Volume of freight transport relative to GDP

External Data Spec Published 20 Jan 2009
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Volume of freight transport relative to GDP
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Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat)
information.png Dataset URL:
http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=tran_hv_frtra&lang=en
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http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/transport/data/database

Related content

Indicators using this data

Capacity of infrastructure networks This indicator covers roads, motorways, railways (including high speed rail lines (HSR)), navigable inland waterway lines (see definitions of the terms below) and pipelines. Additionally, it looks at transport infrastructure density in terms of land area (km per km 2 ) and at transport infrastructure density in terms of population (km per 1000 inhabitants). Roads Road : Line of communication (travelled way) using a stabilised base other than rails or air strips open to public traffic, primarily for the use of road motor vehicles running on their own wheels. Bridges, tunnels, supporting structures, junctions, crossings and interchanges are included, as are toll roads. Dedicated cycle paths are excluded. Road network : All roads in a given area. Motorway : Road that is specially designed and built for motor traffic, which does not serve properties bordering on it, and which: is provided, except at special points or temporarily, with separate carriageways for the two directions of traffic, separated from each other, either by a dividing strip not intended for traffic, or exceptionally by other means; does not cross at level with any road, railway or tramway track, or footpath; and is specially sign-posted as a motorway and is reserved for specific categories of road motor vehicles.   Entry and exit lanes of motorways are included irrespective of the location of the signposts. Urban motorways are also included. Railways Railway : Line of communication made up of rail, exclusively for the use of railway vehicles. The line of communication is part of the space equipped for the execution of transport. Railway network : All railways in a given area. This does not include stretches of road or water, even if rolling stock should be conveyed over such routes, e.g. by wagon-carrying trailers or ferries. Lines solely used for touristic purposes during the season are excluded as are railways constructed solely to serve mines, forests or other industrial or agricultural undertakings and which are not open to public traffic. High-speed line : A line specially built to allow traffic at speeds generally equal to or greater than 250 km/h for the main segments. High-speed lines may include connecting lines, in particular junctions with town centre stations located on them, on which speeds may take account of local conditions (adapted from Directive 98/48/EC). Navigable inland waterways Waterway : River, canal, lake or other stretch of water, which, as a result of natural or man-made features is suitable for navigation. Waterways of a maritime character (waterways designated by the reporting country as suitable for navigation primarily by sea-going ships) are included. Waterways also include river estuaries, the boundary being that point nearest the sea where the width of the river is both less than 3 km at low water and less than 5 km at high water. Navigable inland waterway : A stretch of water, not part of the sea, over which vessels of a carrying capacity not less than 50 tonnes can navigate when normally loaded. This term covers both navigable rivers, lakes and canals. The length of rivers and canals is measured mid-channel. The length of lakes and lagoons is measured along the shortest navigable route between the most distant points to and from which transport operations are performed. A waterway forming a common frontier between two countries is reported by both. Pipelines Oil pipelines : Pipes for the movement, by pumping, of crude or refined liquid petroleum products. Branch lines are included, as are oil pipelines between land and drilling platforms at sea. Oil pipelines whose total length is less than 50 km, or whose inside diameter is less than 15 cm, and oil pipelines used only for military purposes or located entirely within the site boundaries of an industrial operation, as well as oil pipelines that are entirely off-shore (i.e. located solely out in the open sea) are excluded. International oil pipelines whose total length is 50 km or more are included, even if the section in the reporting country is less than 50 km long. Oil pipelines consisting of two (or more) parallel pipelines are to be counted twice (or more). Only units that actually carried out an activity during the reference period, are considered. "Dormant" units, or those not yet having begun their activity, are excluded. Oil pipeline network : All oil pipelines in a given area. The territory of the area in question includes that part of the seabed allocated to it under a concession.
Energy efficiency and energy consumption in the transport sector Energy efficiency progress (Figure 1) is measured from the ODEX indicator. This index aggregates the unit consumption trends for each transport mode in a single indicator for the whole sector. It is calculated at the level of 8 modes or vehicle types: cars, trucks, light vehicles, motorcycles, buses, total air transport, rail, and water transport. For cars, energy efficiency is measured by the specific consumption, expressed in litre/100km; for the transport of goods (trucks and light vehicles), the unit consumption per ton-km is used, as the main activity is to move goods; for other modes of transport various indicators of unit consumption are used, taking for each mode the most relevant indicator given the statistics available: toe/passenger for air, goe/pass-km for passenger rail, goe/ton-km for transport of goods by rail and water, toe per vehicle for motorcycles and buses.  The variation of the weighted index of the unit consumption by mode between t-1 and t is defined as follows It /It -1= 1/( It -1/It) with : energy share EC i  (consumption of each mode i   in total transport consumption); unit consumption index UC i (ratio : consumption related to traffic or specific consumption in l/100 km for cars); t refers the current year, t-1 to the previous year. The value at year t can be derived from the value at the previous year by reversing the calculation: It /It -1= 1/( It -1/It) ODEX is set at 100 for a reference year and successive values are then derived for each year t by the value of ODEX at year t-1 multiplied by It /It -1. The energy consumption variation of passenger transport in Figure 4 is broken down into 3 explanatory effects: activity effect (increase in traffic), modal shift effect (from private transport to public transport modes) and energy savings (change in specific consumption per unit of traffic). A positive “modal shift effect” means that the share of public passenger transport in passenger traffic is decreasing (shift from public transport to cars)  or the road in total freight traffic is increasing (shift from rail-water to road): this offsets energy savings. CO2 emissions for total transport are split into 2 explanatory effects (Figure 6): an activity effect due to an increase in traffic of passengers and freight, CO2 savings due to the reduction in the specific emissions of vehicles per unit of traffic.
Capacity of infrastructure networks An answer to the question “are we optimising the use of existing transport infrastructure capacity and moving towards a better-balanced intermodal transport system” has been attempted by referring to data available on network lengths, as described in the rationale section. This indicator covers roads, motorways, railways (including high speed rail lines – HSR), navigable inland waterway lines (see definitions of the terms below) and pipelines. Additionally, it looks at transport infrastructure density in terms of land area (kilometres per km 2 ) and at transport infrastructure density in terms of population (km per 1000 inhabitants). Roads Road : Line of communication (travelled way) using a stabilised base other than rails or air strips open to public traffic, primarily for the use of road motor vehicles running on their own wheels. Bridges, tunnels, supporting structures, junctions, crossings and interchanges are included, as are toll roads. Dedicated cycle paths are excluded. Road network : All roads in a given area. Motorway : Road, specially designed and built for motor traffic, which does not serve properties bordering on it, and which: Is provided, except at special points or temporarily, with separate carriageways for the two directions of traffic, separated from each other, either by a dividing strip not intended for traffic, or exceptionally by other means; Does not cross at level with any road, railway or tramway track, or footpath; and Is specially sign-posted as a motorway and is reserved for specific categories of road motor vehicles. Entry and exit lanes of motorways are included irrespectively of the location of the signposts. Urban motorways are also included. Railways Railway : Line of communication made up by rail exclusively for the use of railway vehicles. The line of communication is part of the space equipped for the execution of transport. Railway network : All railways in a given area. This does not include stretches of road or water, even if rolling stock should be conveyed over such routes, e.g. by wagon-carrying trailers or ferries. Lines solely used for touristic purposes during the season are excluded as are railways constructed solely to serve mines, forests or other industrial or agricultural undertakings and which are not open to public traffic. High-speed line : A line specially built to allow traffic at speeds generally equal to or greater than 250 kilometres per hour for the main segments. High-speed lines may include connecting lines, in particular junctions with town centre stations located on them, on which speeds may take account of local conditions (adapted from Directive 98/48/EC).   Navigable inland waterways Waterway : River, canal, lake or other stretch of water, which by natural or man-made features is suitable for navigation. Waterways of a maritime character (waterways designated by the reporting country as suitable for navigation primarily by sea-going ships) are included. Waterways also include river estuaries; the boundary being that point nearest the sea where the width of the river is both less than 3 km at low water and less than 5 km at high water. Navigable inland waterway : A stretch of water, not part of the sea, over which vessels of a carrying capacity of not less than 50 tonnes can navigate when normally loaded. This term covers both navigable rivers, lakes and canals. The length of rivers and canals is measured mid-channel. The length of lakes and lagoons is measured along the shortest navigable route between the most distant points to and from which transport operations are performed. A waterway forming a common frontier between two countries is reported by both.   Pipelines Oil pipelines : Pipes for the movement, by pumping, of crude or refined liquid petroleum products. Branch lines are included, as are oil pipelines between land and drilling platforms at sea. Oil pipelines whose total length is less than 50 kilometres, or whose inside diameter is less than 15 centimetres, and oil pipelines used only for military purposes or located entirely within the site boundaries of an industrial operation, as well as oil pipelines that are entirely off-shore (i.e. located solely out in the open sea) are excluded. International oil pipelines whose total length is 50 kilometres or more are included, even if the section in the reporting country is less than 50 kilometres long. Oil pipelines consisting of two (or more) parallel pipelines are to be counted twice (or more). Only units, which actually carry out an activity during the reference period, should be considered. "Dormant" units, or those not yet having begun their activity, are excluded. Oil pipeline network : All oil pipelines in a given area. The territory of the area in question includes that part of the seabed allocated to it under a concession.
Energy efficiency and energy consumption in the transport sector Energy efficiency progress (Figure 1) is measured from the ODEX indicator. This index aggregates the unit consumption trends for each transport mode in a single indicator for the whole sector.                          The energy consumption variation of passenger transport in Figure 5 is broken down into 3 explanatory effects: activity effect (increase in traffic), modal shift effect (from private transport to public transport modes) and energy savings (change in specific consumption per unit of traffic). A positive “modal shift effect” means that the share of public passenger transport in passenger traffic is decreasing (shift from public transport to cars)  or the road in total freight traffic is increasing (shift from rail-water to road): this offsets energy savings. CO2 emissions for total transport are split into 2 explanatory effects (Figure 7): an activity effect due to an increase in traffic of passengers and freight, CO2 savings due to the reduction in the specific emissions of vehicles per unit of traffic.
Transport accident fatalities The definition of the indicator is the number of persons killed each year in transport accidents by mode expressed both as absolute totals and per million of population. The modes covered by this indicator are road, rail, air and sea.
Freight transport demand Freight transport demand is defined as the amount of inland tonne-kilometres travelled every year in the EEA-33. According to the latest metadata, inland freight transport includes transport by road, rail, inland waterway, air and maritime. Transport via rail and inland waterway is based on movements within national territory ('territoriality principle'), regardless of the nationality of the vehicle or vessel; road transport is based on all movements of vehicles registered in the reporting country. The ratio of annual growth of inland freight transport to GDP, measured in 2010 prices, determines the amount of coupling between GDP and transport. The decoupling indicator is defined as unity minus the coupling ratio, where the data index = 2000. The modal split of freight transport is defined as the percentage share of modes (road and rail) in total inland transport. It includes transport by road, rail and inland waterway.
Freight transport demand The indicator "freight transport demand" will be presented in two different ways: 1) To measure decoupling of freight demand from economic growth, we will use the volume of freight transport relative to GDP, including separate trends for its two components. Both freight demand and real GDP growth will be indexed on 1995. The decoupling indicator is defined as the ratio between tonne-kilometres (inland modes) and GDP (Gross Domestic Product in constant 1995 EUR). It will be indexed on year t-1 in order to be able to observe changes in the annual intensity of freight transport demand relative to economic growth. 2) Modal split share of freight transport: This indicator is defined as the percentage share of road in total inland transport. The unit used is the tonne-kilometre (tkm), which represents the movement of one tonne over a distance of one kilometre. It includes transport by road, rail and inland waterways. Rail and inland waterways transport are based on movements on national territory, regardless of the nationality of the vehicle or vessel. Road transport is based on all movements of vehicles registered in the reporting country.
Passenger transport demand The indicator "passenger transport demand" will be presented in two different ways: 1) To measure decoupling of passenger demand from economic growth, we will use the volume of passenger transport relative to GDP, including separate trends for its two components. Both passenger demand and real GDP growth will be indexed on 1995. The decoupling indicator is defined as the ratio between passenger-km (inland modes) and GDP (Gross Domestic Product in constant 1995 EUR). It will be indexed on year t-1 in order to be able to observe changes in the annual intensity of passenger transport demand relative to economic growth. 2) Modal split share of passenger transport: This indicator is defined as the percentage share of transport by passenger car in total inland transport. The unit used is the passenger-kilometre (pkm), which represents one passenger travelling a distance of one kilometre. It is based on transport by passenger cars, buses and coaches, trains and air. All data should be based on movements on national territory, regardless of the nationality of the vehicle. However, data collection methodology is not harmonised at the EU level.
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