Trends in passenger transport demand and GDP. The two curves show the development in GDP and passenger transport volumes, while the columns show the level of annual decoupling. Green indicates faster growth in GDP than in transport while red indicates stronger growth in transport than in GDP. The data refer to road, rail and bus modes of passenger transport.
Passenger transport demand is defined as the amount of inland passenger- kilometre travelled every year in the EEA32. Inland passenger transport includes transport by passenger cars, buses and coaches, and trains. There is no agreement among the EU Member States on how to attribute the passenger-kilometres of international intra-EU flights, therefore data for air passenger travels are deemed unreliable and not included in this figure.
Data from Liechtenstein is not included as it was not available as part of the dataset. The ratio of annual growth of inland passenger transport to GDP, measured in 2000 prices, determines the amount of coupling between GDP and transport. The decoupling indicator, depicted by the green bars, is calculated as unity minus the coupling ratio; so a positive score indicates decoupling (i.e. transport demand grows less slowly than GDP), with a negative score showing the opposite (i.e. transport demand outpaces GDP growth).
The unit used to express passenger transport volume is the passenger-kilometre (pkm), which represents one passenger travelling a distance of one kilometre. It is based on transport by cars, buses and coaches, and trains.
Passenger transport demand and GDP are shown as an index (2000=100). The ratio of the former to the latter is indexed on year t-1 (i.e. annual decoupling/intensity changes) in order to be able to observe changes in the annual intensity of passenger transport demand relative to economic growth (GDP).
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