Twentieth annual report and resolutions of the council of ministers, year 1973

354 Pages·1974·16.623 MB·English

by  OECD

EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORT
XXIII
TWENTIETH
ANNUAL REPORT
AND
RESOLUTIONS
OF THE
council
OF MINISTER
YEAR 1973
THE HAGUE, 13th/14th JUNE 1973
PARIS, 4th DECEMBER 1973
EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF TRANSPORT
XXIII
TWENTIETH
ANNUAL REPORT
AND
RESOLUTIONS
OF THE
IOUNCIL
>F MINISTER
YEAR 1973
THE HAGUE, 13th/14th JUNE 1973
PARIS, 4th DECEMBER 1973
The European Conference ofMinisters ofTransport (ECMT) was
instituted by a Protocol signedat Brussels on 17th October, 1953. It
comprises the Ministers of Transport of the following 18 countries:
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzer¬
land, Turkey, United Kingdom and Yugoslavia (Observers:Canada,
Finland, Japan, United States).
The purposes ofthe ECMT are:
to take whatever measures may be necessary to achieve, at
general or regional level, the maximum use and most rational
development of European inland transport of international
importance;
to co-ordinateandpromote the activities ofInternational Orga¬
nisations concerned with European inland transport (rail, road,
navigable ways), taking into account the work ofsupranational
authorities in thisfield.
ECMT publications are marketed by the Sale of Publications
departmentoftheOECD,2,rueAndri-Pascal,75775PARISCEDEX16.
CONTENTS
Part I
TWENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT (cid:9) 5
Part II
RESOLUTIONS
Road Transport:
RESOLUTION No. 28 ON SEAT BELTS . (cid:9) 53
General Problems:
RESOLUTION No. 26 CONCERNING THE ACTUAL COMING INTO FORCE OE A
MULTILATERAL QUOTA FOR INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT OF GOODS
BY ROADS (cid:9) 64
CONTINUATION OF RESOLUTION No. 26 (cid:9) 65
Part IE
CONCLUSIONS ON ROAD TRAFFIC RULES AND ROAD SIGNS
AND SIGNALS ADOPTED BY THE MINISTERS (cid:9) 79
REPORT ON THE QUESTIONS LISTED EST THE PROGRAMME OF WORK OF THE
COMMITTEE FOR ROAD TRAFFIC, SIGNS AND SIGNALS (cid:9) 81
Part IV
REPORTS APPROVED BY THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS
REPORT ON NOISE ABATEMENT (cid:9) 105
REPORT ON STUDY CONCERNING THE NORMALIZATION
OF RAILWAY ACCOUNTS (cid:9) Ill
REPORT ON HIGH-SPEED TRANSPORT (TRACKED VEHICLES) (cid:9) 115
CO-ORDINATION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE TRANSPORT IN CONURBATIONS 123
ROAD ACCIDENTS LN THE MEMBER COUNTRIES OF THE ECMT -
STATISTICS FOR 1971 AND 1972 (cid:9) , . 153
INLAND WATERWAY FLEET CAPACITY IN 1971 AND 1972
AND TRENDS LN TRANSPORT DEMAND (cid:9) 155
REPORT ON THE PROMOTION OF URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT
(See off print) (cid:9) 187
REPORT ON TRANSPORT SYSTEMS IN NEW TOWNS (cid:9) (cid:9) ... 189
REPORT ON TRAFFIC AND INVESTMENTS TRENDS IN 1972 (cid:9) 233
Annexes
1. List of Officers of the ECMT (cid:9) 345
2. List of delegates at The Hague and Paris Conferences (cid:9) 346
Part One
TWENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT
/CM(74)37

CONTENTS
I. GENERAL REVIEW OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE AND
OF ITS EXTERNAL RELATIONS (cid:9) 9
II. GENERAL TRANSPORT POLICY (cid:9) n
A. Action taken by the ECMT (cid:9) n
B. Action at national level . (cid:9) ^5
III. ECONOMIC RESEARCH (cid:9) 26
IV. RAILWAY PROBLEMS (cid:9) 30
a) General activities (cid:9) 30
b) Normalization of accounts (cid:9) 30
c) Steps taken to put the railways on a more strictly commercial footing
and to reduce their public service obligations . . . (cid:9) 35
d) Activities of the Eurofima Company (cid:9) , (cid:9) 38
e) Automatic coupling (cid:9) 41
V. PROBLEMS CONCERNING ROADS AND ROAD TRANSPORT (cid:9) 41
A. Road transport (cid:9) 41
B. European road system (cid:9) -. (cid:9) 42
C. Co-ordination of road traffic rules and road signs and signals (cid:9) 42
D. Road safety problems (cid:9) 43
VI. INLAND WATERWAY TRANSPORT PROBLEMS (cid:9) 44
VTI. COMBINED TRANSPORT PROBLEMS (cid:9) 46
Vin. URBAN TRANSPORT PROBLEMS (cid:9) 47

Chapter I
GENERAL REVIEW OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE
AND OF ITS EXTERNAL RELATIONS
In 1973, as in previous years, the Council of Ministers of the Conference held two
meetings: the first (47th session) was held at The Hague on 13th and 14th June; the second
(38th session) in Paris on 4th December.
The Officers of the Conference were the Netherlands Minister of Transport and Public
Works (Chairman), the Austrian Minister of Transport (first Vice-Chairman) and the Danish
Minister of Public Works (second Vice-Chairman); at the 38th session, new Officers were
elected for the coming year.
The new Officers are the Austrian Minister of Transport (Chairman), the Danish
Minister of Public Works (first Vice-Chairman) and the French Minister of Transport (second
Vice-Chairman).
The Committee of Deputies held six sessions in 1973, on 9th January, 26th-27th April,
13th June, 10th July, 30th-31st October and 3rd December.
The following Standing Committees helped it in its work:
- the Investment Committee which, assisted by three Sub-Committees (for railways,
roads and inland waterways), carries out a series of practical studies in the field
of transport economics, dealing in particular with forecasting and transport infra¬
structure networks. Each year it produces a report on Member countries' invest¬
ment in their transport systems and those systems' output (see Part II);
- the Railways Committee;
- the Road Transport Committee;
- the inland Waterways Transport Committee,the settingup of which in 1972 was
mentioned in the last report;
- the Committee on Road Traffic, Signs and Signals, which came into being last year
when Restricted Group "B" was widened to include all delegations;
- the Road Safety Committee;
- the Urban Transport Committee;
- the Economic Research Committee.
The Noise Abatement Committee did not meet in 1973, but its Chairman has been
instructed to keep personally in touch with the work of other international organisations
active in this field and to report to the Committee of Deputies whenever he considers that it
would be useful for the Conference's work. During the year, however, pleas for a more
active concern with the demands of environmental policy were expressed; certain new arrange
ments made accordingly are dealt with below (see Chapter II). In particular, a sub-committee
of the Road Safety Committee was appointed to speed up the work on abatement of road traffic
noise.
The Committee of Deputies was also assisted by certain working groups: the general
Policy Group, responsible for proposing courses of action for the progressive integration of
national transport policies; the Combined Transport Group; and the High-Speed Transport
Group.