Decoupling transport from economic growth (SVI 2001/524)
Overview
Objectives:
This research project is an analysis of the thesis of decoupling for freight and passenger transport in Switzerland. This project primarily looks at decoupling of transport services and economic growth: decoupling of economic growth and growth of transport demand is being understood as splitting the parallel development of economic growth and transport activities including related impacts on resources and environment.
The main focus is placed on the analysis of the structural factors (less so on the technological potential) contributing to transport demand resp. to economic growth.
Methodology:
The concept developed for this project consists of the following elements:
- Three levels of decoupling and indicators: decoupling of economic growth and
- transport demand: indicator transport performance (passenger kilometres resp. tonne kilometres) in relation to Gross Domestic Product (GDP),
- transport supply: indicator mileage (vehicle resp. rail kilometre) in relation to GDP,
- environmental impact: indicator environmental impact of transport (such as CO 2 , NOx, PM10-emissions) in relation to GDP.
Definitely the most interesting subject of analysis is the first level of decoupling (transport demand and economic growth), because the elements to analyse are of an economic structural nature.
- There are two approaches: absolute decoupling (increasing economic growth with decreased traffic) and relative decoupling (weaker growth of traffic in relation to economic growth).
- There are three levels for the definition of the indicators (national, industrial resp. sectoral), always related to freight and passenger transport.
- Five central groups of functional chains and influencing factors. They encompass a whole bundle of important functional chains and influencing factors. These factors influence the connection between economic and transport development:
- Passenger transport and economy: primary effects on transport-economy;
- freight transport and economy: primary effects on transport-economy;
- Transport and economy: reactions due to policy-response on liberalisation and globalisation;
- Income effect on transport: induced effects on passenger transport;
- Transport and space: induced effects on passenger transport and freight transport.
In order to measure the degree of decoupling, the availability of economic and transport statistics plays a vital role. Only if these statistics show the same disassociation of systems, the same concept can be implemented empirically. Normally, this is the case on a national (according to the territorial principle) as well as on business unit level. But with both levels the systems delimitation needs to be interpreted. Transnational developments, especially the structural transformation of the national economy may strongly influence the degree of (de)coupling. A purely national view on how to measure a decoupling indicator is therefore becoming more and more insuf
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