Withits restructuring,Deutsche Post AG,like other companies,is reacting above all to a profound change in the operating environment and the organisation of goods distribution. The process involves various intertwined and mutually-reinforcing developments. The progressive differentiation of production processes based on the division of labour and the "mass individualisation" inherent in the consumer goods industry means that it is becoming less and less possible to transport mass-produced consumer goods from A to B in bulk. Instead, a fine distribution is required that allows those mass-produced goods with individual attributes to be brought to the consumers. This is illustrated by examples such as the dispatch of books via the online shop "Amazon" or the Internet-based auction house "eBay". Users search for and find what they want based on personal preferences, nationwide and beyond. The selection is based on individual needs and appraisals of the costs. Fulfilling the specific demand thus occurs over ever greater distances.While "Amazon" guarantees personal book delivery to the home, "eBay" enables the individual selection of second-hand consumer goods in connection with favourable delivery rates. For example, via "eBay, the Berlin-based author of the present book found the used pram of his choice in the Düsseldorf suburb of Meerbusch, 500 km away. Personal taste and the price of a new pram diverged to the point that they could only be reconciled by the internet auction, with the successful bid amounting to one third of the new price. The scarcity, in tandem with the pronounced demand, forced a purchase beyond the limits of the city. Logistics plays a decisive role in this process, by making it conceivable in the first place (until a few years ago, parents-to-be were still dependent on searching local secondhand shops for suitable prams and had considerably less choice). On the one hand, it is not a decisive cost factor, and on the other hand, it offers trouble-free and prompt delivery, with both aspects being mutually conditional. It is only new logistical procedures that bring the fulfilment of specific desires into the realm of possibility and thereby simultaneously open up new spaces of consumer demand. "In this respect, the development of distribution is driven by two imperatives of competition: first, to offer high quality; second, to reduce costs. Its main task is to bundle the spatio-temporally differentiated ("atomised") flows of goods into an economically and organisationally controllable transport structure. Both sides are in perpetual conflict with each other: the tendency of the flows of goods to diffuse, and the attempt to control these flows in terms of transport logistics or to rationalise them economically. This is attempted above all in two ways: on the one hand, there is the necessity to achieve the highest possible degree of control over the logistics chain; on the other hand, stocks of goods are "mobilised" as much as possible – above all by reducing warehousing in order to lower capital costs" (cf. Hesse 2005).

The strategies resulting from these new demands on freight transport companies are demonstrated particularly impressively by the restructuring of Deutsche Post AG. The company emerged in the early 1990s from the privatisation of the – at the time – state-owned company Deutsche Bundespost. Due to the deregulation of the market for courier, express and parcel services (CEP services), which took place at the same time, the new private company was thereby exposed to international competition. It reacted to the new requirements in the logistics sector described above (small consignment size, flexible demand, standardised and thus cost-effective service provision) by developing and establishing a new freight concept. Whereas the old concept was based on combined transport of rail and road and was characterised by personnel-intensive and thus cost-intensive intermediary steps between the modes of transport, the new concept relies solely on road freight transport by truck. The establishment of 33 new greenfield freight centres on the outskirts of cities with motorway access replaced the 150 parcel handling centres that had operated in the cities until then. Whereas the urban locations still had railway sidings, the new freight centres can only be reached by truck.

This decentralised choice of location necessarily meant spatio-temporal fragmentation. It is true that concentrating on a few, largely automated freight centres and avoiding frictional losses at the interfaces of rail and road enabled a significant increase in efficiency and an associated reduction in costs. At the same time, however, considerably greater distances had to be covered. This meant that sophisticated, integrative logistics were required in order to countervail the disintegrating effects of location-conditioned, spatio-temporal fragmentation.

"Deutsche Post's new concept of transport and location illustrates the consequences that internal strategic decisions can have for the effects of location and traffic on the way logistics is organised. The reorientation and modernisation of the provision of logistical services (especially the rationalisation in handling), which is understandable from a competitive point of view, has a) led to the relocation of freight centres from the city centres to the periphery, b) parcel transport, which in long-distance transport used to be essentially railway-based, was replaced by an initially 100 percent truck-based logistics. With these two consequences, freight is sent down a path of spatial fragmentation and an accompanying fragmentation of transport, while the logistics organisation is characterised by a high degree of integration (and at the same time closed to the outside). Thus, this model, which also underlies the logistical organisation of CEP services as a whole, outwardly has a disintegrating effect. It is true that the company explicitly claims to be committed to assuming responsibility for the environment and society. However, the competitive dynamics have de facto prepared the ground for an individualisation and virtual independence of the individual company concepts, so that an integration of procedures is only possible within the individual company operations (i.e. in-house), not across companies" (Hesse 2005: 40f.).

The internal restructuring of Deutsche Post AG is thus an example of a one-sided economic integration strategy, with particularly obvious consequences.Whileinternally the company contributed to extensive efficiency gains and associated cost savings through a high degree of integration, externally it closed itself off as a result of a systematic decoupling from former cooperation partners. However, the internal integration logic, which is oriented towards criteria of economic efficiency, has shown itself to be largely insensitive to social or even ecological dimensions that lie outside its own sphere of interest. Accordingly, there is no room for systematic consideration of the consequences of the company's actions for socially just and ecologically viable urban development.

In light of the developments in the freight transport sector outlined here, the programmatic demand for an integrated transport policy admittedly seems somewhat naïve. Instead of repeatedly opposing real developments with a model that completely contradicts them, one should first reflect on the conditions for making the model a reality. One would need to clarify the regulatory environment that would have to be created in order to lend more weight to the strategy of social and ecological integration. Perhaps the most important political measure that has been repeatedly put forward in the past is the demand for an internalisation of the external costs of road freight transport (cf. Becker et al. 2012; Brenck et al. 2016). But it was not possible to push through this undoubtedly necessary political measure even in the early 1990s, when the sensitivity to this problem was greatest, at both national and European level.1

1 On the economic cycle of the debate on internalisation in the context of European transport policy, cf. chapter 6.

#### 4.1.2 Transport Policy at the Level of the Federal State – The Example of the Joint Planning Commission Berlin-Brandenburg2

Shortly after reunification the two federal states of Berlin and Brandenburg came together to reach an agreement on how to manage the expected dynamic of urban and transport development (Provisorischer Regionalausschuss, 1990; Senatsverwaltung, 1993). At that time the situation at the outset for urban and transport development wasinmany ways exceptional. Particularly remarkable was the low level of urban sprawl in the urban hinterland of Berlin. While in the past the containment of West Berlin by the Wall rendered an outwards orientation impossible, the centralised, state-dominated politics of the German Democratic Republic placed strong restrictions on individuals settling in the outlying areas. Accordingly, the amount of commuter traffic between the innercity of Berlin and the urban hinterland was quite low.

In contrast, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a dynamic of development was expected that would be comparable to the 1920s and 1930s (cf. IfS, 1993). In light of this expectation, planning was determined by two goals, which were not necessarily mutually compatible. On the one hand, the focus was on an extensive development of the metropolitan region; on the other hand, the planners wanted to avoid the often undesirable aspects of such development, characteristic of large West German cities. From the 1990s on, a rash of residential concepts were developed that attempted to meet the two requirements (Wesseling, 2000, 25ff.). At that time the debates still took place in anticipation of the fusion of the two Federal states Berlin and Brandenburg, which

2 As part of the study, interviews were conducted with two employees of the Joint State Planning Department and a representative of the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development. In addition, reference should be made here to the master's thesis by Maximilian Friedrich (2020), which is well worth reading, in which Friedrich interviewed eight of the most important actors from the post-reunification period on transport development planning in the Berlin-Brandenburg region.

was planned for the year 1995 (Benz and König, 1995). As a result, in 1994 Berlin and Brandenburg presented the outline of a "Development Plan for Tighter Regional Integration in Brandenburg-Berlin" (*Landesentwicklungsplan engerer Verflechtungsraum Brandenburg-Berlin*). The *State Development Plan* (LEP) projected residential development along railway lines and, furthermore, pursued a strategy of decentralised concentration.This approach was complemented by the establishment of so-called regional parks, which were largely pristine areas (*Gemeinsame Landesplanungsabteilung* GL, 2001). On this basis, in April 1995 the state planning contract was approved. Ever since then, the Joint Planning Department (JPD) of the Länder Berlin-Brandenburg has been following the overall concept of decentralised concentration.3

The mission statement of the joint Berlin/Brandenburg state planning sets out an integrated approach on several levels to this day. On the one hand, the two federal states strive to combine their different interests into a common strategy. In addition, the two portfolios of urban and spatial planning and transport planning are required to coordinate their field-specific perspectives in the framework of a joint concept. Lastly, the substantive core of the joint state planning is an integrated transport concept, which in particular aims to establish stronger linkages at the interfaces of the various modes of transport. The overall aim is to achieve sustainable settlement and transport development.

The map illustrates the central ideas behind the guiding principle. (Fig. 15).

The areas in red along the radials of the railway lines mark the existing settlement locations along the rail-bound transport,whereincreased settlement was planned.This so-called 'axis model' (*Achsenmodell*) explicitly referred back to planning from the 1920s. It aimed to counteract urban sprawl, as well as private transport in favour of public transport. In particular, those commuting to and from Berlin were supposed to make greater use of public transport.

3 Shortly afterwards, in May 1995, the fusion of the two Federal states failed, but the joint development plan nevertheless came into force (LEP, 1998).

#### 142 Transport in Capitalism

*Figure 15. Development Plan for Tighter Regional Integration in Brandenburg-Berlin*

However, the concepts that initially consistently followed this approach and envisaged its implementation by fostering the appropriate measures, did not prevail (Wesseling, 2000: 31ff.). In 1995 the transport researcher Eckhard Kutter confronted those responsible with what he considered to be their completely inadequate concepts for political action. He argued that simply wishing for less automobile traffic is not enough; that – in light of the expected urban and transport development – what is actually required is a comprehensive concept, in order to be able to react appropriately to these development processes, in accordance with a strategy of sustainable transport development.

Source: LEP, 1998

"The outlined trends in transport behaviour and secondary effects in the locational structures of the Berlin-Brandenburg region have a high degree of probability. On the one hand, they are supported by empirical figures from regions in West Germany; on the other hand, they take into account the actual hinterland development of the Brandenburg region and other regions in the East in the recent past. Berlin's transport policy, however, ignores such alarming facts" (Kutter, 1995: 204).

Eventually, the *axis model* was supplemented – some would say replaced – by the model of *decentralised concentration*. Even though, officially, settlement along the railway lines remained the goal, new agglomeration centres for intensive settlement were designated, but at a distance from the axis of the railway lines, which favours the use of private cars. In conscious contrast to the 'axis model', this model was able to claim a certain sense of reality in that it abandoned the previous aspiration of comprehensive political control and instead attempted to manage urban sprawl in a way that was conducive to sustainable transport development (cf.Wesseling, 2000: 35).The uncontrollable processes of suburbanisation are meant to be channelled and, in the context of a polycentric settlement structure, focused on selected settlement centres.

Ultimately, this concept was also modified by identifying so-called 'potential settlement areas', which are outlined in black on the map. Some of these 'grease spots' encroach on undeveloped conservation areas, classified as areas of extensive resource conservation or even placed under special environmental protection, thus indicating a real development that the joint state planning had precisely sought to prevent. In addition, an exemption clause was included in the LEP which allows the so-called type 3 municipalities, where further settlement growth was originally to be avoided, unlimited population development as long as the settlement development remains within the area map (i.e. within the area of the "potential settlement areas") (cf. LEP 1998 chapter 1.1.2). Since these municipalities generally lack a rail connection, the exemption is extremely problematic from a transport planning point of view (cf. IVU 2002: 37). Finally, the situation was exacerbated by further potential settlements, secured by the municipalities before the joint LEP came into force in 1998 (cf. also Priebs 2019: 233ff.).

In fact, a survey of regional transport development over the last twenty years reveals a significant deviation from the original goals of the JPD, a situation that presumably will only worsen in the future. For instance, the goal of a modal shift in passenger traffic from private cars to public transport was not achieved. On the contrary: whereas in the period from 1990 to 2005 within the common planning area car traffic (MPT) increased by about 26 percent, the share of public transport decreased by about 16 percent, even though the frequency as well as the quality had been significantly improved. The prediction for passenger transport in Berlin/Brandenburg is also not encouraging in this respect (cf. Table 6).

*Table 6 Passenger Transport Services by Mode of Transport in Percent*

Source: Land Berlin/Land Brandenburg, 2009: 48 ff.

In freight transport, the situation is even more dramatic when measured against the original goals.The shares of rail and inland waterways in the modal split have not increased. On the contrary, both modes of transport have even suffered losses in absolute terms. In particular, the plan to shift long-distance transport to rail and inland waterways has been completely unsuccessful. Here, too, there has been a contrary development in favour of road transport. In light of this, it is not surprising that interfaces between road and rail, by means of freight centres (GVZ), have also been unsuccessful. In view of the lack of demand, the responsible parties are increasingly wondering whether it makes sense to continue promoting these GVZs.4

At the end of the 1990s researchers predicted that, if barriers of geographical distance continued to be removed, this development would continue (Holz-Rau, 1997; Kutter and Stein, 1998). Under the prevailing conditions, the concept of the 'central location' as well as the 'axis concept' were deemed to have failed, not only in the capital region Berlin-Brandenburg but also in Germany as a whole (cf. Saller, 2000). The predicted continued increase in traffic volume has been attributed to the trends towards individualisation and flexibilisation of the social structure and the form of the economy, which were described in detail in the previous section on German freight transport: "The suburbanisation and large-scale functional segregation in the entire conurbation, which has been evident since the beginning of the 1990s, will continue in the years to come, even though the total population is no longer growing. This is one of the most important factors causing traffic in the joint planning area. The associated increase in traffic, particularly as a result of longer journeys, will thus continue throughout the region"(IVU, 2002: 39).

If this growth in the volume of passenger traffic therefore mainly benefits private motor vehicles, in freight transport a similar development in favour of road transport was also expected: "According to the present revised forecasts of the Federal Transport Plan to the year 2015, the growth dynamics of regional road freight transport will continue in the coming years in the entire planning area. Rail is expected to play a greater role in the growth of freight transport than it has so far. Nevertheless, a further decline in the modal split share of rail and waterways as environmentally friendly modes of transport is expected" (ibid.: 42). Ten years later, these fears have been confirmed (cf. ROB 2013).

4 The disappointing experiences with the use of GVZs in the Berlin-Brandenburg region are exemplary for the entire federal territory (cf. in detail Hesse 2005).

The discrepancy between programmatic aspiration and real developments with respect to the overall model of an integrated transport policy, which is also apparent in this instance,is the result of obstructions in the multi-tiered Federal political system. In the case of the joint planning of the states Berlin and Brandenburg there are two overlapping lines of conflict. *First*, after the fusion of the two federal states failed, the collaboration was dominated by the pursuit of interests held in common but lacking an overarching commonality of interests. In fact, the two Federal states began to compete against each other by vying for businesses as well as seeking to attract residential populations in order to guarantee tax revenues. Conflicts of interest inevitably come to the fore, working against a common strategy for action, such as the proclaimed concept of integrated transport and settlement.

*Second*, transversely to the interests of the two state governments, there were conflicts with the interests of the municipalities. This has an especially problematic impact in the case of Brandenburg. Even when the two Federal states agreed on a joint course of action, this was thwarted by particular interests, especially those of the Brandenburg municipalities. As mentioned above, already at the beginning of the 1990s, long before the State Development Plan (*Landesentwicklungsplan*) came into force in 1998, the municipalities had sought to identify potential areas for settlement. Independently of the respective transport connections in terms of the concept of integrated transport, the Brandenburg municipalities had designated extensive areas for settlement, potentially encouraging urban sprawl. The already-mentioned exemption rule for Type 3 municipalities formulated in the SDP constituted a further encouragement of suburbanisation and the concomitant traffic growth.5

5 Apart from the fact that the connection assumed here between the expansion of transport infrastructure and economic development has not yet been proven and has not been confirmed in the case of eastern Germany, this strategy runs counter to sustainable transport development (cf. Blum 2004).

The transport researcher Eckhard Kutter, mentioned earlier, thus attributes the failure of the programmatic integration goals to a lack of administrative integration:

"At the planning level, public authorities develop concepts of spatial order; however, since the individual municipalities within this framework offer areas of land 'in competition with each other', and this competition is 'encouraged' or 'financed' in an uncoordinated manner, the result is 'free choice' for the individual decision-makers, who are also insufficiently informed about the consequences of their actions, which ultimately leads to the disorganised development of the overall structure. In this 'disarray', on the one hand the public authorities debilitate themselves through inconsistent application of the various instruments at their disposal, but on the other hand they don't pay sufficient attention to the diverse individual (economic) motives" (Kutter 2001: 76)

The cause-effect relationships of regional development demonstrated by the metropolitan region Berlin-Brandenburg exemplify the spatial and transport development of capitalist societies generally. It has led to a situation in which about 80 percent of the traffic volume in Germany originates in the private residential sector and from the economic activity in regional areas (cf. Kutter, 2015).

From a present-day perspective, more than twenty years after the State Development Plan came into force in 1998, the situation has not changed. At the time, a study by theWuppertal Institute came to the conclusion: "Inter-communal competition and the inadequate provision of regional planning with legal and financial instruments are the reasons why decisions concerning economic opportunities are often more likely to win the day than planning principles" (Wuppertal Institute 1998: 118).6

6 Strictly speaking, this problem, like the idea of integration as a whole, has been known since the 1960s and has been lamented publicly time and again. As early as 1968, for example, the urban sociologist Heide Berndt concluded in her study of the German urban planning clique: "The present divisional structure of the administration is outdated in relation to the tendencies to expansion in today's

Whereas back then it was still possible to hope that the effects of the regional development plan would make themselves felt, today it is apparent that this window of opportunity has now also closed.This means that Berlin and Brandenburg find themselves at best at the beginning of the development of a joint planning perspective.Unlike in the 1990s, those in positions of responsibility can no longer wait for the formal compulsory fusion of the two states, which would have automatically led to a common planning culture. Rather, joint planning successes would now have to be communicated to the public as examples of best practice that would make a fusion of the states seem desirable in the first place. In the early 2000s, observers saw the temporary end of new commercial settlements as an opportunity to replace the egoistic goals pursued in competition with a new strategy of cooperation (cf. Herrschel/Newman 2003: 554). In the meantime, the situation has changed again and Berlin's population is growing again. It is unclear whether a joint settlement and transport development strategy that relies on cooperation can be established under this intensifying competitive situation (cf. Bodenschatz 2016). The prerequisite for this would be to identify and make public the reasons for the undesirable developments of the past, so that they are not repeated in the future. However, there are no signs of this so far; on the contrary,in 2016, the state of Brandenburg announced a *Mobility Strategy 2030* in anticipation of the emerging new development dynamics, and in 2021 the state of Berlin published its new *Urban Development Plan Mobility and Transport 2030*. Against the background of historical experience, the question arises why the two federal states have not developed a joint transport development strategy.

In this respect, the example of joint regional planning in Berlin/ Brandenburg demonstrates once again the consequences for the transport sector when it is dominated by the principle of competition. As was already shown in the freight transport sector by the example of

large cities and prevents effective control over urban growth, *especially integrated transport planning* (emphasis added).

Deutsche Post AG, an enterprise that strives to be globally competitive and whose logic of action – oriented exclusively to economic requirements – has a fragmenting effect on the logistics system as a whole, here too competition between the regional authorities has made clear the consequences for transport development of political competition to attract businesses, which is oriented one-sidedly towards criteria of economic efficiency. Other aspects that transcend particular interests, such as sustainable settlement and transport development, are lost in the process.The function of the guiding principle of an integrated transport policy, as pursued programmatically by Berlin and Brandenburg, is thus increasingly reduced to mere window dressing.

The State Secretary of the Berlin Senate Chancellery, Volker Kähne, had already warned of this danger in the mid-1990s when he emphasised in his conclusions on the debate on the reform of joint regional planning in Berlin/Brandenburg that joint state planning has to be accountable: "It must not be limited to symbolic political policies" (Kähne 1995: 189). That this has nevertheless come about is due to the fact that with the establishment of the joint state planning commission only the first phase of the reform concept presented at the time by Benz et al. (1995) was implemented. In this first, low-threshold phase, the second, much more far-reaching phase was to be prepared, which envisaged the establishment of an interregional planning association for the more immediate region, equipped with the corresponding powers and competence. This never happened, meaning that the current debate could pick up here, without having to start from the beginning.

In this case, too, the guiding principle of integrated transport policy – if it is not to serve solely as a legitimising fig leaf for transport development that runs counter to it – must be examined in terms of its realism (cf. Kunst 2004). As a result of such a review, two options are conceivable in principle. *Either* one comes to the conclusion that the guiding principle is fundamentally incompatible both with trends in social development and constellations of socio-political interests, so that its implementation is neither conceivable nor desirable, because it is opposed to all social megatrends as well as the interests of most people. In this case, one would have to bid farewell to the guiding principle. *Or* the result is that the guiding principle is in principle compatible with trends in societal development and is also in conformity with a collective interest. In this case, rather than elucidating the guiding principle, future discussions should instead address the political blockades that stand in the way of its realisation.

#### 4.1.3 Local Transport Policy – The Example of the Research Initiative 'Mobility in Metropolitan Areas'7

One of the most important research initiatives in the field of transport studies were the flagship projects "Mobility in Metropolitan Areas", which were funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research with more than 80 million euros over a period of five years (cf. BMBF 1998). They formed the "cornerstones of a future-oriented policy in mobility research", which the Federal Cabinet adopted in December 1996 with the "Mobility Research Framework" (cf. BMBF 1997a). The strategy formulated in the cornerstones marks the conceptual transition from the "strategy of traffic avoidance" to the "decoupling strategy" (cf. the excursus in chapter 2.24 of the present book). While traffic avoidance always tended to affect economic growth, the decoupling strategy in the "Mobility Research Framework" aims to promote technical developments in the industrial sector, which are also meant to contribute to

7 The assessment of the results and effects of the research initiative "Mobility in Metropolitan Areas" is based on an explorative study. The empirical basis is formed by the final reports of the individual projects, the evaluation report of the research initiative and various publicly accessible publications. In addition, five expert interviews were conducted with people who were involved in the research initiative at the time. It is striking that in a publicly funded research initiative, both the final reports and the overall evaluation report have not been made publicly accessible to date. While the final reports are only accessible from a database for a fee, the evaluation report has been kept under lock and key to this day. In addition, requests for interviews have been repeatedly refused by the project sponsor, TÜV (Technical Inspection Authority) Rheinland. The evaluation report is available to the author, so it is quoted publicly here for the first time.

traffic reduction. The approach is primarily based on the conventional philosophy of traffic flow (cf. Schmucki 2001), which envisages using new information technologies in order to ensure smoother traffic flow: "For delimited and manageable problem areas, practical proof is to be provided that innovative concepts can contribute to a noticeable improvementin traffic flows with a significant reductionin traffic pollution (pollutants, noise, accidents, space requirements, etc.)" (BMBF 1997b: 2). The central concern is the "decoupling of growth in mobility and traffic congestion" (BMBF 1997a: 3) – i.e. reducing the negative effects of traffic that stem from a growing demand for mobility. In contrast to the strategy of the transport turnaround, which focused primarily on traffic avoidance, this approach in principle accommodates both economic growth and growth in traffic, provided that the negative side effects associated with these in the past can be prevented or at least limited in the future.

An integrated approach is explicitly pursued, although the diverse stakeholder interests in the field of transport policy, from politics and business as well as from civil society, would have to be brought together. The unclear social relations with their complex constellations of actors would require diverse cooperative relationships (cf. Kesselring et al. 2003). Lastly, the different modes of transport were also to be coordinated with each other and linked by a network of information technologies to form a unified transport system. Those behind this approach expected it to increase the attractiveness of public transport in particular.

Funding was provided for a total of five network projects at the municipal level, some of which were very comprehensive, in the urban regions of Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart, Dresden and in the Rhine-Main area, as well as the "special project" *cash car*, which was located in Berlin but formally assigned to the Munich Mobinet network. All of the "Mobility in Metropolitan Areas" projects aimed to solve specific traffic problems in the areas in question. The solutions, however, were intended to be generalisable.The lead projects and their principal sub-projects were:

#### 152 Transport in Capitalism

novations in usage. The cash car project was devoted to the development and testing of an innovative leasing concept that aimed to link a car used 'in portions' with public transport and thus to professionalise car sharing in Germany (the goals and results of this ambitious social experiment have been presentedin detail elsewhere, cf. Project Group Mobility 2004).

Measured against the ambitious goals, the results of all the "Mobility in Metropolitan Areas" projects are sobering. Apart from the fact that a number of planned pilot applications in the fields of e-learning and teleworking did not even materialise, only a few survived the funding period. And even in these cases, hardly any of the desired changes in the choice of means of transport in favour of public transport came about. The transport effects in terms of a modal shift were modest or even counterproductive (cf. BMBF 2005).

How it was possible for such unintended consequences to come about can be demonstrated using the example of a Cologne arterial road, which was equipped with traffic guidance systems as part of the lead project "Stadtinfo Köln" in order to achieve a smooth traffic flow on the road in question, which is congested at peak times. A public transport railway line runs parallel to this main artery, so that the obvious option was to shift traffic from road to rail. For this purpose, information panels were installed in connection with Park & Ride offers, which provided the necessary information for changing from one mode of transport to the other. In addition, road users were informed about how long their journey would take with the respective mode of transport. This was meant to persuade car drivers stuck in traffic jams of the attractiveness of public transport.

However, at the same time, a number of measures in traffic flow management were implemented for road traffic, which led to an accelerated traffic flow. As a result, public transport again lost its advantage and the originally intended modal shift largely failed to materialise. This course of action was based on the illusion of "equal opportunities for all modes of transport". Although public transport benefited from the measures implemented, its structural disadvantage again came

#### 154 Transport in Capitalism

into effect, since at the same time the disadvantages of individual motorised transport were eliminated. Obviously, there was no clear political strategy that favoured public transport over private transport because of its social and environmental advantages. Instead, these very different means of transport with their respective specific stakeholders confronted each other as supposedly equal partners in a cooperation.

In addition, the large collaborative projects were faced with formidable tasks of coordination in order to hold the large number of partners together and to attain a common denominator vis-à-vis the local public and the professional public. This task was often taken on by experienced project managers from the participating car manufacturers, who also determined the public face of the research network, because they were able to present the lead projects professionally and effectively highlight the specific technical elements in the overall undertaking.

In summary, it can be said that the lead projects as a whole had a heavy technical character. The responsible parties hoped that the information provided by the new telematics systems would prompt a readjustment of traffic flows in favour of public transport. The relevant information transmitted in real time was supposed to open up a flexible choice of means of transport and make it possible to switch easily between modes. In the process, the willingness of road users, whose transport behaviour is characterised by "entrenched" routines, to repeatedly rethink their choice of transport mode was overestimated, as was their willingness to pay for traffic information.

Of course, the strong orientation towards the conventional traffic flow approach is particularly surprising. After all,it has long been proven by researchers that improving traffic flow leads to additional traffic, if the contextual conditions remain the same (cf. Gerike 2017). The abovementioned example of the simultaneous encouragement of private and public transport has made this point clear yet again: increasing traffic permeability on the roads counteracts the programmatic goal of shifting traffic in favour of public transport. In this connection, project structures based on constellations of supposedly cooperative actors seem problematic, since in reality actors with antagonistic interests are

confronting each other. If politicians retreat to the position of observers who restrict themselves to ensuring 'fair' competitive conditions, then, as in the case described here, one ends up with two sets of measures placed in a competitive situation, whose effects on transport at best cancel each other out.

By contrast, the genuinely political task would be to ensure the implementation of the goals of transport policy in accordance with the political objectives. This raises the central question of the political willingness to push through accompanying measures designed to secure the intended effects (cf. Rommerskirchen 2003). This in turn would provoke the articulation and disclosure of conflicting interests. Ultimately, a political decision in favour of or against certain measures is required. By contrast, the semantics of cooperation favoured in the context of an integrated transport policy all too often feigns a harmonious reconciliation of interests, concealing the lines of conflict that actually exist and thus distracting from the necessary political decisions. The results of the evaluation of the "Mobility in Metropolitan Areas" flagship projects thus prove to be the consequence of a tendency to depoliticise transport policy. This explains the lack of connection between sets of objectives in transport policy and real transport development.

#### **4.2 European Transport Policy**

After explaining the discrepancy between the aspirations and the reality of German transport policy on the basis of the national constellation of actors and illustrating this discrepancy with concrete case studies, the analysis will now be supplemented by a corresponding examination of European transport policy. This is necessary for a realistic assessment of the scope for action of national transport policy since the latter must increasingly be regarded as an integral part of the process of European integration. On the one hand, federal German transport policy has an impact on European transport policy and helps to determine it (cf. Schwedes et al. 2015). Conversely, federal German transport policy is also influenced to a not insignificant degree by decisions at the European level (cf. Bandelow et al. 2014). One does not have to deny national particularities in order to nevertheless come up against boundaries that are delimited by European transport policy. Therefore, to conclude, the relationship between German and European transport policy requires examination. After all, the European Commission has also made the guiding principle of an integrated transport policy the programmatic foundation of its transport policy and also expects that this strategy will lead to sustainable transport development. This raises the question of the extent to which European transport policy can possibly act as a corrective to the less than successful German transport policy.

#### 4.2.1 Aspirations

European transport policy has taken on a new quality since the early 1990s. After the common transport policy had played a subordinate role for decades, it was explicitly given a special position in the Maastricht Treaty signed in 1992 (cf. Frerich/Müller 2004). The goal formulated in the Maastricht Treaty of bringing the common internal market to completion made it seem imperative to also push for the integration of national transport markets.With this goal in mind, the European Union saw its primary task in opening up the largely closed national transport markets in order to support economic integration. At the same time, however, the deregulation of the European transport market, which has been pressed ahead with since then, has led to a conflict of goals that is a peculiar characteristic of any transport policy. While on the one hand the environmental debate reached a highpoint in 1992 with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, where a worldwide reduction of pollutant emissions was decided, the opening of the European transport markets and the resulting growth in traffic, a development in the opposite direction loomed. Since then, European transport policy has been caught between programmatic statements with the goal of sustainable transport development on the one hand and the demands of market integration, expedited through the transport markets on the other (cf. Dyrhauge 2013).

If one examines the programmatic statements on European transport policy from the beginning of the 1990s until today, on the basis of the Green and White Papers, it can be shown that the policy objectives and real developments are moving ever closer together. At the same time, however, the social and ecological dimensions of sustainable transport development are increasingly taking a back seat to the economic perspective. Both the Green Paper published in 1992 and the White Paper published in the same year were initially characterised by a uniform strategy encompassing the entire European transport sector (cf. COM 1992a; 1992b). For the first time, the topic of traffic-induced environmental pollution was dealt with extensively. In particular, the Green Paper thematised the costs of transport growth, which are primarily generated by road traffic and are not included in transport costs. At the time, these externalised costs were recognised as a key factor in influencing transport growth, and a number of studies had already been devoted to calculating them. There was a broad consensus that by imposing on road transport the social costs it itself generates, there should be an increase in the costs of road transport in order to achieve a modal shift in favour of the more environmentally friendly rail transport.

But in the Green Paper published three years later "Toward Fair and Efficient Pricing in Transport. Policy Options for Internalising the External Cost of Transport in the European Union", which was explicitly dedicated to this topic, a different strategic orientation is already to be found (cf. COM 1995). Here, special attention is paid to external costs generated by traffic congestion. In addition, climate-damaging CO2 emissions were factored out, without a word of justification. In this way, the old "dream of traffic flow" (Schmucki 2001) was able to be reactivated at the European level. This is particularly noteworthy, since studies carried out by transport researchers in recent decades, investigating the effects of eradicating traffic jams and the resulting increase in traffic flow, for instance using the example of local bypasses, have repeatedly come to the conclusion that this simply induces more traffic in the medium and long term (cf. Gerike 2017).

The new strategic orientation of the Green Paper from 1995 was essentially directed towards optimisation of the system. It was no longer the transport system as such, dominated by road traffic, that was problematised, but rather the system-internal frictions were to be remedied by a system-immanent solution. The road transport system, which is obviously overloaded and/or inefficient in congestion situations, was to be adapted to requirements through infrastructure measures and/or increases in efficiency. This was the starting point for the White Paper published in 2001, which forms the programmatic basis of European transport policy (cf. COM 2001). Explicitly mentioned was the guiding principle of an integrated transport policy with the goal of sustainable transport development. However, in contrast to the 1992 Green Paper, the White Paper neither envisaged the possibility of politically imposed traffic restrictions, nor did it pursue a modal shift from road to rail. Instead, the White Paper was based on an integration scenario that assumed further growth in traffic. Initially the ambition was formulated to maintain the modal split at the 1998 level: "The third approach (Option C) [...] comprises a series of measures combining tarification, revitalisation of modes of transport other than road transport and targeted investments in the trans-European network. This integrated approach makes it possible to stabilise modal shares at 1998 levels in order to achieve a more balanced distribution by 2010" (COM 2001: 14). Furthermore, a gradual decoupling of economic and transport growth was also supposed to be achieved by 2010. The 2011 White Paper essentially picks up where this left off, but with the decisive restriction that the goal of decoupling economic growth and transport growth is no longer mentioned (cf. COM 2011).8

Measured against their own ambitions, which date back to the beginning of the 1990s, it seems appropriate to draw up an interim balance after 15 years in order to gain a realistic impression of the effectiveness of transport policy strategy at the European level. We will now examine the development of transport from the beginning of the 1990s until the present day in the light of the ambitious objectives.

8 The new White Paper on Transport, which is currently being prepared, is also based on this strategic orientation: https://www.bmvi.de/SharedDocs/DE/Arti kel/G/europaeische-verkehrspolitik.html

#### 4.2.2 Reality

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Transport Commissioner at the time, Neill Kinnock, pointed out in the above-mentioned White Paper that the "majority of EU households do not own a car" (COM 1992a: Foreword). At the time, this was explicitly seen as an opportunity to influence the further development of transport in favour of public transport. A dominance of road transport was to be prevented from the outset. Less than ten years later, theWhite Paper on Transport points out thatin themeantime "two thirds of all households have a car" (COM 2001: 25).

After the enlargement of the EU from 15 to 27Member States through the accession of the Eastern European countries, the situation is similar to that at the beginning of the 1990s: once again, the majority of households do not have a car. However, this has not led to a perspective on transport policy conducive to sustainable transport development. Rather, it is now generally assumed that the overall level of motorisation will largely converge with that in Western Europe. In light of traffic development over the last ten years, this forecast seems realistic.

At the same time, the European Commission initially placed explicit emphasis on the unusually high share of rail in the total modal split in the Eastern European accession countries (Commission 2001: 103). One of the goals had to be to maintain rail transport there at a high level. However, the development in the course of the gradual opening of the Eastern European transport markets since the beginning of the 1990s already showed an unmistakeably contrary trend. In most countries, rail passenger transport has fallen by 50 percent since then, while the degree of motorisation on the roads has increased accordingly (cf. Table 7).

*Table 7 Development of rail transport in Central and Eastern Europe 1990–2000 – transport performance*

Source: Own presentation, based on Commission 2002: Tables 3.5.21 and 3.4.23

The eastward expansion of the EU was expected to further accelerate these trends. This is especially true for freight transport. While rail freight transport only decreased by about one third on average and thus not as dramatically as passenger transport by rail, nevertheless, by 2012 road freight transport had increased by a third, while rail freight transport as a share of total freight transport has meanwhile fallen from 20 to 18 percent (cf. Eurostat 2015).

The forecasts are in turn cited by politicians as a reason and legitimisation for a major increase in infrastructure expansion of road transport routes. It is still disputed to what extent the expansion of the road infrastructure is a reaction to increased demand or, conversely, to what extent it creates the increased demand in the first place. In any case, it is striking that the European road infrastructure was continuously expanded in the 1990s, while the rail infrastructure was reduced by ten percent in the same period (cf. Table 8).

As a result of the specific burdens it imposes, road freight transport is of great importance in the context of an integrated transport policy aimed at sustainable transport development.Thus,in conclusion,we will examine the question of what the transport policy situation in the freight transport sector looks like at the European level, and what developments can be expected in the future.

*Table 8 Traffic and Transport Infrastructure in the Territory of the EU-15 1970–2001*

Source: Own presentation, based on EU Commission 2002. The statistics given for the period before 1990 include the route network of the Reichsbahn in the GDR. \* = 2000 \*\* = 1998

#### 4.2.3 New Constellations of Actors in European Freight Transport Policy

The development of freight transport in Europe has a lot in common with the development of freight transport in Germany, described above (cf. chapter 4.1.1). This applies to both CEP (Courier-Express-Parcel-Service) transport and intermodal transport. Both transport segments have also undergone an astonishing process of transformation at the European level. The changes in the process of industrial production here also led to a so-called "freight structure effect", which necessitated the complete reorganisation of the transport and logistics sector. As the production of higher-value, light goods in small batch sizes gained significantly in importance, the traditional modes of transport of bulk freight (rail, inland waterways) came under pressure. By contrast, flexible road freight transport was able to fully exploit its advantages on the well-developed road infrastructure. This development was given additional impetus by the gradual liberalisation of cabotage (domestic transport by foreign providers) in the course of the completion of the single European market, which was finalised in 1998.

Against the background of the new challenges in the transport and logistics sector, a dramatic concentration process then took place (cf. Wolf 2006). While the CEP markets within Germany are essentially dominated by the formerly state-owned postal company DHL, as discussed earlier, at the European level a total of four large corporations share the market, which, in addition to DHL, include Federal Express, TNT and UPS. These companies are mainly active in road and air transport and have at least partially acted as 'integrators' in these sectors by systematically integrating both of these transport segments as a fundamental part of their transport and logistics chains. However, this internal integration was accompanied by external disintegration: increasingly excluded from this strategy were precisely rail and ship, which are central components of an integrated transport policy with the goal of sustainable transport development. Accordingly, the development of intermodal transport – an essential mainstay of integrated transport policy – remained insignificant at both national and European level.

With the reorganisation of the CEP markets by the transnationallyoriented large corporations, the EU regulatory levelin road freight transport was established as the decisive authority. This does not mean that the European institutions alone decide on the type and manner of market regulation policy in road freight transport. Just as an explanatory approach derived from nation-state policies hardly does justice to the complex processes of negotiation at the European level, the one-dimensional derivation of European transport policy via institutional procedures does not get to the heart of EU governance in the field of transport policy. Rather, the latter is characterised by a multi-dimensional network of relationships, mediated by conflicts, which encompasses the EU and national governments as well as the private sector and actors from civil society. This conflict-laden domain can be illustrated by an institutionalised "five-corner relationship" between public and private actors (cf. Figure 16)

*Figure 16. Institutionalised "five-corner relationship" at EU level*

Source: Dieter Plehwe 2005, based on "triad relationships" between states and companies, designed by Stopford et al. (1991: 22).

The powerful consequences of this configuration of social power relations at the European level, which is constantly shifting as a result of conflictual relationships, can be demonstrated in the context of the restructuring of the CEP segment, using the example of the postal markets.

With the opening of the postal markets, which had previously been largely protected by state-owned postal companies, a dynamic of deregulation and privatisation was unleashed, which was reflected in particular in a reorientation of the transnationally-oriented postal companies that transcended national borders. At the level of the EU, this development was articulated in an institutional reorganisation of the postal sector. While the operational postal companies founded the European pressure group *Post Europe* in 1992, its predecessor (CEPT: *European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations*) was transformed into a European regulatory authority. "The constellation of actors shifted extensively in this context: as from 1992, the opposing interests of postal organisations and private integrators had been equally able to influence the arenas of European negotiation and decision-making processes, in the form of European business associations. Although important dynamics of postal policy continued to be located at the national level – for example, individual member countries such as the Netherlands and Germany commercialised and privatised the Post more rapidly, while other member countries pursued more structurally conservative adjustment strategies – for all member countries and postal organisations the arenas of negotiation and the decision-making processes were located at the EU level" (Plehwe 2005). In this context, very different connections of actors to different thematic fields reveal a relative openness of the processes of negotiation at the European level. It was not possible to hold back the dominant dynamic of the transnational corporations, the integration of air and road freight, and this had a disintegrating effect on the system as a whole. This was mainly due to the fact that the national associations of haulage companies and carriers, which – unlike the major transnational corporations – were interested in a more protectionist strategy, did not succeed in establishing powerful pressure groups at the European level.

Maintaining a limited postal monopoly to finance universal postal services was a different matter. Initially, a cross-institutional consensus emerged at the EU level regarding the gradual restriction of the postal monopoly. Both the Commission and the Council as well as the Parliament pursued a common goal in this regard in the course of the 1990s, with a series of Green and White Papers. At the same time, however, the first postal directive established the universal postal service as an integral part of services of general interest. Unlike in the field of road freight transport, the factions pushing for complete market integration were unable to prevail here. Instead, a universal service alliance was formed across all political levels, consisting of the majority of postal organisations, trade unions, national governments and regional interest groups from rural regions, which managed to win out against the radical market forces. The dynamics of social struggles in the EU's multi-level political system illustrate the commitment of consumer organisations in this context. For example, the liberalisation alliance, which is strongly represented in the EU Commission, was able to gain the support of the European consumer organisation, which is co-financed by the Commission. Conversely, the opponents successfully mobilised national consumer organisations at the European level.

The example of the dispute over the universal postal service provides an impression of the diverse political and strategic options that have opened up in the course of the European integration process, most of which have probably not even been recognised, let alone tried out. At the same time, however, this explains the dominance of economic power in the European transport sector to this day, despite all the partial, socio-political successes.9 "Not only the presence, but also the relative strength and the ability to act of the private and public interests associated with certain discourses and positions prove to be decisive in order to successfully intervene in political decision-making processes that have increasingly shifted from national institutional contexts to supranational-European arenas of negotiation. Extremely effective

9 On the effects of the European deregulation strategy on the labour market and the welfare state, cf. Deppe et al. 2005.

political guiding principles, even the most successful guiding principle in the history of European integration, namely the completed European internal market, are being concretely defined and configured on the basis of interests and alliances. On the one hand, we have the comprehensive liberalisation of the European market while maintaining – in part – strongly heterogeneous, national market conditions in the area of road transport; on the other hand, we have the gradual – to be negotiated – liberalisation of the market in connection with the (economically secured) guarantee of universal services in the area of postal markets" (Plehwe 2005).

#### 4.2.4 Summary

Thus, in answer to the question whether European transport policy can be expected to rectify the problematic trends in Germany with respect to the model of integrated transport policy and sustainable transport development, one remains sceptical.

As explained, the objectives of European integration also date back to the beginning of the 1990s. It is thus possible to look back on a horizon of experience of more than thirty years, which permits a realistic assessment of the effectiveness of the integration model so far (cf. Humphreys 2011). Accordingly, it can be stated that the dynamics of development in transport policy, contrary to the programmatic announcements, is still substantially characterised by a logic of economic integration (cf. Plehwe 2016). This has a problematic effect on a strategy of political integration, particularly in freight transport, since here the strategy is worked out through competitive relationships mediated by individual or business interests. While this kind of development has led to impressive achievements in integration and associated gains in economic efficiency at the company or corporate level, it has simultaneously forced the same companies to hermetically seal themselves off from the outside world, resulting in increasing fragmentation in the field of transport policy.

As in the German transport market, intermodal freight transport (CT) has not been able to develop further under these conditions. To this day, although politically desired, CT is not economically competitive, with the transhipment of goods at the interfaces of the different modes of transport repeatedly proving to be the central weak point, since it is there that additional frictional losses occur. A major prerequisite for achieving a convergence of competitive conditions here would therefore be, in the first place, extensive state support to optimise the interfaces. In addition, the CT companies are dependent on close cooperation, which is difficult to achieve in the current milieu, dominated as it is by a dynamics of competition mediated by the market. Ultimately, through its framework directives, the EU not only promotes the conditions that disadvantage CT, it also opposes both state funding that distorts competition as well as efforts at cooperation on the part of companies active in rail and intermodal transport, which have been condemned and banned by the Commission as illegal practices of market closure.

European transport policy is thus also characterised by a discrepancy between aspiration and reality, which manifests itself in the structural contradiction between cooperation and competition (cf. Givoni & Banister 2010). The EU has tried to resolve the contradiction, as expressed in the formula "regulated competition", but it has not succeeded, at least not in the transport sector. While the integrated transport policy called for in the objectives is dependent on the most diverse forms of political cooperation, this approach is in fact thwarted by a policy of liberalisation that still prevails today. Given this situation, European transport policy can,at a national level,at best be expected to provide only a weakimpetus for an integrated transport policy aimed at sustainable transport development.The repeated attempts by the European Parliament, such as the gradual tightening of the limits for CO2 emissions, are an expression of an end-of-pipe strategy that relies one-sidedly on technical innovations, and they do nothing to alter the overall assessment (cf. Bahn-Walkowiak et al. 2012). In the past, these innovations have not led to a systematic correction of the direction taken by transport policy at EU level. On the contrary, to this day they are repeatedly counteracted in European transport policy by lobbying initiatives from the member states (cf. Schwedes et al. 2015).

Accordingly, the *European Commission* itself comes to the conclusion that transport development in Europe is still not on the path to sustainable development (cf. COM 2011). The consequences of a lack of far-reaching political changes are described in drastic terms: "If everything continues as before, the dependency of transport on oil is likely to remain only slightly less than 90 percent, and renewable energy sources will only marginally exceed the target of 10 percent for 2020. CO2 emissions from transport would be one third higher by 2050 than 1990 levels, and congestion-related costs will increase by around 50 percent by 2050. The gap between central and peripheral regions will widen, in terms of accessibility.The societal costs of accidents and noise pollution would continue to rise" (COM 2011: 5). This assessment was recently confirmed once again by the European Parliament and became the starting point for deliberations on how effective measures can be politically implemented, in order to finally come closer to the goal (cf. EP 2015).

Here, too, the prerequisite for a political-strategic readjustment in favour of approaches designed to achieve social and ecological integration would be a corresponding shift in the configuration of social power relations at the European level.

#### **4.3 Third Interim Summary – Camouflage in Transport Policy**

The starting point of this study was the widespread guiding principle of integrated transport policy and planning. The guiding principle, it seemed, constitutes a general consensus in transport policy that is not seriously contested by any side. At the same time, we observed that current transport policy at national and European level is increasingly characterised by a sharp contrast between programmatic strategy and concrete measures. Should this superficial impression be confirmed, then the important research question concerning the reasons for this disparity would need to be raised. In fact, the impression was confirmed in two respects. A survey of stakeholders in transport policy revealed that to date there are no material objections to the concept of integrated transport policy with the goal of sustainable transport development.The analysis of real transport development, on the other hand, has shown

that it is regularly at variance with the political aspirations. Thus, the realism and practicality of the widely recognised model of integrated transport policy is fundamentally up for negotiation (cf. Schwedes & Rammert 2020).

In light of this, we formulated the hypothesis that the various actors in the field of transport policy associate distinctly differentideas with the model of integrated transport policy. Although it was possible to gather the transport policy makers with their conflicting interests under a common guiding principle, this did not result in a (transport) policy 'solution'. Rather, the old conflicts of interest continue to lead to disparate strategies on the part of the individual actors, which do not fit into an overall political concept. The programmatic approaches move between the two conceptual poles of cooperation and competition.While the idea of integration aims to achieve different forms of cooperation, the market philosophy dominating the transport sector insists on the creative power of competition or even destruction.

Since this profound conflict of interests has not really been solved politically by the integration model, so the thesis goes, it depends on the stakeholders in transport policy and their respective position in the field as to which interests or policies are able to prevail. On the one hand, through a topography of the actors in the field of transport policy, we were able to identify three strategies of integration. Three groups of actors were each assigned to an economic, a social and an ecological integration strategy. In a further step, the three groups of actors were weighted according to their respective importance. It was shown that the resources of the representatives of an economic integration strategy clearly exceed the collective resources of the representatives of a social and ecological integration strategy. In addition to the material disadvantages, our study revealed a further weakening of the latter group through internal and bilateral lines of conflict. In contrast to the representatives of an economic approach to integration, who repeatedly manage to achieve an impressive unity beyond all the divergences that undoubtedly exist among them, the representatives of a social and ecological integration strategy compete both between and among themselves on individual issues.

As a result, transport policy is dominated by the representatives of the philosophy of economic integration, the principal aim of which is economic optimisation, meaning increased cost efficiency. This particularistic view is at variance with the strategic orientation of an integrated transport policy and has a corresponding effect on transport development. Contrary to what is planned within the framework of an integrated transport policy, the individual economic strategies do not fit into an overall political concept in which social and ecological dimensions can also be adequately articulated in a way that is conducive to sustainable transport development. Instead, the market-driven competitive dynamics of the economic integration strategy tend to have a disintegrating effect on the overall transport system.

By limiting itself primarily to optimising the conditions for economic integration, this policy hopes to activate potential innovations that also benefit sustainable transport development. Innovative products, for example in the area of new powertrain technologies, are supposed to help avoid the negative consequences of transport. Policymakers expect impetuses for integrated transport policy in particular from information and communication technologies, which in future are supposed to ensure tighter links between different modes of transport.10 But it is precisely in the area of transport telematics that the consequences of a dominant economic integration strategy are particularly evident. This is because the new technologies have so far barely been used to optimise the transport system as a whole, but mostly to improve individual modes of transport or subsystems (cf. Klumpp 2002; Stopka 2003). Apparently, the centrifugal forces of a competitive dynamic generated by particular interests cannot be reined in through technical innovations alone.

This confirms a long-known dilemma that transport researcher Fritz Voigt described more than 50 years ago as a structural problem of the

10 This approach is the distinctive feature of the BMBF-funded project network "Mobility in Urban Areas", as well as the follow-up project "Traffic Management 2010" and the current "High-Tech Strategy" of the Federal Government.

transport sector. Concluding his observations on the economic significance of the transport system, Voigt emphasises the values of the market economy and especially competition: "But this does not change the fact that, in the course of generations, a purely market-based transport economy necessarily resultsin excessively stark differencesin what were, originally, equal opportunities for development. In the long run, such a market economy can cost every nation and every state dearly" (Voigt 1960: 314). The current dominance of the philosophy of economic integration in the transport sector, which, as has been shown, systematically hinders sustainable transport development, appears to confirm this early insight.

The current debate in transport policy tends to deny the lines of conflict that we have outlined.The guiding principle of integrated transport policy fulfils a centralideological function. Sinceitis essentially based on the idea of a possible and desirable compromise, overarching the various interests and that can be more or less harmoniously achieved to the satisfaction of all participants,it in fact contributes to the de-thematisation of the prevailing conflicts ofinterests. Transport research colludesin this with advisory studies in which it semantically reconciles the structural conflict between cooperation and competition by means of the artificial term "co-optition" (cf. Beckmann & Baum 2002). The result is transport policy as camouflage!

In the course of the present study, this procedure has proved to be problematic, because behind the façade of the guiding principle of integrated transport policy, powerful special interests are able to impose themselves, repeatedly discrediting the idea behind the guiding principle. The results of the present study therefore indicate a different approach. Instead of preserving the impression that the divergent interests of stakeholders in transport policy can all be integrated equitably in a compromise formulation, these interests should – first of all – be worked out and identified as different but legitimate concerns. In a second step, the legitimate interests of the various actors should be opened up to public discussion.

Since it is scarcely possible to change the underlying power relations in the short and medium term, the aim in a democratically constituted

#### 172 Transport in Capitalism

community must be to exert influence on the decision-making process in transport policy by means of relevant 'checks and balances'. To achieve this, it is first necessary to raise the socio-political status of transport policy. Instead of reducing transport policy to a special part of economics – as is still common in economics today – the manifold social influences at work in transport policy should be made clear. Transport policy must not be regarded as a derived variable, as an ancillary economic science, so to speak, but rather as a central aspect of coping with life in modern societies. The task is therefore to free decision-making processes in transport policy from their restricted arcanum and to publicly convey an understanding of transport policy as a central component of social policy, in order to raise its *political* status accordingly.

Only in the context of a successful politicisation of transport policy does it seem sensible to pursue further conceptual deliberations. There is certainly no lack of promising approaches. Especially if one continues to make the idea of integration the basis of practical strategies for action, it is possible to build on comprehensive concepts that were developed in the 1990s (cf. UBA 2014). However, Martin Wachs had already pointed out the dilemma of these conceptually undoubtedly convincing models, a dilemma that remains valid today. Instead of yet again making the guiding principle of an integrated transport policy the basis for conceptual deliberations, the political circumstances that stood in the way of implementation in the past should be reflected upon: "I firmly believe that transport policy-making is primarily a political exercise, and that analytical approaches by technical experts are invariably less influential than the pull and tug of influential interest groups" (cf. Wachs 1993: 337).

In other words, transport policy does not suffer from a poverty of ideas. Fed by transport research, it has sufficient knowledge and modeltheoretical deliberations in order to shape transport policy. Instead of adding another concept to this, the present study has aimed from the outset to answer the question of why the existing knowledge has to date not been employed to a greater extent. Within the relatively limited framework of selected examples, we have been able to indicate the relevance of an analysis of the policy field (which has been neglected in the past) but without always ensuring sufficient depth. This opens

#### 4. Case Studies in Transport Policy 173

up a field of research that should be further explored in the future with concrete individual case studies.

## **5. The Great Transformation of the Transport Sector**

After presenting the transport sector and the field of transport policy in all their facets, the following chapter will once again take up the fundamental observations on the political economy of transport within the framework of capitalist socialisation and discuss the question of the conditions required for sustainable transport development. This entails placing people at the centre of a major transformation of the transport sector.

#### **5.1 Placing People at the Centre of Sustainable Transport Development**

The discourse of sustainability is characterised by the idea of nature in its natural state. This concept, in turn, is based on the assumption that one can distinguish between nature in its natural state and something unnatural that deviates from it. This is where people usually come into play, encountering an unsullied nature and deforming it in a way that renders it unrecognisable. This motif – natural versus unnatural – results in a far-reaching social consensus that transcends all party boundaries and underpins the entire discourse of sustainability: nature in its natural state must be preserved or restored.

A point of view that assumes that all people are (or at least should be) equally motivated to restore nature to its natural state is as charming as it is demanding.This becomes clear the moment the specific social conditions come into view in which different people with different interests are active. Then it becomes apparent that people are affected quite differently by the overexploitation of natural resources and its negative consequences. The rise in sea level as a result of climate change would primarily affect the 90 percent of the world's poor population, a large proportion of whom live close to the ocean, while the few rich cities have the necessary means to adapt to these changed conditions and continue to lead a good life (cf. Schellnhuber 2015).

This way, the perspective changes and it is no longer *people* as such who have to save *nature* as such. Rather, it is different people with very different interests who have to agree on how to deal with natural resources. In this context, nature in its supposedly natural state is a misleading point of reference, because contrary to what this idea suggests, there is no state of nature which people can use to orient their actions. The natural environment has never been static, but has been in a state of constant, sometimes profound change for 17 million years. Since the emergence of Homo sapiens almost two million years ago, humans have also been exerting an increasing influence on the natural environment. This development reached its provisional peak and a new quality with the beginning of the industrial revolution about 200 years ago. Since the middle of the 20th century, the influence of humans has finally become so great and the changes in the natural environment so visible that researchers have diagnosed the transition to a new geological age – from the Holocene to the Anthropocene (cf. Kersten 2014).

Nature its natural state thus loses its significance as a reference point, as a guide for taking action, and people become the focus of attention. While viewing pristine nature as the goal previously seemed indisputable, i.e. it did not require a political decision, the question now arises as to how people want to organise their "metabolic interaction [with] the earth" (Marx 2004: 637) in the future. Social relations as an expression of capitalist socialisation, which decide how the relationship of people to their natural environment will be shaped, are now placed on the political agenda. The discourse of sustainability, which had previously been largely politically inoperative, is thus politicised (cf. Swyngedouw 2007; Wilson & Swyngedouw 2015). The goal is now no

longer to align one's own actions with an original state of nature that can be taken as a given by all people equally. Since pristine nature as a justificatory fundament is now lost, the regulation of our relation to nature must now be negotiated politically (cf. Görg 2003). The formerly natural standard is replaced by a social criterion and a political decision has to be made regarding how we want to live together in the future. In the process, the existing power relations and relations of domination necessarily come into view. Can we imagine that 90 percent of the world's population will suffer under the consequences of climate change in the future, while ten percent will even benefit from it? These ethical questions are always also political questions and can only be answered by people who are politically informed (cf. Negt 2011).

By contrast, as was shown at the beginning of the present study, the capitalist mode of socialisation is based on compulsive economic growth, which is the dominant factor in political action. Accordingly, it is not qualitative questions that are determinant, about who produces what, for whom, with what aim, but rather how more can be produced, quantitatively. So one doesn't begin with the question of what do I need and how much of it; instead, it is simply assumed that ever more is needed because the capitalist mode of production depends on it. Only then is the question posed as to who should consume the additional goods that are produced, which explains the recurrent interplay of crises of over-production and under-consumption that manifest themselves in severe social dislocations, over which the people affected by them have no influence (cf. Zimmermann et al. 2013). Following Marx's characterisation of the human being as a *zôon politikon*, as a potentially self-aware and self-determined – that is, *political* – being, the human being appears alienated from his or her particular abilities within the framework of capitalist modes of socialisation (cf. Sörensen 2016).

In the transport sector, alienation is expressed in a reversal of the means and the purpose: within the framework of the capitalist mode of production, transport is transformed from, initially, a means to achieve a specific end, into an end in itself. Transport serves as a medium of the sphere of circulation and guarantees the linking of production and consumption on an ever-longer stepladder, and at an ever-increasing speed.

The resulting growth in transport cannot be justified qualitatively; transport is not designed to satisfy concrete human needs. Rather, transport growth legitimises itself through its contribution to economic growth. Thus, transport growth is functionally linked to economic growth, which in turn draws its purpose from itself – growth for its own sake. The primary purpose of transport is thus to serve the capitalist mode of production, not to serve people.

The alienation caused by the reversal of means and purpose in transport is articulated on an individual level through the conceptual confusion of transport and mobility. There is no one who, out of self-motivation, happily undertakes a daily commute over long distances. There are simply some who cope with the associated stress better than others.Nevertheless, those who are on the move a lot are considered highly mobile. The growth paradigm has thus also found expression in individual selfperception, with the qualitative dimension left unexamined. To the extent that transport growth is understood as a necessary contribution to the desired economic growth, it remains removed from political influence. In contrast, a politicisation of transport development would have to start with social conditions and support people in fulfilling their concrete demands and needs.

#### **5.2 Breaking with the Growth Paradigm as a Prerequisite for People-Centred Transport Development**

As a functional component of the growth spiral of capitalist production, transport policy moves within the framework of the growth paradigm (cf. Fig. 1) and is trapped in a production regime that constantly derives the goal of unlimited growth from within itself. Due to this lack of alternatives, transport policy is largely powerless; it can regulate transport in the interests of economic growth, but cannot politically shape it beyond that. Accordingly, a politicisation of transport policy must be directed towards emancipation from the prevailing growth compulsion.

Due to its fundamental social significance, a break with the growth paradigm requires profound social change.The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU 2011) compares the current situation with regard to the possible global consequences of climate change with the enormous social upheavals that resulted from the industrial revolution in the 19th century. At the time, the economic forces that were unleashed led to social upheavals on a scale that threatened social cohesion. The task was to regulate the largely free market politically in the interest of the common good. The WBGU sees the challenge today in organising societies worldwide in such a way that climate change can be stopped and its negative consequences avoided. To this end, the paradigm of 'higher, further, faster', which is increasingly directed against people, must be replaced by the ethical principle of responsibility formulated by the philosopher Hans Jonas (2003). This principle stipulates that in future people should no longer base their actions on quantitative criteria, but rather on three substantively justified qualitative goals. Firstly, they should be guided by an ecological mindfulness that takes into consideration negative environmental consequences for people's lives. Secondly, democratic participation should be guaranteed so that people can shape their lives in a self-determined, that is, political way. Thirdly, current actions should always be guided by a sense of responsibility for the future, reflecting on the consequences of one's own actions for future generations.

In terms of transport, this would mean that we would have to consider the environmental consequences of a global increase in transport from today's one billion vehicles to two billion in 2030 and three billion in 2050, and how this would affect the coexistence of the world's population (cf. Sperling & Gordon 2010).This objective is confronted with the directive goals of the automobile companies, which are continuously increasing their global production figures. This already addresses the second goal, democratic participation, which is not possible under the current social conditions, dominated as they are by particular market interests. Lastly, one would have to consider the consequences for future generations of excessive transport and traffic development in the emerging regions of the world, as they catch up with the developed industrialised countries. The necessity of political struggle is illustrated by the existing relations of power and dominance, which stand in the way of a social transformation conducive to sustainable transport development.

The debate within the Commission of Inquiry of the German Federal Parliament into "Growth, Prosperity, Quality of Life – Ways to Achieve Sustainable Economic Activity and Social Progress in the Social Market Economy" showed how great the potential for political conflict is when it comes to economic growth (cf. Deutscher Bundestag 2013). The starting point for the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry was the wide-ranging consensus that societal prosperity can no longer be adequately assessed using the gross domestic product, which relies solely on quantitative economic indicators (cf. Lepenies 2013). Viewed through the lens of these indicators, a traffic accident has a positive impact on the gross domestic product, since it provides a range of employment – police, paramedics, doctors, car repair workshops, etc. – to which income is tied, which in turn can be fed into the economic cycle as consumer expenditure. By contrast, the negative, cost-causing effects on welfare are not sufficiently accounted for. For this reason, the Commission of Inquiry agreed across party lines that, in addition to material indicators of prosperity, social and ecological dimensions of prosperity should also be included in the future.

Nevertheless, a profound controversy arose over the question of the right strategy for sustainable economic development, which remains exemplary of the political debate today. Accordingly, the majority vote advocated a change from quantitative to qualitative growth. By qualitative growth is meant that the entire economy is better organised and produces products of ever higher quality. This entails two strategies: First, technical innovations are supposed to contribute to gains in efficiency (efficiency strategy). For example, car engines that are more economical produce lower CO2 emissions. Advocates of the efficiency strategy, such as Ernst Ulrich vonWeizsäcker, Amory and Hunter Lovins (1995), assume that we can maintain and even ramp up our global lifestyle through efficiency gains alone. In their view, three billion motor vehicles worldwide will then no longer pose a sustainability problem. Secondly, the resources used should be used as effectively as possible, in the best case, used more often, which addresses the issue of recycling (effectiveness strategy). Here, too, the automobile can serve as an example, in which up to 30 percent of the materials used now come from recycling. Representatives of the effectiveness strategy such as William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2002) assume that artificial substances will be invented in the future, which – analogous to the cycles of natural resources – will be fed over and againinto cycles of artificial materials. Like the proponents of the efficiency strategy, they are also convinced that the effectiveness strategy alone will solve the sustainability problems, and from this perspective, too, three billion motor vehicles worldwide therefore no longer pose a sustainability problem.

In its majority vote, the Commission of Inquiry into "Growth, Prosperity, Quality of Life" thus advocates a dual strategy of sustainable economic activity, which primarily relies on technical innovations, whether to achieve efficiency gains, or to use resources more effectively in the future. This is, of course, a repeat of the debate from the 1990s presented at the outset of this study, which was conducted at the time in the Commission of Inquiry on the "Protection of the Earth's Atmosphere" (cf. chapter 2.2.2). Once again, economic growth is qualified, but not fundamentally questioned. This results in the frequently described problem that the gains in efficiency and effectiveness of qualitative economic growth are repeatedly negated or even outstripped by quantitative growth (cf. Paech 2011, Sachs 2015). This has been particularly evident in the transport sector in recent decades. Time and again, technical innovations were presented that served as beacons of hope for sustainable transport development – most recently electric transport (cf. Schwedes 2016a). Measured in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness strategy, the electric car is undoubtedly the product of qualitative economic growth. While the internal combustion engine emits over 70 percent of the energy it produces as heat and can only use just under thirty percent for propulsion, the electric motor is far superior, with an efficiency of over ninety percent. If we assume that the electric car also runs on renewable energy, it is also superior in this respect to the combustion engine, which consumes – just once and irretrievably – fossil fuel that was created over a period of millions of years. Nevertheless, studies in recent years have repeatedly shown that merely

#### 182 Transport in Capitalism

replacing the combustion engine with the electric car, with otherwise unchanged circumstances, results in scarcely any benefit in the energy footprint over the course of the vehicle's life cycle (cf. UPI 2015). This can be explained, among other things, by the energy-intensive extraction of the rare earths needed for the batteries and the still largely unresolved issue of disposal, quite apart from the fact that the electric car is also dependent on finite resources.

The example of electric car production confirms once again that qualitative growth does not provide a solution to the sustainability problem – three billion electric cars worldwide *also* pose a sustainability problem. This does not mean that the efficiency and effectiveness strategies are meaningless, they are just inadequate and must be supplemented by the third strategy of sustainability, namely the so-called sufficiency strategy, which is aimed at changing the behaviour of both producers and consumers (cf. Stengel 2011). In relation to the electric car, this would mean that it is integrated into new concepts of usage, such as car sharing.This means that the electric car is no longer a private commodity that sits around idle for 90 percent of the day, but is ideally used by many people throughout the day, when they need it. The consequence would be that, overall, far fewer electric cars would have to be produced, which would thus contribute to breaking with the growth paradigm. This would require a rethinking on the part of the producers, who would no longer orient their activities towards increasing their production figures, but would instead develop into mobility service providers who gear their offers to the specific demands and needs of their customers. 1 But it would also require a change of mentality among consumers, to use means of mobility collectively instead of owning them individually. Only on the basis of this *social innovation*, which complements the gains in efficiency

1 Of course, the automobile manufacturers claim to be able to anticipate their customers' every wish. However, this remains unsatisfactory as long as democratic participation stops at the factory gates. It can be assumed, for example, that Germans would not have agreed to the health-damaging 'solution' to the exhaust gas problem in diesel vehicles if they had been given the opportunity to do so.

and effectiveness achieved through technical innovations, can the electric car be shown tomake a positive contribution to sustainable transport development (cf. Augenstein 2015).

Following the insight into the necessity of breaking with the growth paradigm in order to enable sustainable transport development, the question arises as to the scope for action in transport policy within the framework of the capitalist mode of socialisation (cf. Higgs 2014). Is a transformation of the transport sector conducive to sustainable transport development even conceivable under the conditions of capitalist production? After all, research on the 'Varieties of Capitalism' has shown that, after the Second World War, different paths of capitalist development were taken worldwide, some of which manifested themselves in very different modes of regulation in conjunction with the welfare state (cf. Hancké 2009). However, none of these variants is characterised by changes as profound as the great transformation from laissez-faire capitalism to a capitalist production regime regulated by the welfare state (Gilbert & Perl 2008). At the time, this required far-reaching political interventions, which the German Advisory Council for Global Change (WBGU 2011) takes as a reference point for the overall societal change that it believes is necessary now and that has to be shaped politically. Following this approach, and in the light of historical experience in the transport sector, recommendations for political action in the design of sustainable transport development are developed in the next chapter.

#### **5.3 The Common Good as the Starting Point for a New Transport Policy**

In the course of the historical development of the welfare state, the principle of public administration oriented towards the common good, also known as public services, was established in the early 20th century and remains valid today (cf. Hofmann 2012). This was based on the insight that people in modern urban societies would no longer be able to afford certain necessary services that the rural population had previously organised themselves, such as the water supply. Instead, the state would have to provide the infrastructure services that are necessary for large masses of people to live together, such as sewage systems, electricity grids or transport networks (cf. Meinel 2011). This situation resulted in the so-called "social question". Basic services necessary for daily life were to be made available to all citizens in their homes, be it a toilet connected to the sewage system, electricity or connection to the water supply.The idea of household access was born! Transport was also part of the provision of public services and was to be organised in the interest of the common good. At the time, however, due to a lack of alternatives, the requirement only referred to public transport, which was in principle supposed to be accessible to everyone in order to guarantee a minimum degree of mobility.

With the individual mass motorisation of the post-war period, the situation in the transport sector changed fundamentally. The availability of a private automobile meant that more and more people were able to provide for their own personal mobility needs. In the transport sector, they were less and less dependent on state-run public transport services. Admittedly, the state provided the necessarymassive roadinfrastructure and an obligatory parking space. But beyond that, people organised their (auto-)mobility more and more independently. Until finally, it became almost impossible for a household to satisfy the basic need for mobility without resorting to the private automobile, while access to collective public transport was increasingly thinned out.

Today, the social environment has once again fundamentally changed. With challenges such as climate change and the finite nature of fossil fuels, private auto-mobility is increasingly contested. In light of this, the question arises regarding the extent to which the individual's right to a minimum degree of mobility can be guaranteed without having to rely on the private car. If it should be the case in the future that personal mobility with the help of a private car is no longer feasible on an individual basis due to rising costs, how is the necessary basic mobility, congruent with the common good, to be provided? In other words, the social question is being posed anew.

Ensuring sustainable transport development through access to mobility from home could be a future task for the state, within the framework of a redefined concept of public services. This requires as great an effort, socially speaking, as in the 19th century, when public utility infrastructures were establishedin European towns and cities. In the following section, challenges are outlined and solutions suggested that aim to create access to mobility for low-income population groups, in conformity with minimum social standards.These solutions point to the necessity to rethink public services, with the aim of establishing a mobility law that guarantees access to mobility from home, without being limited to traditional collective public transport. Thus, low-income earners can prove to be pioneers of mobility in the context of sustainable transport development.

#### 5.3.1 On the Relationship between the Common Good and Transport

The attractiveness of the private car is explained by its permanent availability. By having it right outside the front door in the best case,its owner has the certainty of being mobile at all times. Just as the household connection to the water supply, to sewage, the electricity grid and heating guarantee that basic needs are met, the private car functions, as it were, as a household connection to mobility. However, with one crucial difference: as a 'stationary vehicle'2 itis highlyinefficient.While public utilities guarantee a permanent and thus efficient service due to their collective use, the private car stands around unused most of the time. This situation results in a dilemma! The private automobile ideally fulfils a basic need for individual mobility, but at the expense of the common good (cf. Knoflacher 2013).

Given this situation, the question is how this obvious contradiction can be resolved. In other words, the challenge for transport policy is to organise household access to mobility such that it supports sustainable transport development. By contrast, the current situation is that those

2 Translator's note: *Stehzeug* ("stationary vehicle") as opposed to *Fahrzeug* ("moving vehicle/vehicle designed to move").

who do not have a private car are confronted with multiple barriers because a public transport stop is obviously not to be found outside every doorstep. Also, it is usually not possible to step out the front door, grab a rental bike and ride to the next stop to quickly change to the next mode of transport. And cars for car sharing are rarely available in the neighbourhood, let alone at the front door. On the contrary, they are lacking precisely where they are most needed: in areas of the cities where cycling is common, as well as in rural areas. Many households thus have no guaranteed connection to mobility because their needs are not covered by private business models. As a result, a growing part of the population experiences social injustice to the extent that their mobility or social participation is restricted, for a wide variety of reasons. This is where transport policy must start today, by revisiting the social question, taking the changed social situation into account and reflecting on new forms of public mobility (cf. Schwedes 2021).

The causes that limit individual mobility and thus social participation are manifold and usually tightly interwoven. The hindrances to individual freedom of movement can have to do with one's personal environment and be caused by a lack of skills and/or financial resources, and can be lasting, due to location and time considerations.The constant thinning out of comprehensive bus and train services, especially in rural areas, has ultimately shifted transport to the automobile. Socially disadvantaged urban districts or rural regions without appropriate transport infrastructure are dependent on motorised individual transport,i.e. primarily on the car. But there are also spatial developments that have fostered car dependency and barriers to accessibility in recent years. Thus, we observe a reduction in settlement density, a separation of residential and work areas, and spatial dispersion that favours motorised individual transport (Holz-Rau 2018). But traditional space-time ties have also changed. Needs have become more differentiated, the purposes of transport have become more diverse and journeys more complex. In addition, routines or habits are significant for transport behaviour. Thus, the choice of means of transport is for the most part habitual. This is especially true for daily journeys. People no longer think about the choice of transport or the routes they take. On the other hand, complicated tariff systems or the purchase of individual tickets from ticket vending machines often enough serve as an obstacle to a routinised choice of transport mode. Transport policy and planning that aims to promote environmentally and socially equitable transport use requires services that go beyond the high network density and frequency of traditional public transport, by ensuring a connection to mobility for individual households (cf. Catapult 2016).

Physical disabilities, insecurity and fears can create acceptance thresholds that significantly limit mobility. Especially in old age, fears and insecurities increase. For example, some people find it difficult to use public transport if they associate it with negative experiences (e.g. uncertainty when changing trains, a confusing fare system, harassment). It is not only older people who often avoid using a bicycle because they feel unsafe on slippery or damaged bicycle paths, or on roads with a high proportion of cars. People tend to avoid places that give rise to fear, i.e., places where the threat of crime and violence is perceived to be particularly high. Those who are restricted in their movement are also often confronted with structural barriers. Ramps and footpaths with steep inclines, stairs, steps or missing handrails can mean that one has to ask for assistance or is unable to use a particular means of transport. Spaces and transport facilities should be designed in such a way that everyone feels safe and can get around without worry. Adequate lighting, pathways that are easy to follow or elevators with glass walls can increase the feeling of safety. Personal barriers can therefore be quite diverse and affect not only elderly people, but can basically affect everyone. Accordingly, an environmentally sound transport policy is designed to meet the needs of the weakest members of society, it is thus a 'design for all', and thereby contributes to the common good – everyone benefits from a barrier-free ticket machine (cf. Gaffron 2016).

Lastly, it is the lack of financial means that limits mobility. Although low-income households have lower transport expenditure in absolute terms, expenditure on mobility takes up a much higher share of the total budget compared to high-income households. In addition, transport costs have risen at an above-average rate in recent years. Due to their limited financial means, low-income households find it extremely difficult to offset rising transport costs from other areas, since large parts of the income are tied up in fixed expenses for food, clothing, hygiene articles etc. Finally, a reduction of transport costs is hardly possible for lowincome earners, since they already make heavy use of non-motorised and public transport (Altenburg et al. 2009). It thus becomes clear that strategies in transport policy designed to maintain mobility are tightly linked to socio-political issues.

In the changed social environment, the target group of low-income households constitutes a social group that not only – as in the past – raises the social question. Due to their precarious economic situation, they also need to keep transport costs as low as possible and thus do without a private car. They are often forced to use public transport and are therefore also called 'captives'; i.e. those who are 'trapped' in public transport. As a result, low-income earners or the 'captives' are the population group that, in terms of transport, gets around in a particularly sustainable way. Seen in this light, the income-poor are actually the pioneers of sustainable transport development (cf. Daubitz 2014)!

What could be the first steps on the path to linking the social question with the ecological question?

#### 5.3.2 The Mobility Act

In order to respond adequately to the changed social environment, the idea of the common good must be further developed in the direction of sustainability (cf. Ambrosius 2016). In doing so, it is certainly possible to build on the legal institutions that were developed in the past in the context of providing public services (cf.Ringwald 2008). Accordingly, the Local Public Transport Act can become the starting point for a much broader mobility law, on the basis of which rather than a local transport plan a mobility plan can then be drafted. While the Local Public Transport Act is directed one-sidedly towards collective public transport and is intended to offer a corresponding minimum degree of access for every citizen, the Mobility Act is based on a different understanding of transport and mobility. In contrast to the traditional notion of transport as physical movement in space, mobility is understood as potential mobility, which is measured by the range of opportunities for social participation (cf. Schwedes et al. 2018).

This conceptual distinction results in a fundamental change of perspective, because the Mobility Act no longer focuses on individual means of transport, as before, but rather considers the potential mobility of citizens, measured by the possibilities for social participation. In this way, the narrow focus on collective public transport is broadened to include all means of transport. This also expands the scope of responsibility of the public sector at the municipal level to include all mobility services that contribute to sustainable transport development.Unlike in the past, the municipality does not have to provide these services itself, but must ensure that private providers contribute to integrated transport development with innovative transport services. The task of transport policy is to create the necessary regulatory conditions for this. For example, the municipality could put the fine distribution in commercial transport out to tender in a one-stop process and award it to a private service provider who can then manage the last mile efficiently.

In addition, other fields of action open up that should be considered under the banner of integrated transport policy and planning. These include, in particular, urban development and housing policy, which can make a decisive contribution to ensuring that people on low incomes can participate adequately in society without having to deal with complex transport problems and the corresponding high costs. Ensuring affordable rents in the inner cities is just as much a part of this as functionally mixed urban neighbourhoods in which the facilities necessary for everyday basic needs are only a short distance away.

On the basis of the Mobility Act, a mobility plan is being drawn up which – unlike the local transport plan – is no longer oriented towards individual means of transport, but makes the mobility needs of the population the starting point for deliberations. In addition to the two traditional planning instruments of infrastructure planning and traffic flow management, the mobility plan relies above all on the newer planning approach of mobility management. In this approach, transport policy and planning aim to involve the population even before people have made transport-relevant decisions. This means that

policy and planning no longer follow – as they customarily have – the private decisions of households or companies concerning location, for example when the latter have decided on a greenfield site, by developing adequate services. Instead, politics and planning use the mobility plan to formulate clear transport policy goals that guide actions to be taken, are condensed into an integrated transport planning strategy and are directed towards sustainable transport development. Accordingly, a municipality could develop new residential concepts that involve low car-use, together with urban housing associations, public transport companies and in cooperation with private mobility service providers, whether taxi companies, operators of car-sharing or bicycle-sharing services, etc.

In view of the challenges of transport policy, the central goal should be to break with the model of 'higher, further, faster' – in other words, generating ever more traffic that has to cover ever greater distances in ever less time. The sustainable counter-design is a model that seeks less traffic by reducing the distances to be covered and, as a result, enables deceleration. A subsequent integrated transport planning strategy formulated in the mobility plan would have the task of organising new forms of social coexistence in consultation with the population in question, which would guarantee the degree of mobility necessary for social participation and largely avoid traffic development with its negative consequences, all for the common good.

#### 5.3.3 Summary

Assuming that the mobility act will be taken seriously as a political challenge in the future, the historical review of the political implementation of public utilities infrastructures in urban Europe is helpful (cf. Schott et al. 2005). On the one hand, in order to get a feeling for the enormity of the forthcoming collective task and, on the other hand, to show that such forbiddingly large tasks involving the community as a whole have already been successfully carried out in the past.

Then, as now, it was external constraints that moved politicians and othersin positions of responsibility to act.This can be demonstrated particularly impressively by the example of the introduction of the municipal sewage system. At the time, the recurring cholera epidemics created growing pressure to act. Nevertheless, the construction of sewage systems was delayed for many years due to massive resistance from the population (cf. Stippak 2010). Although hygiene and healthy living conditions were clearly in the public interest, they clashed with established particular interests. Since people had previously sold their faeces to the farmers in the surrounding area, who used them to fertilise their fields, the citizens saw themselves doubly dispossessed by the sewage system. In future, they would have to pay for their connection to the sewage system through additional taxes.The sewage system would not only remove their excrement and thus a source of income, but also impose additional costs on them.

In the end, the public interest prevailed with the compulsory connection to the sewage system, which remains valid today and holds for all citizens, without them perceiving it as coercion, let alone questioning its reasonableness.The examplemakesit particularly clear howmuch the implementation of technical innovations is linked to social learning processes. In this case, it took a decades-long process of "establishing new practices of bodily hygienein the domestic sphere"(Gleichmann 1979) before people's scepticism about the sewage system, which they perceived as an intrusion into their private sphere, had given way to widespread acceptance.

Today, it is a matter of establishing a new understanding of mobility and reorganising transport with a view to sustainable transport development, in the interest of the common good (cf. Schmitt-Egner 2015). The central political challenge is to communicate the idea of sustainability to the population as beingin the publicinterest. In the transport sector, this requires changing individual mass mobility reliant on the private automobile, which is still taken for granted today. Just as in the past, when the introduction of the sewage system was on the agenda, such a farreaching change in transport behaviour cannot simply be abruptly imposed. Rather, the political task is to make the population aware of the meaning of a change in transport behaviour within the framework of a new mobility culture and to guarantee, through the Mobility Act, a connection to mobility for individual households that, with the potential for social participation as a yardstick, constitutes an equivalent alternative. Thus, under changed social conditions, the social question becomes central to a transport policy that aims to guarantee every citizen a minimum of sustainable mobility. Conversely, this means that the public subsidies that still support non-social mobility today will be cancelled. Since this will inevitably lead to conflicts with those who still benefit from nonsustainable transport development today, this again points to the central importance of political conflicts in the course of the necessary social transformation.

#### **5.4 Fourth Interim Summary – It's the Politics, Stupid!**

Since the 1970s, in response to a massive critique of over-regulation in the welfare state, a neo-liberal hegemony has been established worldwide, with policy-making increasingly used to improve conditions for market participants (cf. Prasdad 2006). As a result, the state has withdrawn from more and more areas of activity and left them to actors in the private sector.The conviction at the time was that there was no alternative to this kind of privatisation of services formerly provided by the state. The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a formative influence on this *zeitgeist* with the TINA principle: There Is No Alternative! According to Thatcher, there was no such thing as society; only markets existed and the government was responsible for their functioning. The primacy of the economy was expressed by Bill Clinton's advisor James Carville in the presidential election campaign with the slogan "It's the economy, stupid", which subsequently became a catchphrase. The German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was, with good reason, also ennobled as "Chancellor of the Bosses", especially for services rendered to the German automotive industry. Asked as SPD party leader about his party's specific economic programme, he, like Thatcher, said the party had no such programme.This restricted understanding of politics on the part of the SPD government finally culminated in the Agenda 2010 (cf. Nawrat 2012).

In the preceding chapters, the negative consequences of this political attitude in the transport sector over a period of more than 20 years were presented in detail. In 2008, the financial and economic crisis temporarily put the brakes on the neo-liberal market euphoria, but to this point adequate political corrections have not been put in place (cf. Streeck 2015). In light of this, we will conclude here by recalling the fundamental insight into the politically generic nature of human beings, which holds that human beings individuate themselves to the extent that they organise their coexistence with other human beings in a politically self-determined manner (cf. Marx 1989b: 18). As was shown in the first chapter, the prerequisites for a politically self-determined organisation of coexistence within the framework of capitalist socialisation are given only to a very limited extent, since there is little political influence exercised on the privately organised production in a free market economy. In the transport sector, this is expressed time and again today in the fact that political goals regularly remain unattained.

The degree to which markets are subject to political influence varies and is expressed in the 'Varieties of Capitalism' mentioned above, which are characterised by different welfare state regimes (cf. Schröder 2013). However, the idea that markets are 'free' from political influence is misleading, since every market is necessarily politically regulated. The experience with laissez-faire capitalism in the 19th century showed the destructive effects on social cohesion of markets that are politically largely unregulated. The economic historian Karl Polanyi described the unbridled operation of market forces, which resulted in enormous social upheavals at the time, as the "devil's mill" and impressively described it as the consequence of the economy being detached from its political and social ties (cf. Polanyi 1995). Polanyi describes the ensuing great transformation at the end of the 19th century as a political counter-movement with the aim of re-embedding the economy in newly-created political and social institutions, in order to restore the cohesion of society. At the time, the communalisation of services that had formerly been privately provided – such as water, gas, electricity and eventually transport – began (cf. Schwedes & Ringwald 2021).

Since then, municipalisation has moved back and forth between the poles of regulation and deregulation (cf. Wysoki 1995). Markets are certainly more or less 'free' from political regulation oriented towards the common good, which places limits on the particular interests of individual market actors. The degree of political regulation of the market, however, is decided by governments and not by the markets, in each case within the framework of the historically specific social and cultural conditions. It's the politics, stupid!

After a phase of privatisation, we have been experiencing increased efforts in the direction of re-municipalisation for several years (cf. Bauer et al. 2012, Matecki & Schulten 2013). The renaissance of state-administered public services is based on the growing realisation that state institutions are of central importance for guaranteeing social prosperity (cf. Acemoglu/Robinson 2013). In this context, the state not only guarantees the conditions that facilitate a successful market society, it also ensures a social balance conducive to the common good.What the common good encompasses is constantly contested and must always be defined anew, politically (cf. Münkler & Blum 2002).

However, the state is by no means only the moderator between the economy and society. It also has an active role in supporting social innovations that prove successful in the private economic sector. Economist Mariana Mazzucato uses developed industrialised countries such as Great Britain and the USA to show how the state has specifically promoted research in the most diverse areas for decades, for which private investors – who are oriented towards short-term, secure profits – could not be found. Only after innovations such as the internet, the smartphone or forms of renewable energy became marketable after years of systematic state funding did resourceful entrepreneurs take them up and develop them further (cf. Mazzucato 2014). The economist Josef Alois Schumpeter had already praised the economically efficient state organisation of the Prussian Reichsbahn as a reaction to the ruinous competition of private railways at the end of the 19th century (cf. Schumpeter 1961: 357f.). From then on, a long, historical tradition of the state as a successful entrepreneur developed, which was broken

off and forgotten in the 1980s, thanks to the neo-liberal hegemony (cf. Ambrosius 1984, 2016).

The concept of transport as a public utility (cf. Knauff 2004) could be further developed by building on the rediscovery of the "need for the state in society" (Vogel 2007). Taking into account the changed social environment, two things in particular must be taken into account. While the concept of public services, originally developed in 1938 by the constitutional lawyer Ernst Forsthoff, was based on the idea of an authoritarian state, a contemporary understanding must take into account the new forms of state rule. The state is no longer to be understood as an institution of centralised control, but as an "integrative state" which expresses the balance of power of a multitude of actors in civil society, all with their specific interests (cf. Röttger 2004). Contrary to the widespread idea of democratic, consensus-based societies, the specific form taken by the state is the result of social struggles for interpretive power between actors from civil society (cf. Hirsch 2005). In this regard, the alleged diesel *scandal* in the German car industry is distinctly revealing. What happened was that a decades-long practice was turned into a scandal. While, for instance, environmental associations or the Federal Environmental Agency had repeatedly drawn attention to the irregularities for many years, the power cartel of politicians, business, and trade unions had managed to keep the issue out of the public eye and thus off the political agenda. Even though the impetus for the break-up of the power cartel came from outside, the decades of activities on the part of actors from civil society should not be undervalued.Through their efforts over many years to inform the public, an awareness of the problem developed, the explosive power of which was ignited by the "scandal". This has unsettled the configuration of social power relations, which had remained sclerotic for decades, without it being possible to foresee at this stage whether there will be a power shift, for example at the expense of the car companies, or whether – as so often in the past – it will simply result in a reorganisation that allows the old distribution of power to be maintained under new circumstances.

On the transport policy front, the success of sustainable transport development will be decided by the outcome of the social power struggle with the automobile industry. At the moment, it looks like the automobile companies, like the energy companies before them, are incapable of reform. If it is true that there can be no energy transition without a transition in transport, then the Federal government must push through measures against the resistance of the automobile companies that are just as vigorous as those it imposed on the energy companies. The impetus for the energy transition also came from outside – in this case through the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan in 2011. While the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 had no consequences for energy policy, after Fukushima it was immediately decided to phase out nuclear energy. But this political decision was also preceded by decades of political struggles by the anti-nuclear movement, which created a public expectation that the power cartel of politicians, the energy industry and trade unions could no longer ignore, forcing even the physicist and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to see reason (cf. Radkau & Hahn 2013).

The experiences in energy as well as in transport policy show in equal measure the influence of actors from civil society on state decision-making and, along with the rediscovery of state-administered public services, these experiences raise the second point that has to be considered in the further development of public services in the transport sector. To the extent that the new form of state rule is no longer organised unilaterally, from the top down, as in the authoritarian state, but is rather increasingly dependent on the involvement of civil society, the question of democratic participation comes up. It has now become so pressing that even the Federal Ministry of Transport (2012) felt compelled to publish a *Manual for Citizen Participation.* Even if it is still just a fig leaf, it is nevertheless an expression of a change in discursive sovereignty, meaning that the issue of democratic participation can no longer be disregarded, at least not in policy objectives.

In view of the often-described discrepancy between programmatic aspirations and real transport development in the field of transport policy, on its own a discursive shift in favour of democratic participation is insufficient to be reassuring. But at least the new discourse offers starting points for actors from civil society who are committed to filling the

political aspirations with substance. Even non-binding political objectives make it possible to take politicians at their word, a fact that should not to be underestimated.

A particularly impressive example of the political impact of civil society is the citizens' initiative in Berlin for a referendum on bicycles.3 The initiative put a topic back on the political agenda that had been repeatedly heralded for 20 years, in non-binding plans, with plenty of media attention, but the announcements remained largely without consequences. Until the call for a referendum, no politician in Berlin had taken up the issue of transport and supported a transition in favour of cycling and walking. The isolated positive experiences of the past have shown time and again that successes in transport policy are notably dependent on specific individuals (cf. Schwedes 2011). Revealingly, as recently as 2016 Berlin adopted a climate strategy with concrete measures for a climate-neutral city by 2050, but excluded measures in transport policy for the first five years. The reason given by the Senator for Urban Development at the time, Andreas Geisel, is characteristic of the city's transport policy: "I don't believe in tormenting car drivers" (cf. Jacobs 2016).