Managing Transport Demand in European Countries

It is coming to be accepted that the growth in demand for transport must be ‘decoupled’ from economic growth (EC, 2001). The future direction of transport policy should be able first of all to reduce the rate at which car-kilometres and tonne-kilometres of freight transport grow, and then reduce these in an absolute sense. This can be achieved without sacrificing the prospect of economic growth. Indeed many transport commentators in Europe would argue that we can only continue to develop our economies if we solve traffic congestion and pollution problems. This European tendency echoes changes in UK national transport policy which, in spite of some residual support for large and expensive new roads, is nevertheless oriented in the direction of demand management and reducing the need to travel. This represents a fundamental policy shift that is more demanding culturally and psychologically than it is in any technical sense. The policy shift, however, is real and documented in UK governmental statements especially the influential ‘PPG13’ (Planning Policy Guidance Note 13, Transport). But the views of many politicians and engineers is that only roads can bring relief from congestion and only roads can deliver economic gains for hard pressed regions. In this chapter we review the power of demand management solutions to solve both sets of problems. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.