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Indicator Assessment
According to the IEA/SMP model projections, the growth in the volume of passenger transport will not be decoupled from the economical growth significantly. This will be true for the whole pan-European region. Transport growth will be only marginally lower than GDP growth between 2000 and 2050. During the outlook period passenger transport demand will grow on 5-11% slower than GDP in for Eastern Europe in; 3-7% slower for Former Soviet Union and 3-6% in OECD -Europe in 2020.
The share of rail transport is predicted to be stable in Eastern Europe accounting for about 10%, it is expected to grow in OECD-Europe from 4,6% in 2000 to 5,7 % in 2050 and it is expected to decline in FSU from 17,7% to 15,3 %. The share of the car passenger transport is expected to decline in OECD-Europe and Eastern Europe by 13% and grow by about 15% in FSU. The share of air transport is expected to grow in all pan European region by factor 2,3 in OECD-Europe, 2,6 in FSU and by factor 4,7 in Eastern Europe
The projections made by the IEM/SMP model estimate that passenger transport demand will increase in whole pan European region from 2000 to 2050, thereby making it increasingly difficult to stabilise or reduce the environmental impacts of transport. The growth is expected in all European sub-regions (Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union and OECD-Europe). In the reference case projections, total passenger transport demand increases between 2000 and 2050 by a factor of nearly 1,5 in OECD-Europe, 2,5 in Eastern Europe and 2,7 in Former Soviet Union (FSU).
Transport demand per capita will also grow and will change between 2000 to 2050 from about 12600 km to about 20230 km for OECD-Europe; from about 6900 km to about 20400 km in Eastern Europe and from about 5600 km to about 15200 km for Former Soviet Union.
The tendency of the current underlying factor for growth passenger transport demand will remain similar in the future. This factor is related with the growth in incomes coupled with a tendency to spend more or less the same share of disposable income on transport. Additional income therefore means additional travel budget, which allows more frequent, faster, farther and more luxurious traveling.
Overall growth in passenger transport demand is expected to be similar to that of GDP. For OECD-Europe transport growth is predicted to be marginally lower than GDP growth between 2005 and 2015 in OECD-Europe. It is expected to be 3% in 2015, grow to 6% and fall to 3% again in 2035. For the Eastern Europe transport growth is estimated to be lower than GDP in 11% in 2005, 5% in 2030 and 9% in 2040. Similar trend is predicted for FSU countries with the 6% slower than GPD transport growth in 2005, 3% in 2020 and 7% in 2050.
Thus the achievement of the stated in the 6th EU Environmental programme objective of significant decoupling of transport demand from GDP is not expected under the reference case scenario. The objective of EECCA strategy to use transport demand side management is also unlikely to be achieved.
With regard to the modal split of transport, no major technological substitution is expected over the 2000 - 2050 horizon.
The projected trends for the car passenger demand are different for European sub regions Expected increasing wealth among citizens give more people the option to buy a car and use the added flexibility that it provides. Only in dense urban centers and for longer distances can public transport compete in terms of travel time.
In
In the Former Soviet Union the total passenger demand is expected to rise by 167% with an increase of private care travel by almost 260 %. Reasons for such growth are similar to those in
In OECD Europe the predicted increase of total passenger transport demand from 2000 to 2050 is 45,3%, whereas the car passenger demand increases only by 14,7 % as the private automobile market is already saturated.
At the same time for the outlook period the share of the car passenger transport is expected to decline in OECD-Europe from 63% to 50 % and in
Pessimistic prognoses are suggested as well for the achievement of the objective of the Common Transport Policy of maintaining the 1998 modal shares. The outlook shows that that if currents rates of growth continue, air will surpass rail and busses and coaches and become the second most important mode of passenger transport after cars. For example, share of the total is expected to increase from 13% in 2000 to 31% in 2050 OECD-Europe, from 7 % to 33 % in
The technological developments of the air transport were discussed in the White paper 'European transport policy for 2010:time to decide' and the Report 'the Future of European Aerospace: A shared vision for 2020'. These documents suggest that medium-capacity aircrafts can be expected to continue to predominate on most intra-Community flights. By contrast, on high-density long-haul flights many airlines will probably opt for very large aircrafts. The Airbus A 380 is the first example of what the next generation of aircraft will probably look like: large carriers capable of transforming more passengers. The aviation industry is preparing for this.
According to the IEA/SMP outlook the objective of the European transport policy which aimed to increase railway passenger share from 6 to 10% by 2020 is unlikely to be achieved. It is expected that in OECD-Europe the share of the rail passenger transport will increase from 4.6 in 2000 to only 5,0% in 2020 and 5,7% in 2050. (May be to include that more efforts should be made in order to achieve this objective). The rail passenger transport share is expected to be stable at the level of about 10% during the whole outlook period in
The shares of public transport (busses, minibuses) are predicted to decrease in the whole pan-European region: in OECD Europe from 15% in 2000 to 10% in 2050; in
Definition: This indicator is presented in two ways: (i) The number of kilometres travelled by persons in a given year by all modes of public transport (taxis, buses, trolleybuses, trams, underground, trains, inland water transport, maritime transport and airplanes) and by private transport. (ii) A breakdown of total passenger transport demand by mode (modal split: the share of each mode in total transport demand).
Model used: IEA/SMP
Ownership: World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Temporal coverage: 2000 - 2050
Geographical coverage: OECD Europe: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom; OECD North America: USA, Canada, Mexico; Former Soviet Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan; Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro; India; China
The large number of non binding policy instruments have been developed under fora such as Environment for Europe process, the European Council of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) and the UNECE/WTO Transport, Health and Environment Pan-European Programme (The PEP). The PEP was set up to address the key challenges to achieve more sustainable transport patterns and a closer integration of environmental and health concerns into transport policies.
The EU has set itself the objective to reduce the link between economic growth and passenger transport demand ('decoupling') in order to achieve more sustainable transport.
Reducing the link between transport growth and GDP is a central theme in EU transport policy for reducing the negative impacts from transport:
Shifting transport from road to rail is an important strategic element in the EU transport policy. The objective was first formulated in the Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS). In the review of the T&E integration strategy in 2001 and 2002, the Council states that the modal split should remain stable for at least the next ten years, even with further traffic growth.
In the White Paper on the Common Transport Policy (CTP) "European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide", the modal shift is central and the Commission proposes measures aimed at the modal shift.
The White Paper on the Common Transport Policy also says that common transport policy alone will not provide all the answers. It must be part of an overall strategy integrating sustainable development, to include: a) economic policy and changes in the production process that influence demand for transport; b) land-use planning policy and in particular town planning; c) social and education policy; d) urban transport policy; e) budgetary and fiscal policy to, to link the internalisation of external, and especial environmental, costs with competition of trans-European network; f) competition policy, to ensure, in line with the objectives of high-quality public services, and in particularly in rail sector, that the opening-up of market is not harmed by the dominant companies already present on market; g) research policy for transport in Europe.
The European Neighbourhood Policy stressed that generating more trade and tourism between the Union and its neighbours, requires efficient, multimodal and sustainable transport systems. EU should develop an Actions plan for cooperation with its neighbors to improve the physical transport networks connecting the Union with neighboring countries, to step up aviation relations with partner countries with the aim to open up markets and to co-operate on safety and security issues. The Action Plans will also contain specific provisions to address the vulnerability of transport networks and services vis-A-vis terrorist attacks. The highest attention will be paid to enhance the security of air and maritime transport.
EECCA Environmental Strategy recognizes the need to incorporate environmental concerns into transport policies and sets this action as one of the Strategy objectives.
One of the actions selected by THE PEP is 'demand side management and modal shift and with special attention to the needs of the countries of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) and of South-Eastern Europe, as well as issues related to ecologically particularly sensitive areas'.
Structural goals and targets
GlobalPan-European level
EU
Efficiency targets
EU
EECCA
Link to other policy goals and targets
Pan-European
EU
EECCA
To obtain outlook of decoupling of passenger demand from economic growth, the trends from 2000 to 2050 of volume of passenger transport in passenger-km and GDP in billion USD are compared and shown separately on a graph. Relative decoupling occurs when passenger transport demand grows at a rate below that of GDP. Absolute decoupling occurs when passenger transport demand falls while GDP rises or remains constant.
The projections for the volume of passenger transport and GDP are taken from the IEA/WBCSD Sustainable Mobility Project (SMP) model. To cover pan-European region these data were extracted from the publicly available IEA/SMP model spreadsheet (version 1.6) for the following geographical areas: OECD Europe, Eastern Europe, and Former Soviet Union.
Outlook for the modal split share for passenger transport in total inland transport was extracted from the same model.
The model does not include any representation of economic relationships (e.g., elasticities) nor does it track costs. Rather, it is an "accounting" model, anchored by the "ASIF" identity:
Sectors / Modes | Vehicle Technologies/ Fuels | Regions | Variables |
Light-duty vehicles (cars, minivans, SUVs) * Medium trucks * Heavy-duty (long-haul) trucks * Mini-buses ("paratransit") * Large buses * 2-3 wheelers * Aviation (Domestic + Int'l) * Rail freight * Rail passenger * National waterborne (Inland plus coastal) * Int'l shipping | * Internal combustion engine: * Gasoline * Diesel * LPG-CNG * Ethanol * Biodiesel * Hybrid- Electric ICE (same fuels) * Fuel-cell vehicle * Hydrogen (With feedstock differentiation for biofuels and hydrogen) | * OECD Europe * OECD North America * OECD Pacific (Japan, Korea, Australia, NZ) * Former Soviet Union (FSU) * Eastern Europe * Middle East * China * India * Other Asia * Latin America * Africa | Passenger kilometres of travel * Vehicle sales (LDVs only) * Vehicle stocks * Average vehicle fuelefficiency * Vehicle travel * Fuel use * CO2 emissions * Pollutant emissions (PM, NOx, HC, CO, Pb) * Safety (road fatalities and injuries) |
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Uncertainties related to indicator calculation
All data should be based on movements on national territory, regardless of the nationality of the vehicle. It is unknown what the assumptions are regarding movement of the transport when the assigned regions.
To answer the question of whether passenger demand is being decoupled from economic growth we need to look at the intensity of passenger transport relative to changes in real GDP. A reduction in intensity should signal relative decoupling. This has some implications on the interpretation one makes of the observed intensity values. GDP in constant prices simply takes away the effect of price increases from year X to year Y but it does not guarantee that GDP in year X for country A is comparable to GDP in country B (as year X is the result of price increases from previous years etc). Therefore, cross-country comparisons of transport intensities based on real GDP may be relevant for trends (i.e. growth/changes over time) but not for comparing intensity values in specific years. If we are interested in knowing whether passenger transport intensity is higher in one country than in another, GDP should ideally be measured in purchasing power parities. These are currency conversion rates that both convert to a common currency and equalise the purchasing power of different currencies (i.e. they eliminate the differences in price levels between countries).
It is arguable, however, whether purchasing power parities are the best currency unit for time-series analysis. One way to avoid such problems is to use population instead of GDP. This would in principle be appropriate for the comparison of intensities between countries as well as for looking at trends over time. It seems also more equitable. To respond to the question of whether or not we are decoupling transport demand from economic activity (i.e. looking at growth rates over time) we would still need to use GDP.
See more on the CSI 035 - Passenger transport demand.
Auto | Air | Truck | Frt Rail | Pass Rail | Buss | Mini- bus | 2-3 wheel | Water | |
OECD regions | |||||||||
Activity (passenger or tonne km) | * | * | * | * | * | * | i | i | |
New vehicle characteristics (sales, fuel consumption) | * | ||||||||
Stock-average energy intensity | * | * | * | * | * | * | i | i | |
Calculation of energy use and vehicle CO2 emissions | * | * | * | * | * | i | i | i | |
Non-OECD regions | |||||||||
Activity (passenger or tonne km) | i | * | i | * | * | i | i | i | |
New vehicle characteristics (sales, fuel consumption) | i | ||||||||
Stock-average energy intensity | i | i | i | i | i | i | i | i | |
Calculation of energy use and vehicle CO2 emissions | i | * | i | * | * | i | i | i | * |
The relevance of the modal split policy for environmental impact of passenger transport arises from differences in environmental performance (resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, pollutant and noise emissions, land consumption, accidents etc.) of transport modes. These differences are becoming smaller on a passenger-km basis, which makes it increasingly difficult to determine the direct and future overall environmental effects of modal shifting. The total environmental effect of modal shifting can in fact only be determined on a case-by-case basis, where local circumstances and specific local environmental effects can be taken into account (e.g. transport in urban areas or over long distances).
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/passenger-transport-demand-outlook-from-wbcsd/passenger-transport-demand-outlook-from or scan the QR code.
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