The Assembly,
Is of the opinion that regular contact between ECMT and the Ministers and high officials responsible for regional planning, meeting periodically under the auspices of the Council of Europe, is the context in which the factors of the quality of life and balanced regional development could most effectively be considered, and also hopes that this co-operation will lead to the joint definition of certain guiding principles and the drafting of a master plan of trunk road communications in Europe as a basis for the outline of a European regional plan ;
Believes that ECMT should play a stronger role in this field in that it enables European Ministers of Transport to consider major transport questions (rail, road, water) in a framework covering the whole of Western Europe ;
Warmly welcomes the progressive development by ECMT in recent years of international studies designed to assist Ministers in taking decisions on transport problems so intractable and urgent that confrontation of different national experiences is an indispensable tool in reaching appropriate solutions ;
In particular welcomes the series of comprehensive studies currently being undertaken by ECMT in the field of railway finance, and underlines the importance it attaches to rapid progress being achieved in this field, particularly with regard to the more precise evaluation of deficits due to public service obligations ;
Congratulates ECMT on having established, in conjunction with the Council of Europe, revised guidelines on the teaching of road safety education in schools, and hopes that these guidelines will be widely distributed and followed ;
Recalling its previous call for urgent progress in the revision of the so-called "E" road network, invites all member governments of ECMT to ratify without delay the new European Agreement on the International Network of Trunk Road Communications drawn up by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in collaboration with ECMT, and to introduce the new European nomenclature for "E" roads prescribed by this agreement in their individual countries ;
Continues to be gravely concerned by the number of those who are killed and injured in road accidents, deplores the unacceptable delay by certain governments in bringing into force the provisions of the new European Highway Code, and calls on ECMT to urge the relevant Ministers of Transport to take appropriate action at an early date ;
Reiterates its view that, having regard to the ever increasing spread of private car ownership, the progressive exhaustion of the different possibilities for taking further classical measures to improve urban traffic flows, and the difficulties being encountered in financing adequate urban public transport, the problem of growing traffic congestion in urban centres is one which risks assuming dramatic proportions in the relatively near future, notes the very considerable efforts so far made by ECMT in studying the various possible new solutions open in this field, but believes that this particular ECMT activity should be given even higher priority in the latter's work programme than it has had hitherto ;
Invites ECMT to give full attention to the various problems of European inland waterways, whose importance for the future was inter alia recently emphasised in a report of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe ;
Expresses the hope that ECMT will inform it in due course of the follow-up it has given to the various proposals to which the present resolution makes reference, and which are further developed in the report (Doc. 3702) mentioned in paragraph 1 above.