What Long-Term Road Transport Future? Trends and Policy Options

This article examines long-term trends and broad policy options and challenges related to the road transport sector and its congestion and environmental impacts. A brief review of long-term projections of demand for road transport suggests that problems related to road network congestion and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are likely to become more pressing in the future than they are now. Next we review, from a macroscopic perspective, three policy measures aimed at addressing these problems: stimulating shifts in transport modes to decrease congestion and GHG emissions, boosting low-carbon technology adoption to reduce GHG emissions, and regulating land use to reduce road transport volumes. We find that although these policies can produce tangible results, they may also have unintended and costly consequences.