Governments and businesses devise contingency plans for all kinds of emergencies. But how can the EU ensure transport continues to operate?

It was an appropriate moment: while European Union transport ministers, gathered in Brussels on December 2 for their Council meeting, held a long-scheduled discussion on how to ensure mobility during a crisis situation, northern Europe appeared to be paralyzed by a shock snow wave.

Of course, cold snaps are not unusual in Europe, and typically, the first one of the season takes people by surprise. Indeed, one question that Europeans usually ask every season is, “why we can't cope?” It is the same with other crises that occur with regularity (like the floods in Australia and Brazil and heat waves) yet still astonish people.

At the Brussels Council meeting, EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas presented a note on measures to ensure the mobility of goods and passengers in case of a sudden crisis in the transport system. His main example was the Icelandic volcano in spring 2010. However, his text highlighted the overall absence of emergency mechanisms in the member states to deal with such crises – and it underlined the importance of keeping the transport sector moving for both European business and society. It also singled out the absence of coordination mechanisms between modes of transport and between member states as having contributed to the chaos.

Kallas suggested a possible EU emergency plan, with a coordination role, and an information exchange like the Commission’s Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC), the operational heart of the Community Mechanism for Civil Protection. So far, however, the Mechanism, the EU tool for dealing with a crisis, has not been used for such transport-stopping events, notably being activated for disasters like the forest fires in Portugal and Greece, the Asian tsunami, floods in Romania and Bulgaria, and the Haiti earthquake.

In EU member states, separate efforts have begun to mobilize national capabilities. In the UK, the British government asked David Quarmby, chairman of the RAC foundation to lead a rapid review of how transport was faring. Quarmby is co-author of Winter Resilience Review, an independent inquiry this year into the response of England’s transport system to severe weather, which said that the Government should import 250,000 tonnes of road salt to deal with snow hazards. ''We can't know when such a severe winter will hit us again, but we can take steps as a nation to ensure that, when it does, we will cope better,” Quarmby said.

But the most fundamental reason Europe has problems in extreme weather appears to be because preparedness costs money. For example, while there has been much discussion over the logistics of salting roads – and local authorities have increased their grit stocks - there is always a ceiling. Grit is very bulky and storage, which ideally needs to be covered, costs money. Colder member states, like Sweden or Norway, legally require drivers to change to studded winter tires after a certain date.

Winters in Scandinavia are more predictable than elsewhere in northern Europe, and they know almost to the week when the snow is going to come and they are organized for it. In Belgium, by contrast, the sudden cold snaps of recent years have caused serious problems, with unexpected bouts of heavy snow leading to massive traffic tailbacks on the highways. This led to criticism of Hilde Crevits, the Flemish minister responsible for transport, prompting the launch this year of a "winter plan", a set of measures to deal with snow problems. It involves more gritters spreading salt overnight; the police guiding them through traffic; and more communication between organisations to make sure the heavy snow does not bring everything to a standstill.

Elsewhere, it is worth noting that the German railway, with an international reputation for efficiency, was ravaged by snow delays during the recent cold spell. The night before the EU Transport Council 3,000 passengers spent the night on German trains, with more than 200 stuck in Frankfurt station alone, sheltering in carriages after hotel rooms filled up. And although Scandinavian countries have an array of snow ploughs and innovations like, in Norway, heated pavements, they still suffer disruption.

One consolation for officials planning contingency measures to keep transport moving is that severe winters are still relatively rare events. But that is no reason not to be prepared: Europe should be able to take basic measures just in case, and ensure that next time there is a cold snap, it isn’t taken completely by surprise.