TEN-T Road and Rail Network Development in Western Balkans and its future sustainability
Last modified: 2019-02-28
Abstract
• Lack of funding in order to build the network to the required standards;
• Proper maintenance of the already build network and finding efficient ways to maintain the new infrastructure.
As the region is committed to join the EU and have focused their efforts to achieve the TEN-T guidelines objective, completion of the Core Network by 2030 and Comprehensive by 2050. The trend of investments in the road sector will continue to prevail in comparison with other modes of transport. Only 38% of the Core network has been built to motorway standards, the remaining of 62% remains to be upgraded as the needs arise. Rail infrastructure network is not compliant to the TEN-T criteria, the regional railways are especially lagging behind to comply with operational speed of 100km/h, ERTMS and 740m train length. The issue of maintaining the network in order to cope with increased demand in transport of goods and people, has proved to be a challenge and will continue unless serious commitments are taken and systems for the maintenance are put in place.