IAA: 7th Mobility Conference in Hesse – Minister Posch hints at prospect of revision of night-flying ban

FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Germany--The 63rd IAA Cars provided the backdrop for the 7th Mobility Conference of Hesse, organized by the Hesse Ministry of Economics, Transport and State Development in cooperation with the Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA – German Association of the Automotive Industry) and well-visited by high-ranking guests, Friday. VDA President Matthias Wissmann welcomed those present and reflected on the vital importance of problem-free traffic flows for Germany as a location for high technology. This applied, according to Wissmann, especially for the State of Hesse, with its internationally important transport hubs in the Rhine-Main region. “We must incorporate ‘intelligence’ into the transport infrastructure, in order to increase its capacity”, underlined the VDA President. The Mobility Conference of Hesse was taking place at the IAA for the 4th time.

Wissmann also spoke about air transport and the much-discussed night-flying prohibition at Frankfurt airport. “The automotive industry is a good partner for air transport. We know how vital it is for individual mobility, but also for the business and manufacturing. We all want to retain as much value as possible within Germany. This includes a strong air freight transport industry, especially in an industry that does so well in exports. Our industry must be able to access the global logistics networks day and night. Any ruling on potential flight movements during the night that was too restrictive would therefore be counterproductive. It would hit the German air transport sector, and would indirectly also affect jobs in the manufacturing sector. The State Government should not in any way wane in its aim of achieving a fast, binding solution to this problem on a sound legal basis”, emphasized the President of the VDA.

Dieter Posch, the Hesse State Minister for Economics, Transport and State Development addressed the topic directly. “Here in Hesse, in particular in the Rhine-Main region, we are facing a mobility challenge that we have to resolve.” He said that Hesse was a transit zone that was particularly affected by growing traffic levels. Mobility formed the State’s livelihood, but it also had to cope with the associated “side-effects”. The slogan of the 7th Hesse Mobility Conference was “Sustainable and environmentally sound mobility”.

Posch explained that demographic change was a great challenge to transport policy. It meant that despite a fall in the population overall, the cities would increase in size. Regional centers would decrease in importance, while traffic would continue to increase in metropolitan regions. Policy could no longer stop this development, but it could at least alleviate its effects by strengthening medium-sized centers. Part of this would include up-to-date, efficient transport connections. Posch underlined, “The time of the old battles between individual transport and public transport is long gone.” He rejected calls for car tolls, saying “I am against state dirigisme.”

VDA Chief Executive Klaus Bräunig demanded better interlinking of all the different transport systems. He said that the German automotive industry was investing €19 billion each year in research and development – more than any other sector. Consequently, the industry was also taking a leading position in terms of sustainability, “since 1990 we have reduced emissions of traditional pollutants by more than 90 percent, and five of the ten cars with the lowest CO₂ emissions currently available on the market today are produced by German manufacturers. Bräunig reminded his audience that his industry had “bad experience” with the political promise that a traffic toll would lead to relief elsewhere. Other topics covered by the conference included “The car of the future – sustainable and environmentally sound” and “Incentives for environmentally sound patterns of mobility”.

The original source-language text of this announcement is the official, authoritative version. Translations are provided as an accommodation only, and should be cross-referenced with the source-language text, which is the only version of the text intended to have legal effect.