In early 2011, the Netherlands Institute for Transport Policy Analysis performed a mobility analysis, focusing on recent trends. This analysis showed that, following the remarkable growth in the 1980s and 1990s, the total national mobility of people in the Netherlands has not increased since 2005. This particularly appears to apply to car use. Except for the economic crisis around 2008/2009, the reasons for this development remained unclear at the time. Based on further analyses of the developments in mobility over the last 10 years and some findings from other countries, the following four hypotheses related to the apparent stabilisation of car use were formulated and investigated in further research: - The mobility system starts to show signs of “saturation”, for instance saturation of car ownership levels, reduced need for physical mobility to perform activities, structural frictions in housing and labour markets, et cetera. - The mobility of young adults is decreasing as a result of changes in socio-economic, spatial, and cultural factors.- The broad implementation of (mobile) Internet in society (e-working, e-shopping, e-commerce, use of social networks) is leading to a reduction in physical (car) mobility.- National mobility is being ‘substituted’ by international mobility. In the first part of this contribution, a more detailed description of mobility developments between 2000 and 2011 is presented, with emphasis on specific trends for various user categories (by travel mode, by travel purpose, by age group, by gender). In the second part, the findings of recent research related to the four hypotheses mentioned above are presented. As some of these findings differ somewhat from research results in other Western European countries, attention is given to these differences and their possible explanation. The last part of the contribution focuses on possible implications of the findings for transport policymaking. (Author/publisher)
Abstract