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Transport management is now far more sophisticated than it was a decade ago.
Transport activities generate a wide range of economic benefits. Between 2% and 4% of
total OECD employment, for example, is derived from transport services, and an estimated
4-9% of GDP in the OECD area is attributable to spending by the users of transport
(including expenditure on infrastructure). More than 10% of total household expenditure
now goes to purchase transport services (OECD Publications/ECMT). The balance of
international payments is also strongly influenced by trade in transport equipment.
Enormous changes have taken place in the transport sector in recent years. The most
marked is its unprecedented growth. Both stock variables (fleet size, kilometres of road
and rail infrastructure, and so on) and flow variables (number of trips taken, volume of
goods transported, and the like) have expanded rapidly. The worlds automobile fleet, for
example, doubled between 1970 and 1990, to stand today at approximately 500 million
vehicles. These numbers are expected to double over the next 20-40 years, although at a
slower rate in OECD countries than in the past.
Substantial structural, changes have also taken place. For one thing, there has been a major
shift in where transport growth is occurring. In 1950, 75% of all automobiles were located
in the United States. Since then, the number outside the United States has grown by about
8% per year (Mackenzie Walsh 1990) with even more remarkable increases in some
locations. In Athens, for example, car ownership burgeoned from 35,000 in 1964 to
650,000 in 1984, and is expected to be about 900,000 by this year (Glaoutzi Damianidias
