Smart infrastructure access policy: a highway towards more efficient road freight transport

This paper describes interim results of the ongoing CEDR-funded "FALCON" project, which aims to introduce a step improvement in transport efficiency in Europe through the definition of a new performance-oriented legislative framework for road freight transport, thus ensuring a proper match between vehicles and the infrastructure. A Smart Infrastructure Access Policy (SIAP) is being developed as the primary method of regulation, in which policy explicitly specifies the performance level required from the road freight vehicle with respect to safety, manoeuvrability, infrastructure loading, and environmental impact, while giving consideration to national topologies and operational conditions. This method is fundamentally different to the prescriptive approach which mandates mass and dimension limits of vehicles. The prescriptive approach indirectly and often ineffectively ensures acceptable vehicle performance, as is the case of current, mainly prescriptive oriented, European legislation (96/53/EC).