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Indicator Specification
Transport is one of the main sources of greenhouse gases and also gives rise to significant air pollution, which can seriously damage human health and ecosystems. The indicator helps to understand developments in the passenger transport sector (transport's 'magnitude' and transport patterns), which in turn explains observed trends in transport's impact on the environment.
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).
The outlook presents plausible future of transport developments in pan-European region and can be used for estimation of passenger transport impact on environment (particularly when it comes to transport contribution to climate change). It helps to assess achievability of targets and identify appropriate policy response options for making transportation more sustainable.
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) |
For more infomation click here
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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).
Work specified here requires to be completed within 1 year from now.
Work specified here will require more than 1 year (from now) to be completed.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/passenger-transport-demand-outlook-from-wbcsd or scan the QR code.
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