In order to supplement, deepen and increase the value of the research carried out by the Federal Planning Bureau in the field of transport outlooks for Belgium, the FPB takes part in other projects in collaboration with universities or other research institutes.
MOBIDIC
The MOBIDIC-Project, or ‘Demography, Geography and Mobility: Long-Term Outlooks and Policies for a Sustainable Development’, is a study that is financed by the Belgian Science Policy within the framework of the research programme ‘Sustainable Modes of Production and Consumption – PADD II’. The other partners of the project are GéDAP (Groupe d’étude de démographie appliquée) for UCL (Université catholique de Louvain), and GRT (Groupe de recherche sur les transports, www.grt.be) for FUNDP (Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix à Namur).
The objective of the project is threefold:
to analyse the effect of the evolution of geographic, socio-demographic and economic factors on passenger transport flows and modal choice of transport in Belgium.
to elaborate long-term projections (2030) for passenger transport between the 43 Belgian administrative districts. To do this the above factors are taken into account as well as the contribution of each administrative district to the production of transport flows, for each journey purpose and each mode of transport.
to evaluate the emissions generated by passenger transport for the projections.
The project was finalised in April 2006. The final report is available on the website of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (www.belspo.be).
LIMOBEL
LIMOBEL (Long-run Impacts of policy packages on MObility in BELgium) is a project financed by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office and carried out under the research programme “Science for a Sustainable Development – SSD – Transport and Mobility”. The other research partners are the Group Transport & Mobility of the Facultés universitaires catholiques à Mons (www.fucam.ac.be/gtm) and the Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO) (www.vito.be).
The LIMOBEL project is aimed at developing a practicable framework to:
produce long-term transport projections for Belgium ;
analyse the long-term effects of policy measures on the mobility in Belgium, including pricing, regulation and infrastructure measures ;
carry out a social cost-benefit analysis of these measures.
LIMOBEL covers three interconnected areas: transport and mobility, energy and environmental issues. Transport offers many advantages but also causes inconveniences such as congestion, accidents, environmental costs. Public intervention is required to address these nuisances and thus make the transport system more sustainable.
LIMOBEL uses two approaches to investigate these issues. The former only covers the transport branch and is thus of partial equilibrium. It is dynamic and long-term oriented (up to 2030). Three existing models were fine-tuned and connected to each other (PLANET, NODUS and E-MOTION). The latter approach is of general equilibrium, based on interactions between the transport sector and the rest of the economy. In this approach, an applied general equilibrium model for Belgium and its three Regions is used.
PROLIBIC is a cluster of four transport research projects (PROMOCO, LIMOBEL, BIOSES and CLEVER) that is financed by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office and carried out under the research programme “Science for a Sustainable Development – SSD – Transport and Mobility”. The other research partners are the Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO) (www.vito.be) and the Department MOSI-Transport en Logistiek of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) (www.vub.ac.be/MOSI/).
The main objectives of the project are:
to gather and combine the knowledge gained within the framework of four research projects: PROMOCO (Professional mobility and company car ownership), LIMOBEL (Long-run impacts of policy packages on mobility in Belgium), BIOSES (Biofuels Sustainable End uSe) and CLEVER (Clean Vehicle Research: Life Cycle Analysis and Policy Measures). It concerns mainly results on both transport activities and environmental impact;
to elaborate a long-term reference projection (2030) for passenger and freight transport ;
to estimate the impact of a transport policy package (development of biofuels and of electric vehicles, harmonisation of excise duties on petrol and diesel, road pricing) ;
to study the link between company cars and environmental considerations.
