Planning and Financing Schemes Linked to the Decision-Making for the Interconnection of Long-Short Distance Transport

The development of interfaces between long and short distance transport networks is associated with the general processes planned by central governmental bodies; and the degree of their efficiency depends heavily on the successful cooperation among the involved planning stakeholders at various territorial levels. At the same time, no matter how efficient the planning process may be the lack of the appropriate financial planning and the coordination of the involved stakeholders for finding the required resources, affects the development of successful long and short-distance interfaces.

Towards this direction, the aim of the present paper is to investigate the planning and financing schemes developed in longshort interconnection in representative European countries, and assess how these processes are linked to the decision-making processes at a local, regional, national and European level. In addition, obstacles and barriers in the relative processes are indicated and methods for their alleviation are proposed.