Future Challenges to European Transport and Their Repercussions on Transport R&D

Time horizons in transport planning are typically 10-20 years. Although the changes in transport occurring over such periods may be limited in relative terms, the roads, airports, railways of today will mostly still be there in 20 years time, as will some of today’s transport means. The absolute size and the direction of changes are determined much more by other factors, such as industrial and technological development, economic growth and changes in society at large, than by changes in the transport sector itself. Therefore, forecasting and planning for transport on a 10-20 year horizon must encompass those sectors outside transport most relevant to the supply of, and demand for, transport. This trivial conclusion is in practice very difficult to respect. The long-term forecasts for air passenger transport made during the 1960’s to support decisions on new airports and on investments in new aircraft have demonstrated this: not so much through excessive optimism about growth rates of passenger flow – who could have foreseen the increase in energy prices, the low economic growth rates of the 1970’s, but because they used a simplistic projection of fixed annual growth rate of passenger flows, unrelated to the economic and social factors generating them. This paper will present an analysis of perspectives for economic and social development in Europe in order to draw conclusions about the future context for its international transport. The paper will consider trends in transport itself, complemented by reference to recent trends in one country.