Decoupling transport from GDP growth: a route to

less transport intensive prosperity growth?

Arno Schroten (CE Delft)

28 November 2011, Diamant Conference Center, Brussels

www.eutransportghg2050.eu
Background of the paper

• Europe 2020:
realising a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth which would
facilitate the transition to a green economy in the longer term

• Less transport-intensive growth of prosperity could

contribute to this ambition

• Two approaches:
– Decoupling transport growth from GDP growth  This presentation
– Alternative measures for prosperity growth  Next presentation

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Outline of the presentation

• Defining decoupling
• Trends of (de)coupling in the EU
• Drivers of decoupling freight transport
• Drivers of decoupling passenger transport
• Decoupling in the EU, US and Asia
• Policy implications
• Conclusions

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Defining decoupling

• Decoupling indicator
– Strong vs. weak decoupling
– In our paper: decoupling tkm/pkm from GDP

• Data and measurement issues

– Limited data availability
– International transport often not included in statistics
– Reliable statistics from developing countries is missing

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Trends of (de)coupling: freight transport

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Trends of (de)coupling: passenger transport

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Trends of (de)coupling: air transport

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Drivers of decoupling freight transport

• Freight transport and GDP are related in two ways:

– Volume of freight transport affects GDP
– Level of GDP affects freight transport volume

• Three (possible) drivers of decoupling freight transport:

– Dematerialisation of the economy
– Reduction of spatial range of material flows
– Optimisation of transport organisation

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Dematerialisation of the economy

• Economic restructuring
– Shift to a service-based economy
– Net impact on decoupling depends on size of leakage effect

• Reducing weight of transported goods

– Miniaturisation, replacing heavy materials by lighter ones and
digitisation of products
– Some evidence for (small) contribution to decoupling
– Potential is difficult to estimate, but could be significant (ca. 15%)

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Reduction of spatial range of material flows

• Reduction of the number of links in the supply chain

– Vertical integration
– Removing legislation encouraging transport

• Spatial structure of supply chain

– Labour cost differences may (partly) even out
– Increasing transport prices (e.g. oil prices)

• Impact on decoupling is not clear

– Positive effect of reduced transport demand could be undone by
negative impact of decreasing GDP growth

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Optimisation of transport organisation

• Use of computerised vehicle routing and scheduling

software

• More efficient allocation of scarce road capacity

• Overall impact on decoupling is probably small

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Conclusions decoupling freight transport

• Not much evidence supporting decoupling of freight

transport and GDP growth in the near future

• Economic restructuring is often indicated as an important

driver of decoupling, but from a global perspective these
effects are (partly) undone by leakage effects

• On the longer term, there may be changes in the spatial

structure of the economy, but impact on decoupling is
unclear

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Drivers of decoupling passenger transport

• Relationship between passenger transport and GDP is

mainly one-way: GDP level affects passenger transport
volume

• Four (possible) drivers of decoupling passenger

transport
– A changing consumption pattern
– Digitisation
– Urban redensification
– Increased transport efficiency

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A changing consumption pattern

• Evidence for car use saturation in daily travel

• But market share of aviation is rising
• Overall impact on decoupling is uncertain, but probably
small

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Digitisation

• Digitisation (e-commerce, teleworking, virtual meetings,

etc.) may result in less transport

• However, rebound effects should be considered:

– Increase of freight kilometres (e-commerce)
– People travel more for other purposes, when less time and
money is spend on shopping and commuter travel

• Digitisation may have a significant impact on decoupling

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Urban redensification

• Increased density of cities may reduce car dependency

and hence car use

• Potential is unclear, rough estimate: 5% GHG reduction

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Increased transport efficiency

• Increase in efficiency of vehicle routing (e.g. by using

GPS)

• Overall impact on decoupling is expected to be small

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Conclusions decoupling passenger
transport

• Decoupling of car use and GDP growth may take place

• But, this effect is (partly) undone by increase in air

transport

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Decoupling in the EU, US and Asia (1)

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Decoupling in the EU, US and Asia (2)

• Some important factors explaining the differences

between countries/continents:
– Geography
– Urban planning
– Lack of alternatives to the car
– Large supply of road transport infrastructure
– Fuel prices
– Transport taxes
– Culture

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Decoupling in the EU, US and Asia (3)

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Policy implications

• Policy intervention on passenger transport probably

more effective to realise decoupling
• Some policy instruments that could be considered:
– Economic instruments: internalisation of external costs
– Spatial planning policy
– Speed limits
– Macro-economic policies

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Conclusions

• Theoretically, there is a large potential for less transport-intensive

GDP growth, particularly in case of passenger transport
• However, this potential has hardly been realised over the last
decade
– Freight transport: evidence for ‘coupling’ instead of decoupling
– Passenger transport: evidence for decoupling of land-based transport, but this
effect is (partly) undone by coupling of aviation and GDP growth
• Without additional policies, a significant decoupling is not likely for
the near future
• Policy instruments that could be used to stimulate decoupling:
– Economic instruments: internalisation of external costs
– Spatial planning policy
– Speed limits

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Discussion

Any questions or comments?

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