Transport for Sustainable Development – The case of Inland Transport
2.4. Challenges In the near to mid-term future, the transportation sector will face significant challenges. Continuation of the current trends in the economic growth, which has been consistently higher in developing countries than in the developed world, is likely to influence transportation patterns, particularly if such trends couple with increases in the developing countries’ consumption volumes and patterns. Nevertheless, increasing income inequalities might also affect demand/consumption and, thus, the transportation sector. In addition, changes in the global populations’ size, age structure, household size, as well as increasing urbanization could have significant impacts on inland transport, as they are also likely to influence transportation patterns and volumes. For example, road (highway) travel in the European countries is expected to grow slowly due to changes in the population age structure: as the average age increases, the number of licensed drivers and the average amount of highway travel per capita will probably decline in areas with already high motorization levels. At the same time, the fast-paced economic growth and sociodemographic changes in the developing countries are likely to increase uncertainties in the long-term development of the transportation sector, due to a greater flexibility in capital investment and the associated infrastructure/services development. In the next decades, the nexus between transportation, energy and carbon emissions will continue to pose challenges for the transport sector. Transportation energy demand is projected to increase in the next decades due to the increasing private motorization of non-OECD countries and the increasing freight transport in both developing and developed economies (EIA, 2013). At the same time, improvements in energy efficiency are likely to moderate future energy transportation demand in OECD economies. Adaptation of more stringent fuel economy standards (e.g. EC, 2012a) will probably curb growth in transportation energy use in the developed economies, as may specially-targeted financial instruments. For example, many European countries have increased fuel consumption taxes on motor vehicles to encourage fuel conservation. Although such taxes vary widely, diesel fuel is generally treated more favourably and is generally 20–30 per cent more efficient than petrol in equivalent vehicles (see also Chapter 7). Also, individuals/households with different income levels show differential effects in energy use and income; this also further increases social inequality. It seems that income inequality is also an obstacle to the use of new technology (e.g. electric vehicles), and can therefore be an obstacle to sustainable energy use (Andrich et al., 2013). It has been suggested that global oil supplies will only meet demand until global oil production peaks; this could cause a global energy gap to develop, which would have to be bridged by unconventional and renewable energy sources (e.g. Salameh, 2003) and/ or reduced demand. With transportation, there is a scope for continued research and development to further improve car energy efficiency. A recent study (Daly and Ó Gallachóir, 2012) modelled future car stock and policy and measures related to Ireland’s transport energy demand in the period up to 2030. Modelled policies/measures involved deployment targets for electric and compressed natural gas vehicles, European Union (EU) regulations on improved vehicle efficiency and implementation of national bio-fuel obligations as well as encouraging modal shifts and reduced travel demand. The results indicated a possible improvement of 32 per cent in car stock efficiency and a 22 per cent reduction in private car CO2 emissions relative to 2009 levels, and a 7.8 per cent renewable energy share of road and rail transport.
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