In a declaration adopted during a plenary session on Thursday 13 July, attended by the Transport Commissioner, Violeta Bulc, the members of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) made a commitment to introducing at least 2,000 zero emission buses by 2019 in the EU.
In this declaration, CoR members point out that the share of the total bus fleet by clean buses is currently around 10% or 20,000 buses out of 200,000. The CoR would like this to increase to 30% by 2025 and to add 2,000 “Zero emission” buses into the public transport network by 2019.
The declaration signatories also believe public procurement is an efficient lever for reaching these objectives and, to this end, adopted a raft of common principles on public orders. These principles have been added to the annex of the declaration.
In this regard, they are calling for a review of the directive on the promotion of clean and energy-efficient road transport vehicles (directive 2009/33/EC) as a means of encouraging public orders based on clean vehicles and in keeping with the adapted energy tax strategies.
The regions would also like to set up a platform to put all appropriate public and private actors in contact with each other, so that they can help to swiftly introduce clean buses onto our roads.
This initiative follows the low emission mobility strategy presented in July 2016 (see EUROPE 11624).
CoR opinion on clean transport. On the same day, the CoR adopted an opinion submitted by CoR member, József Ribányi (EPP, Hungary) on the European strategy for low emission transport. The opinion highlights the need to simplify databases between member states and regions and to interconnect them. It also calls for European standards to be introduced to facilitate data interoperability, services and technical solutions at all levels.
The text also highlights the lack of coordination between ticketing systems and calls on the EU to legislate in this context and to demand compulsory publication of timetable information. It also calls for the different modes of transport to financially contribute to infrastructure costs on an equal basis according to the “polluter pays” principle. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)