Recent Evidence on Car Cost and Time Elasticities of Travel Demand in Europe

Many European regions do not have traffic models that have been calibrated on data for that specific region. For such national and regional authorities that would like to have a first approximation of the travel demand impacts of changes in car cost and car travel times, the outcomes of the research project into elasticities of travel demand presented in this paper might be particularly useful. The objective of this study is not to replace detailed traffic models; if these are available we advise their use. In this paper, results are presented from a large-scale review of available evidence concerning elasticities of private car travel demand with respect to time and cost changes and from new runs with three traffic models. The focus is on countries that are member or associate member states of the European Union and on studies conducted recently (1985 and later). The car cost and car travel time elasticity outcomes presented refer to the impact on both trips and kilometres, distinguishing several modes, travel purposes, and are short versus long term.