the way in which transport and mobility impact the economy and society as well as health and the environment. Transport policy is addressed at the European, national and in part regional level, too, and related with the influencing factors mentioned above. The authors also compiled uniform figures to serve as a data basis that has been harmonised across the Alps rather than the often differing national data used in the past, for instance for heavily frequented transit routes.
The Report, with which the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention hopes to reach a broad readership, can be downloaded in five languages from www.convenzionedellealpi.org/page9_en.htm.
The Report on the State of the Alps contains a number of concrete recommendations for action. For instance it recommends that HGV traffic be taken off the roads and on to the railways. In line with these sentiments the federal province of Tyrol/A is currently seeking a sector-related HGV driving ban under which rail-compatible bulk goods such as waste, rocks and earth should in future only be transported by rail. Despite resistance from the EU, which is threatening legal action, the ban is to be decreed at the beginning of next year and to come into force in May 2008.
Sources: www.tirol.com/politik/innsbruck/73062/index (de), www.tirol.com/politik/innsbruck/73376/index (de), Der Standard, 29.11.2007