World road transport will double in next 20 years
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ROAD GOODS transport will probably double and bus traffic show a modest increase throughout the world in the next 20 years, according to a Transport and Road Research Laboratory report just released. "An analysis of some world transport statistics" by A. H. Tulpule, is available from the TR R L, Crowthorne, Berks.
It points out that there has been a massive increase in demand for transport between the 20-year period from 1950 to 1970 but, despite the high growth rate of road transport, railways still account for about twothirds of the total tonne-km.
However, the estimates of further growth were prepared before the world energy problems of 1973. To add to this, the estimates of passenger and freight kilometres by road have had to be based on numbers of vehicles because of the unreliability of published statistics for some countries. This has been further complicated by the fact that no data has been available, in some cases, about the number of buses. These have often been included in the number of commercial vehicles without making reference to separate passenger or freight vehicle numbers.
China has been excluded from the report as few if' any statistics were available.
The report has been able to show that rail traffic grew at a rate of 4.7 per cent a year over the period while road traffic increased at the rate of over 7 per cent a year. Unlike the situation in Britain, rail accounts for over half the overland tonnekm in each region except South America; the highest is over 90 per cent in the USSR.
Passenger travel by bus also shows a trend in contrast to what is happening in Britain. In the rest of the world it has been growing steadily, says the report. Even in North America there has been a slight increase in, bus travel but again the fastest growth was in Russia.
For the future, the report sees more trucks doubling the annual tonne-km by 1980 but the number of buses will continue to decline though they will run nearly half as many again more passenger-km.