Automobility in Brazil, Russia, India, and China: Quo Vadis?

Abstract

This paper introduces an innovative methodology to answer the question: Toward which 2 levels of automobility are the BRIC countries headed? We apply this methodology to understand 3 why long-term saturation levels for car travel differ across the OECD study countries and what 4 this means for the saturation levels that the BRIC countries may attain. In our approach we factor 5 out the GDP development in order to focus on how other factors have influenced specific paths 6 of automobility in individual countries. That is, we focus on the question: Why are the long-term 7 automobility saturation levels so much higher for some countries than for others, even at similar 8 levels of GDP? Our methodology draws on quantitative analysis of historic developments in four 9 industrialized countries (USA, Australia, Germany, and Japan) that serve as case studies 10 representing prototypical paths of automobility with very different levels of per capita automo-11 bility, in combination with qualitative data derived from an expert-based qualitative approach. 12 We use the latter to transfer historic experiences about how automobility evolution was shaped in 13 industrialized countries and how these experiences may affect the future of automobility in the 14 BRIC countries. Based on our analysis, Brazil turns out to be the most car-oriented country 15 among the BRICs with a potential long-term level of automobility between Germany and Aus-16 tralia. Russia comes in second, also with a likely long-term level of automobility above that of 17 Germany. China and India, on the contrary, are heading towards lower levels of automobility 18 below Germany but higher than Japan.