Promoting regional mobility: Adding a Community reference for regional infrastructure pricing

Pricing of transport has been part of EU's common transport policy since this gained momentum in the early 1990s. Since then, it has been closely connected to the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) and to rising demands of efficient mobility systems at a local, regional and Community scale. Development of pricing policies is contested at Community level and has taken place in a clash between different policy rationalities. Significantly though, the effects of the pricing policies are closely related to regional mobility systems, e.g. through financing large trans-border infrastructure projects and establishing common technical charging systems thus changing the conditions for regional mobility. This paper explores how policies of infrastructure pricing shape new ways of governing mobility which influences trans-border, regional policy-making. The key findings are that there is a tendency to include ideas of mobility as a narrative in community transport policy which further that through Community pricing policies, the conditions for mobility is enhanced in a Community perspective. However, when this is connected to infrastructure pricing, the effect is largest at a regional scale. Further, framing these policies in terms of ‘social costs' with a Community reference alters the territorial affiliation for policy-makers and makes a particular form of region ‘thinkable'.