It is necessary to rethink all the system
By Pablo J. Bereciartua
April 22, 2007
La Nacion
Nobody can let in the last notice the positive development of the economy of our country years, which has allowed to reactivate a great variety of industries and to accede to economic and social benefits such as the greater amount and quality of use, and the development of the regional economies, mainly those oriented to the export. These positive circumstances not only can be observed in macroeconomic indicators like the rate of growth of the GIP, but also in the traffic density of trucks in our routes, the high level of activity in the ports, or inefficient and often crowded means of urban transport of passengers. This does not have to surprise to us if we considered that the transport is inevitable and determining part of the economic activity and the commerce of a country, and that ours presents/displays a deficient picture, delayed and in many aspects critical, in relation to its capacities to mobilize people and loads.
In the case of passengers, the rate of accidents is untenable that are reported in our routes and that reach to 30 daily deads and it places to us at the top between the countries of greater risk of traffic. The causes are given in the low availability of freeways and railcars, and the deficit and often nonexistent state of alternative means, as they are the railroad and the aerial transport. Our dowry of freeways and railcars is at least an inferior order of magnitude to the one of the advanced countries and half of the one of our neighboring Brazil country.
The situation of the transport of loads is equally critical and deficit, and represents a neck of real bottle to reach discharges rates of growth of the economy that project for the short and medium term. Between the main limitations they are the restrictions in the accesses by international earth and water to the ports and steps, the capacities of storing in origin and manipulation in ports and nodes of transfer, and the infrastructures for multimodal Inter transport and. It is enough with mentioning that esteem that the logistic cost of transport and, after some productive complexes, can reach between 20 and 30% of the exportable value, thus arriving until duplicating those of the competition. Recent studies show that the greater weight of these costs exporter undergo pymes, who are the most dynamic sector in the generation of supply of products with greater added value and described use.
Exceptional opportunity
As opposed to the evidence of an exceptional opportunity for our country, as it has not appeared in decades, the pending question of being responded is if we will be able to take advantage of it or if on the contrary we see once again frustrated how the possibilities move away of not being suitably prepared. We will be able to as much take advantage of it if with views to future we generated a system of modern and efficient transport, for passengers as for loads, that allow us to be competitive at the time of offering our products and services to the world.
The prevailing globalización is synonymous of greater levels of mobility not only of information, but also physical of people and loads. Our country is in a singular geographic position that transforms to the transport a real and determining limitante of the competitiveness of our supply into the global markets. This it is the challenge of mobility outwards.
The transport also must think like an element of development of the territory. Our country has a degree of concentration and centralization of the population and the economic activity that limits its possibilities of development. The great cities must articulate policies to foment the development of cities satellites, and to clear therefore the saturated urban centers. As well, the development of new productive poles in remoter zones is due to promote, of way to encourage to the migration and relocalización of investments. This it is the challenge of mobility inwards.
An example of these initiatives would be the promotion of a pole of heavy industries and of energy in the zone near Puerto Madryn, that would benefit from the proximity to a deep water port, of the availability of renewable mareomotriz energy, it would foment the development and the migration towards the Patagonia, and it would help to clear the area near the city of Buenos Aires.
As it happens to the energy, the transport requires for its development a planning integrated to medium and long term that is based on a picture of incentives and instruments of management that encourage and direct the public and private investment. The continuity, the fulfillment and the transparency of the management schemes are a key aspect.
Balanced development
Learning of the experience of other regions that have faced this challenge, such as the European Union in last the two decades generating visions of until 2050, or the EE.UU from their program of development of freeways of the postwar period, the transport system must be rethink around three main premises.
In the first place, to promote a balanced development of the territory and its potential regional industries. One is to generate a vision federal of the development of the country and to encourage a scheme of incentives to the public and deprived investments in the transport system that is consequent with that vision.
Soon, to promote integrated runners of export who reduce to a minimum the costs of mobility of products and who allow to count on alternative routes of exit.
Finally, to count on an institutional scheme of planning, implementation and integrated management of the system of transport with capacities and attributions to administer it of efficient and intelligent way.
The present scheme does not fulfill those characteristics, but rather it foments important distortions. A smaller subject is not to regularize the tax allocation and of subsidies with the objective to return to orient them to the original aims. Another one is to have the capacity to optimize technological solutions in relation to the vehicles and fuels, with the environmental emissions and impacts, and with the infrastructure design great.
The paradigm that prevails at our moment of the globalization is not that that maintains that the world is flat, but, on the contrary, the one that maintains that in a context where the supply of goods and services grows of way accelerated in all the latitudes, geography and the distances are more and more significant and determining to think possibilities and strategies of development.
The author is executive director of the Strategic Training center for the Sustainable Development of the ITBA.