However, due to the limitations of my research, I am going to focus on some specific areas of transportation. My research will focus on the road transportation within the EU-27, show on which countries road transportation is the most prominent and finally I am going to make a comparison between the EU-27 with other big economies of the world.
Road Transportation: facts and figures
Road transportation has become one of the most important ways of transportation nowadays. In 2006 figures, 45.6% of goods transportation is transpired via road whereas the 37.3% goes through short-sea shipping routes, 10.5% through railroads, 3.3% through inland waterways and finally 3.2% through oil pipelines. Added to that, concerning the passenger transportation, road transportation dominates on this sector as it amounts to 72.7% whilst on the other hand 6.1% of the population chooses train transportation 8.6% air transportation and only 0.6% sea transportation (Panorama of Transport, 2010). It is clear from the statistics above, that road transportation dominates in both sectors.
Road Transportation of Passengers
The increase of the road transportation can also be seen by the car ownership throughout Europe. More into detail, in the past 10 years, there has been an increase of the car ownership in Europe which was more acute though in the countries which joined the EU recently, and more specifically at the countries which joined after the EU-15. The graph below gives us the motorization rate of the years 2000 and 2009.
Figure 2: Motorization Rate within the EU.
From: Eurostat (2011). Motorization rate- cars per 1000 inhabitants. Retrieved December 2011, from: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tsdpc340&plugin=1
There are two key factors behind the continued growth in demand for transport. For passenger transport, the determining factor is the spectacular growth in car use. The number of cars has tripled in the last 30 years, at an increase of 3million cars each year. Although the level of car ownership is likely to stabilize in most countries of the European Union, this will not be the case in the candidate countries, where car ownership is seen as a symbol of freedom together (White Paper: European Transport Policy for 2010, pg.13).
This continued growth of car use, has made it an indispensable part of the everyday, as most of the average European Union citizen reaches his/her job either by car or motorcycle. The following graph shows us the main mode of transport in the EU-27 by country, but also the average European level which has reached the 53% of the people.
Figure 3: The main mode of transport, motorized individual transport.
From: The Gallup Organization (2007).Attitudes on issues related to EU transport policy. Retrieved November 2011, from European Union Public Opinion website, pg.11 :
Through this graph what we can note the highest proportions of motorization can be found in Cyprus, France and Ireland analogously. The first place of Cyprus, as the most motorized country of Europe, should not come as a surprise as it barely has a public transportation system. Moreover, we can see that the use of motorcycles is high in traditionally popular countries in this sector, such as Greece and Italy. Nevertheless, it cannot be considered as the main mode of transport as the usage in these countries is slightly over than the average usage of motorbikes in Europe.
Road Transportation of Goods
Due to the specialization and division of labor, trade was always important for an economy, even since the ancient times. Especially nowadays, with the pace that technology changes the development of the trans-European networks, trade has become of utmost importance.
As Europe was progressing towards a single market, the intra-European trade was booming, with road transportation being the most popular way. This is obvious on the graph below, which shows the road transportation of goods of the years 1995 to 2006, compared to the other means of transport.
Figure 4: Goods transport performance by mode, in EU-27.
From: European Commission- Eurostat. Panorama of Transport, 2009 edition. Retrieved December 2011, from European Commission website- Eurostat, pg. 56:
Apart from the means of transport which are being used by the EU-27 within the EU, it is interesting to see on which member states this transportation is flourishing. The graph below will help us distinguish the most dominating states of this sector in the EU.
Figure 5: National and International Road Transportation of Goods, 2010
From: European Commission- Eurostat. Freight Transport Statistics, 2010. Retrieved December 2011, from European Commission website- Eurostat: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Freight_transport_statistics
This graph gives us the national and international road transportation of goods for the year of 2010. Through this, we can distinguish the position of a country within the intra-European market of road transportation of goods. What is more notable in this graph is that the countries whose majority road freight transport was international are countries of small population, such as Luxembourg, Lithuania and Slovenia. More in detail, the road freight transport of Luxembourg was over 17000 ton-kilometers per inhabitant in 2010, which is around 2.2 times the next highest volume in Slovenia. In both cases, this trade was performed by vehicles which were registered in each of these Member States. A bit more than the two thirds of the goods transported in the EU-27’s roads was within the national road network. The national road freight transportation was more dominating in the islands of Cyprus (98.1%) and the United Kingdom (94.3%) whereas the road freight transportation is more international in continental countries such as Slovakia (18.9%), Slovenia (14.4%), Lithuania (11.8%) and Luxembourg (6.6%). International road freight transportation relates mostly to exchanges with other Member States (Eurostat, 2011).
Effects of the increase of Road Transportation
From the research which I have conducted, it is obvious that there has been an acute increase of the road transportation in the past years. Though, this increase in the road transportation of both passengers and goods had as effect, traffic to be met, more often.
According to the White Paper of 1993 on growth, competitiveness and employment; traffic jams are not only exasperating, they also cost Europe dear in terms of productivity. Bottlenecks and missing links in the infrastructure fabric; lack of interoperability between modes and systems. Networks are the arteries of the single market. They are the life blood of competitiveness, and their malfunction is reflected in lost opportunities to create new markets and hence in a level of job creation that fall short of our potential (White Paper 1993 on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, pg. 75).
Traffic congestion appears when too many vehicles attempt to use a common transportation infrastructure with limited capacity. This factor results in excess delays, reduced safety, and increased environmental pollution. The most recent study on the subject showed that the external costs of road traffic congestion alone amount to 0.5% of Community GDP, with an increasing forecast for the next 10 years to 1% of Community GDP (Papageorgiou, Diakaki, Dinopoulou, Kotsialos, Wang, 2003, pg. 2043)
Comparison of EU-27 with the Rest of the World
On this part of the paper I am going to compare the EU-27 with the other big economies of the world such as the U.S., Japan, China and Russia. It is interesting to see whether there was a development of such kind on the road transportation sector, in other great economical countries of the world as well.
First of all, it is interesting to have an economic comparison of EU-27 with the other countries, before moving on to the transportation sector. The table below contains economic figures which could give us a clear view of a country, in relationship to the EU-27.
Figure 6: Comparison EU-World: General Data
From: European Commission. EU transport in figures. Statistical Pocketbook 2011. Retrieved November 2011, from European Commission website of Mobility and Transport, pg. 16:
According to the table above, the EU-27 has the second largest population after China and also is ranked the highest importer and exporter country of all. Additionally, it is interesting to add that even though the U.S. is the second largest importer of goods (in billions €), it is the only country whose Relative GDP per capita is higher than the one of the EU-27 and also it has the second best Real GDP growth. Finally, what is worth mentioning is the case of China; it is the country with the largest population in the world, and the second best exporter of goods (in billions €). Whilst the other biggest economies of the world were contracting in the year of 2009, China was experiencing a Real GDP growth of 9.1%, from which we can realize the extent and power of the Chinese economy nowadays, but also in the future.
Focusing more on our topic of road transportation, in the table below I present the statistics of transportation infrastructure within these 5 countries.
Figure 7: Transport Infrastructure EU-World
From: European Commission. EU transport in figures. Statistical Pocketbook 2011. Retrieved November 2011, from European Commission website of Mobility and Transport, pg. 29:
With a closer look on the table we can easily distinguish that concerning the road transportation, the EU-27 dominate in the road (paved) network whereas the U.S. dominates in the motorway network, where the EU-27 comes second in length. From these statistics, we can realize that the use of road transportation is of increased importance in the U.S. rather than in Europe.
Figure 8: Comparison EU-World: Infrastructure and Vehicles
From: European Commission. EU transport in figures. Statistical Pocketbook 2011. Retrieved November 2011, from European Commission website of Mobility and Transport, pg. 30:
Finally, the last table shows us in real figures the passenger transportation and freight transportation in these five economic powers; EU-27, USA, Japan, China and Russia. The road freight transportation is a very important factor, not solely within the EU, but also in USA and China. China has the highest proportion of road freight transportation with 3286.8 billion tkm and then follows the US and Europe analogously. These figures prove that road transportation does not only play a decisive role in the European but also in other economic powers of the world. Moreover, through the same table we can see that other means of transportation, such as rail transportation, are more advanced in other countries, which means that there is still space for development in Europe.
Concerning the road transportation of passengers, this sector is dominated by the United States with second in line, Europe. Though, what is worth mentioning is that the use of public transport in Europe (bus, trolley-bus, coach) is the most popular with almost double the number of people using them in relationship to the second highest user, USA. This can be justified by the fact that in the U.S. the public transportation system is not as developed as in Europe therefore the high numbers of road transportation usability, are reasonable.
Conclusion
In the past years, transportation and more importantly effective transportation has become essential for Europe, in order to ensure the needs of its citizens but also of its industries. Road transportation within the EU has brought the countries closer and helped into reaching the single market. It is an irreplaceable piece of the European puzzle, which should be continually adjusted to the needs and trends of the society.
References
Eurostat, (2011), Freight Transport Statistics, Retrieved December 3rd 2011, from
Papageorgiou M., Diakaki C., Dinopoulou V., Kotsialos A., Wang Y. (2003), Review of Road Traffic Control Strategies. IEEE Vol. 91, No. 12.
European Commission, (2001), European Transport policy for 2010: time to decide, Retrieved on 20th November 2011.
European Commission, (2011), EU transport in figures, Statistical Pocketbook 2011. Retrieved from: on 24th November 2011
European Commission, (1993), White Paper 1993 on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment. Retrieved from: .
Eurostat, (2009), Panorama of Transport. Retrieved from: on3rd of December 2011.
by
theodore1313 (student)
