Impact of E-Economy on traffic and traffic-related indicators in urban areas

As part of the Prediction of E-Economy Impacts on Transport (POET) project for the European Commission, the impact of the e-economy (including an increasing uptake of teleworking and teleshopping and better use of intelligent transport systems) on transport in a number of selected urban areas in Europe was modeled. The modeling for the urban areas used existing transport models (passengers and freight) for Paris; Stockholm, Sweden; Naples, Italy; Hamburg, Germany; and the Randstad, the Netherlands. Second, it used several scenarios on the degree to which information and communication technologies would be adopted for the year 2010. The third element in the modeling at the urban level was the use of so-called front-end models, estimated on new stated preference data. The outcomes in vehicle kilometers were also used to calculate the impact of the e-economy on energy use, emissions, and traffic accidents. Also, for some areas, impact on congestion and accessibility was calculated. For some of the areas and scenarios, considerable reductions in passenger kilometerage were found as a result of e-economy developments, but freight transport increased.