Improving Transnational Transport Corridors
In the OIC Member Countries: Concepts and Cases
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Infrastructural sufficiency
1. Congestion, expressed in either absolute terms (average delay in hours) or in relative terms
(ratio of average delay over total transport time). Alternatively congestion can be expressed
in money terms, if the average delay is multiplied by a proper ‘value of time’. •
2. Bottlenecks, expressed as the assessed result of an inventory of different types of
bottlenecks per transport solution combined with information on ongoing and planned
projects addressing removal or diminishing of the bottlenecks.
3. An additional indicator concerning the energy balance of the infrastructure can be
considered for inclusion. It compares the energy produced (mainly through renewable
energy sources) against the energy consumed during operation on an annual basis.
Social issues of corridor consideration
1. Land use – urban areas, expressed as the percentage of urban areas in a buffer zone formed
by a 20 km radius from the median line of each corridor (use of CORINE Land Cover spatial
dataset).
2. Land use – sensitive areas, expressed as the percentage of environmentally sensitive areas
in a buffer zone formed by a 20 km radius from the median line of each corridor (use of
Natura 2000 spatial dataset).
3. Traffic safety, expressed as the incident rate of accidents and/or fatalities over the total
number of shipments or total transport work (ton-km).
4. Noise level, expressed as percentage of total distance exposed to noise levels above 50 dB
(55 dB for rail transport).
2.10. Environmental and Energy Factors
Environmental and energy factors in transport corridors cover signatories of international
agreements on environment and sustainability, emissions regulations, environmental impact
assessment, energy and CO2 emissions.
One of the main concerns is that transport corridors generate externalities, that is to say costs
that the user will not bear, but which transit countries and local communities have to bear.
Such costs will be mostly environmental – such as community severance, air pollutions and
noise along the route. The issue is a socio economic one. One graphic but different example
this is in on the Main TAH4 highway and Northern Corridor through Botswana. The road
passes through some 200 km of pristine nature reserve populated by the continent’s largest
population of African Elephants. The trucks in transit are not originating in Botswana but
South Africa. No toll is paid, and only a modest permit charge is levied at the border. But the
environmental impact is serious as shown in Figure 8.