HIGH-TOOL

Summary

HIGH-TOOL is an open source, high-level strategic assessment model for use by EU policy makers and policy analysts to assess economic, social and environmental impacts of transport policy measures.

The model has two purposes. It can be applied for strategic assessment of transport policy options and to support the identification of policy options for further analyses using more detailed assessment instruments.

The HIGH-TOOL model comprises three key elements:

• Core modules that are the modelling framework
• Data Stock to facilitate date exchange
• User Interface for the model and to access the assessment results.

The HIGH-TOOL model comprises seven core modules as follows:

• Demography
• Economy & Resources
• Passenger Demand
• Freight Demand
• Vehicle Stock
• Environment
• Safety.

The model has a global scope. However, the main focus is on Europe, and particularly to the Member States of the European Union. The spatial scope is the level of NUTS-2 for all EU Member States (EU28), Norway and Switzerland, NUTS-0 for EU neighbouring countries, and country bundles for intercontinental transport.

The tool’s timeline spans in 5-years steps from 2010 to 2050. The year 2010 is the base year of the HIGH-TOOL model. The model allows the simulation of both pre-defined policy measures and of specific policies defined by the user. For each simulation run a Policy Assessment Report is generated which provides a quick overview on the key impacts.