Abstract
Keywords: education and training, road haulage, transition economies
For many years transport has been considered as a significant contributor to a number of environmental problems. The growth of the road haulage intensity has become a real threat for the environment despite the dissuasive long-term policy and implemented measures worldwide. The direct connection between transport volumes and environmental problems was recognized and evaluated as a very dangerous trend. That is why the "sustainable transport" principle has been introduced and soon institutionalized. In the last decade the vehicles´ emissions and waste have been significantly reduced and vehicle manufacturers worldwide have been challenged to increase vehicles´ energy efficiency and implement new clean fuels. In spite of all these measures the steady increase of newly registered vehicles combined with the growth of their mileage sustained a growing trend of the emission levels. As in transition economies the main public objectives are to solve the crucial social problems and stimulate uniform economic development, therefore the environmental objectives are often considered as less important, at least at lower economic development levels. Even though the situation in transition economies is often portrayed by issues like poor quality of infrastructure, unfavourable fleet condition, and insignificant reaction to transport related environmental aspects, it is expected that along with growing awareness, those topics will become more important and will result in raising operators´ consciousness about their role in setting-up an environmentally "sound" transport system.
Therefore, the main intention of this paper is to present how managers and employees in haulage sector could be acquainted with their undeniable influence towards sustainability via training programmes (short courses, tutorials and workshops). Such training courses in countries in transition should emphasize especially on the best practices, awareness development, and know-how implementation and benchmarking more significantly than on new technologies that often cost significantly more. In addition, this kind of training has to influence the operators to reduce the transport´s "mileage intensity" and break apart its evolution from the GDP growth rate.