Dr. Elisabeth Windisch:

I agree with everything Dr. Sloman said and I will add a few points. On the shared vehicle question, when speaking about vehicle sharing and what would be the most efficient concept the International Transport Forum is speaking about the provision of on-demand minibus services that can cover distances and geographic areas where mass public transport does not work because density is not high enough yet. This on-demand minibus service could support the mass public transport system. We have not seen such a solution put in place on a large scale on purpose but such systems do exist, driven by necessity.

Large metropolitan areas in many Latin American cities, for example, often have a less regulated system of minibus services. They operate on certain routes but as they also want to increase their profits they frequently divert from those routes, which causes other issues, to make sure they cover the area they want to as well as possible and work at capacity. These examples can help to determine the benefit of such systems and the capacity they have in terms of covering people's movements around large metropolitan areas.

On the question of pressing, one cannot wait until everybody has shifted to the alternative and is happy with it before one starts pressing it. It has to go hand-in-hand with other measures. People should at least have the perspective of an alternative as a minimum.

I refer to the necessity of road user charging. Let us think about the large-scale uptake of electric vehicles. Economies will fall significantly short in terms of tax revenue from fossil fuels following a large-scale shift to the use of electric vehicles. This is how Ireland wants to go forward. Many countries rely on electric vehicle uptake. They would, therefore, be well advised to introduce road user charging rather earlier than later in order to avoid a complete backlash from the population.

These pricing systems are not only a necessity for some countries; they can be reinforced if they are implemented properly in line with the polluter and user pays principle in line with what the European Commission suggests. That can drive the uptake of electric vehicles even further. It is a win-win situation. It is a necessity while at the same time helping with the push towards electric vehicles.