Skip to main content

Report: International freight transport to quadruple by 2050

International Transport Forum’s (ITF) Transport Outlook 2015, presented in January 2015 at the OECD headquarters in Paris, France, examines the development of global transport volumes and related CO2 emissions and health impacts through to 2050. It examines factors that can affect supply and demand for transport services and focuses on scenarios illustrating potential upper and lower pathways, discussing their relevance to policy making. It presents an overview of long-run scenarios for the development of g
February 23, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
RSS998 International Transport Forum’s (ITF) Transport Outlook 2015, presented in January 2015 at the 7353 OECD headquarters in Paris, France, examines the development of global transport volumes and related CO2 emissions and health impacts through to 2050. It examines factors that can affect supply and demand for transport services and focuses on scenarios illustrating potential upper and lower pathways, discussing their relevance to policy making.

It presents an overview of long-run scenarios for the development of global passenger and freight transport volumes, with emphasis on changes in global trade flows and the consequences of rapid urbanisation. It focuses on the characteristics of mobility development in developing countries, from Latin America to Chinese and Indian cities, highlighting the importance of urban mobility policies for the achievement of national and global sustainability goals.

The report says that, in the face of shifting global trade patterns, international freight transport volumes will grow more than four-fold (factor 4.3) by 2050. Average transport distance across all modes will increase 12 per cent.

As a result, CO2 emissions from freight transport will grow by 290 per cent by 2050. Freight will replace passenger traffic as main source of CO2 emissions from surface transport.

The North Pacific route will surpass the North Atlantic as the world's busiest trading corridor in terms of freight volume (in tonne per kilometre), growing 100 percentage points faster than the North Atlantic. The Indian Ocean corridor will see large growth, with freight volume quadrupling.

Intra-African (+715 per cent) and intra-Asian (+403 per cent) freight volumes will see particularly strong growth to 2050. Road transport will dominate here due to lack of other modes.

The share of domestic transport of international freight flows, identified here for the first time, accounts for ten per cent of trade-related international freight, but 30 per cent of CO2 emissions. This is important: domestic transport is shaped by national policies, less by international agreements.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Columbia goes intermodal to support sustainability
    April 10, 2014
    David Crawford on the ups and downs of a Latin metropolis. Medellín, Colombia’s second city and a recognised leader in sustainable transport thinking, is rapidly extending its substantial existing investment in modern mobility. It is deploying both an enhanced integrated traffic management array and the country’s first intermodal public transportation management system. The supplier of both, under separate €9 million (US$12.3 million) contracts, is Spanish engineering company Indra, a major exporter
  • Transport is evolving – and road safety must keep pace, says Parifex
    May 25, 2023
    France-headquartered Parifex works at the cutting edge of Lidar-based speed control systems. CEO Paul-Henri Renard discusses safety advances made in recent decades - and the causes of accidents that remain…
  • Investment and innovation the future of ITS
    January 31, 2012
    Cisco's Paul Brubaker, former administrator of the US Department of Transportation's (USDOT's) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), takes a look at how the ITS sector is starting to attract the attention of major corporations and what this will mean for intelligent transportation in the coming years
  • Tolling faces up to unprecedented challenge
    October 9, 2020
    The next five years are likely to see a number of changes – but the tolling industry will be equal to them, thinks the IBTTA’s Bill Cramer. The best minds in the business are on the case…