IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/transr/v27y2006i1p37-64.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decoupling of Road Freight Transport and Economic Growth Trends in the UK: An Exploratory Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Alan C. McKinnon

Abstract

Between 1997 and 2004, gross domestic product increased in real terms in the UK by one‐fifth, while the volume of road freight movement remained stable. This suggests that the long‐awaited decoupling of economic and freight transport growth has begun, possibly leading to a new era of sustainable logistics. This paper reviews previous research on the decoupling issue and recent trends in gross domestic product/freight tonne‐km elasticities in Europe and the USA. It then examines 12 possible causes of the observed decoupling in the UK using published statistics from a wide range of British and European sources. This analysis indicates that around two‐thirds of the decoupling is due to three factors whose impact can be quantified: the increased penetration of the British road haulage market by foreign operators, a decline in road transport’s share of the freight market, and real increases in road freight rates. Several other factors, most notably the relative growth of the service sector, the diminishing rate of centralization, and the off‐shoring of manufacturing, appear to be having a significant effect, though this finding cannot be measured on the basis of available statistics. The paper concludes that, while the decoupling is in the right direction from a public policy standpoint, the net environmental benefits are likely to be quite modest.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan C. McKinnon, 2006. "Decoupling of Road Freight Transport and Economic Growth Trends in the UK: An Exploratory Analysis," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 37-64, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:transr:v:27:y:2006:i:1:p:37-64
    DOI: 10.1080/01441640600825952
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01441640600825952
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01441640600825952?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pastowski, Andreas, 1997. "Decoupling economic development and freight for reducing its negative impacts," Wuppertal Papers 79, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. POPESCU Alexandra-Codruta & SIPOS Ciprian Alexandru, 2015. "Green Logistics - A Condition Of Sustainable Development," Revista Economica, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 67(4), pages 112-130.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barabas, György & Kitlinski, Tobias & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schmidt, Torsten & Siemers, Lars-H. & Brilon, Werner, 2010. "Verkehrsinfrastrukturinvestitionen: Wachstumsaspekte im Rahmen einer gestaltenden Finanzpolitik. Endbericht - Januar 2010. Forschungsprojekt im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums der Finanzen. Projektnumm," RWI Projektberichte, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, number 72601.
    2. Laaser, Claus-Friedrich & Rosenschon, Astrid, 2001. "Verkehrsspezifische Ausgaben und Einnahmen der Gebietskörperschaften in Deutschland: eine empirische Analyse," Kiel Working Papers 1039, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Sathaye, Nakul & Li, Yuwei & Horvath, Arpad & Madanat, Samer, 2006. "The Environmental Impacts of Logistics Systems and Options for Mitigation," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt7m21d806, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:transr:v:27:y:2006:i:1:p:37-64. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/TTRV20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.