Analysis and interpretation of interdependencies between economic activities and freight transportation for selected European countries

Abstract

The thesis contributes to the discussion about the coupling or decoupling of transport and economy. For this purpose, a methodology developed by Stephan Müller, Jens Klauenberg, and Axel Wolfermann from the Institute of Transport Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) (51, 52) is taken up, developed, and applied in a broader European context. The methodology contributes to freight generation modelling as first step of the 4-step modelling approach, which comprises furthermore freight distribution, choice of mode, and assignment. In short, the methodology provides a way to build an economic indicator, which when used alongside the freight variable – transported tonnes or ton kilometres – allows for correlation analysis to be devised, through which relationships are established. The indicator, as well as the freight volume or transport performance, are considered on the level of commodities and are classified according to NST/R. This disaggregated approach is an important advance compared to aggregated models, wherein, for example, the gross domestic product alone is used to derive freight data as input for transport models. Consequently, the findings of this thesis serve as input data for freight generation models as well as a comparison for models that have their own freight generation modules. Furthermore, it represents quantitative evidences to the coupling/decoupling discussion and enables the projection of future transport volumes.