Decoupling transport from GDP growth: a route to

less transport intensive prosperity growth? Arno Schroten (CE Delft)

www.eutransportghg2050.eu

28 November 2011, Diamant Conference Center, Brussels

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

– Alternative measures for prosperity growth

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This 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

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• Evidence for car use saturation in daily travel

• But market share of aviation is rising

• Overall impact on decoupling is uncertain, but probably

small

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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