ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of trends, salient issues and the major problems in transportation in the world. It presents the viewpoint of the author on what is missing in the transport field in Southeastern Europe. The over-concentration on infrastructure has been exacerbated by a series of very influential studies and policies concentrating on defining a road and rail network for the whole of Southeastern Europe such as the pan-European corridors, the Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment, and the Transport Infrastructure Regional Study. This type of identification of vital 'corridors' and 'networks' as lines on a map, aids the notions of 'missing transport links'. The transport policies of the European Union are pressing both for an increase in quality, especially the reduction of emissions, through the White Paper on European Transport Policy for 2010 and at the same time also call for the completion of the trans-European transport network.
