The world’s population will reach 9 billion by 2050. Meeting their transport demands will be challenging. As both population and incomes rise, global passenger mobility and global freight transport volumes may triple by 2050. The International Transport Forum’s 2011 Outlook examines these trends, exploring the factors that may drive demand even higher and the limits imposed by infrastructure capacity, fuel prices and policies to accommodate or limit potentially explosive growth of car use in rapidly developing countries. The Outlook traces scenarios for emissions of CO2 from transport and the impact of policies to improve the fuel economy of conventional vehicles and promote the use of electric cars, including implications for fuel tax revenues. Trends in passenger car traffic are given particular attention, examining evidence for saturation of demand in high income countries. The report also focuses on future directions for trade, as suggested by trends in the current economic recovery. A global rebalancing in the wake of the financial crisis may already be over, with trade returning to pre-crisis patterns ahead of any longer term restructuring for economic sustainability. (Author/publisher)
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