Get Into My Car: The Congested Future of Worldwide Auto Ownership
Automobile ownership proceeds at a pace that depends on the absolute level of a nation’s economic development. Driven by growth in China and India, the number of people who own cars is expected to reach 2 billion by 2030. Read More »
Where on Earth Will All the Cars Go?
Evidence indicates that as national wealth rises, so does auto ownership. So what is going to happen when those in poor nations start buying cars at rich world levels? Can the world afford to have every Chinese and Indian driving a car? Read More »
Does the Highway Patrol Keep Us Safe?
Research suggests that when states cut back on their state highway patrol forces, traffic fatalities can rise by double-digits. Read More »
The Travel Time Budget
Is our need to travel innate? Last time, I wrote about the intriguing theory of the universal Travel Time Budget (TTB), which states that humans have a built-in travel clock. Perhaps a product of some primeval need to balance exploration and conquest with hanging around the cave and vegging, the universal TTB is said to drive us all to spend about 1.1 hours per day on the go, regardless of nationality, culture, economic system, or era. Read More »
Do Mysterious Forces Dictate Our Travel Patterns?
Sure, studying transportation is important if you need to find the best route to the hardware store. But you might be surprised to know that transportation study might have other uses, like enlightening you about the most profound philosophical mysteries of the universe. For example, transportation might just tell us some surprising things about the degree to which we truly have free will. Read More »
What’s Putting the Brakes on the Growth of Driving?
One iron law governed 20th century transportation: driving always increases. But surprisingly, the 2000s appeared to see a halt to that trend. A few theories. Read More »
What’s the Driving Force Behind Less Driving?
Last time, I showed you evidence (courtesy of Robert Puentes and Adie Tomer of the Brookings Institution and Adam Millard-Ball and Lee Schipper of Stanford University) that driving per person seems to have peaked in the 2000s and now may even be dropping. This bucks every travel trend we’ve seen since Henry Ford got to work. What might be slowing down the acceleration in driving? Read More »
Peak Travel?
Call me a skeptic about the “peak oil” story. Human ingenuity has always found ways to produce more of, find substitutes for, or discover ways to do without a scarce resource when price signals tell us to. But if peak oil is true, doesn’t one good peak deserve another? Why not meet peak oil head on with its dreaded natural enemy: peak travel? Read More »
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