This paper discusses the developments in freight transport demand in Europe over the last fifteen years. From the late 1980s in Europe freight traffic began to increase rapidly. Modelling of transport characteristics differs widely, and some elements of logistics are difficult to model. Other approaches to forecasting the relationship between freight transport growth and the economy are growth accounting, aggregate production, and productivity gain. There has been a change in the sectoral and geographical distribution of industries generating freight transport demand. Transport is only part of total logistics costs. Falling costs and increasing efficiency have led to larger increases in freight moved being achieved with a much smaller increase in the vehicle fleet. The implications of the arguments in this paper are that measures of transport intensity will not be useful as an objective in their own right. Understanding the complexity of transport/economy relationships is essential to an understanding of transport demand and its traffic implications. For the covering abstract see ITRD E118367.
Samenvatting