As part of the assessment of the Channel Tunnel after 10 years of operation, CERTE was commissioned by Eurotunnel and Kent County Council to evaluate the impact of the Tunnel on Kent and the likely trends for the future. The results of this study are now available in both summary form (pdf) or as a Full Report (pdf).

The Final Report (pdf) can be downloaded

A contribution to the Spatial Vision for North West Europe (pdf).

A central aspect of research has been work on Transport, the Economy and the Environment.

Two projects were completed in the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Research Programme on Transport and the Environment (1993-1996).

A two year study on Transport Provision and Regional Economic Development in Europe investigated ways of measuring and evaluating the role of transport in the changing economic fortunes of regions at a European level. The objective was to define measures which are less aggregate than current approaches through accessibility and economic potential, reflecting both the range of transport services offered and the specific transport needs of regions' economic structure. One of the main outputs is to suggest better ways of evaluating proposed transport projects, taking into account their wider economic effects, in a way which can identify more clearly the beneficiaries from new projects. This would help in debates over the financing of new projects. An extension of part of this work was undertaken as part of the STEMM (Strategic European Multi-Modal Modelling) consortium funded by the European Union's Fourth Framework Programme (1996-1998), looking at the implications for logistics of new transport infrastructures, including a case study of the Channel Tunnel.

A second study investigated the environmental impacts of transport with the aim of calculating appropriate "transport taxes" that take account of the wider negative impacts of transport, including global warming, air and soil pollution, noise, vibration, accidents and congestion. The use of revenues from such a system of taxes on all transport could be used to provide funding for necessary transport infrastructure investment. A continuation of this work was funded in the TRENENII project for the Fourth Framework Programme (1996-1998), together with colleagues in Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland. Building on this work, some detailed research on a microeconomic model of accidents and their analysis has been completed.

In a further EU Fourth Framework project, work was carried out on a case study of environmental conflicts involved in decision making for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link as part of the DTCS project (pdf) for the Environment and Climate Change Programme, together with colleagues in Amsterdam, Milan and Lisbon.

Professor Vickerman was a member of SACTRA (Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment) of the School of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (1996-1999) for its major report on Transport and the Economy.

Following involvement in work on the regional implications of the Channel Tunnel throughout the Community for DGXVI of the European Commission, carried out by an international team of consultants, the Centre completed a Report on The Future Evolution of the Transport Sector: the Implications for Regional Planning for the Commission. In addition the Centre has been involved in work on the definition of accessibility indices and the transport implications of the Europe 2000 and Europe 2000+ research studies, work on the regional implications of Trans-European Networks, and part of the Fifth Periodic Report on Competitiveness and Cohesion: Trends in the Regions. Professor Vickerman has recently completed a number of short reports on transport problems in transition economies and has worked on the development of courses in transport and regional economics at the State University of Novosibirsk in Russia and as part of the EURO-REGIO-CENTRE project in Wroclaw, Lower Silesia, Poland funded by the EU TEMPUS Programme.

The Centre has also been involved with several other major transport projects across Europe including the impacts of high speed rail, and the Storeb�lt and �resund crossings.

It participates in the STELLA (Sustainable Transport for Europe and Links and Liaison with America) thematic network, in particular in Focus Group 5 "Institutions, Regulations and Markets in Transportation".

Members of the Centre have research interests in various aspects of European integration. This includes regional development, cohesion and subsidiarity; border regions in the EC; the health and social service implications of the Channel Tunnel and the Single European Market; the liberalisation of financial services; corporatism and European labour markets; monetary integration; fiscal harmonisation; the Southern European economies; transition in Central and Eastern Europe. Work has recently been funded by the ESRC on Borders, Migration and Labour Market Dynamics and by the EU INTERREG fund for work on cross border labour markets in Kent and Nord-Pas de Calais. The Centre contributes to the MA in European Integration of the Kent Centre for Europe, a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the University of Kent.

Research supervision is also available in the above areas and on other aspects of European, regional and transport economics. Under a TEMPUS programme a syllabus was devised on the teaching of the economics of European integration for a consortium of Polish universities.

The Centre collaborates in research with a number of other research groups at the University of Kent, and has numerous research links with other European research centres, including the Universites de Lille I, Lille II and Littoral Cote d'Opale in France; Universitat Marburg, T-U Dresden and T-U Karlsruhe, Deutsches Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung, Germany; Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands; K-U Leuven, Belgium; University of Macedonia, Greece; University of Wroclaw, Poland.