TRB Pubsindex
Text Size:

Title:

Who Are the Drivers of Peak Car Use? A Decomposition of Recent Car Travel Trends for Six Industrialized Countries

Accession Number:

01478116

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States
Order URL: http://www.trb.org/main/blurbs/170228.aspx

Find a library where document is available


Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780309287128

Abstract:

This study investigates the contribution of the aging of the population and changes in travel behavior by age group to peak car use in France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Norway, and the United States. The terms "peak car use," "peak car travel," and "peak car hypothesis" have been coined for the recent trend reversal in car travel development observed in some industrialized countries. In the study countries, car travel was characterized by growth for a long time but started to show signs of stagnation or even decrease in the past decade. The authors analyze underlying travel trends since the mid-1990s and use a trend decomposition based on descriptive statistics from national travel surveys and Laspeyres indices. The results indicate that relevant developments have different weight in shaping peak car use in the study countries. In many places, the aging of the population has been an important contributor to peak car use. In Japan, aging was the most important factor limiting growth of car travel. In all study countries except the United States, where car ownership by seniors has not grown, increasing car ownership and car use by seniors have contributed to increasing car travel and thus have exerted a damping influence on peak car use. Another important development was new travel trends of young adults. In three countries, the contribution of young adults to peak car use is crucial: if young adults’ car ownership and car mode share had not decreased, results would not have shown declining total car kilometers per capita in Germany and would have shown much stronger increases in Great Britain and Norway.

Monograph Accession #:

01506426

Report/Paper Numbers:

13-2715

Language:

English

Authors:

Kuhnimhof, Tobias
Zumkeller, Dirk
Chlond, Bastian

Pagination:

pp 53–61

Publication Date:

2013

Serial:

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

Issue Number: 2383
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISSN: 0361-1981

ISBN:

9780309287128

Media Type:

Print

Features:

Figures (2) ; References (42) ; Tables (4)

Subject Areas:

Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Feb 5 2013 12:34PM

More Articles from this Serial Issue: