Predicted Carmageddon did not happen as global traffic appears to have stalled
Economic downturn, technological advances and lifestyle changes mean fewer vehicles on the road
A funny thing happened on the way to Carmageddon: the predicted traffic failed to show up. As engineers continued to forecast traffic growth in line with historic averages - up, up and yet farther up, to an eventual "carpocalypse"- actual traffic not only fell short of projections, in many places it just plain fell.
A growing number of researchers and commentators are now suggesting that we've reached "peak car", the point at which traffic growth stops and potentially even falls on a per capita basis.
Total vehicle miles travelled (VMT) has been outpacing population and jobs for decades, across industrialised countries. Vehicle traffic grew at a fearsome rate, as any commuter can attest - up until 2007. Then traffic not only plateaued, it fell. Similar trends are evident in the UK and other developed countries. Phil Goodwin at University College London (UCL) has compiled statistics for various countries and the pattern is clear. The only uncertainties are about what caused it and whether it will continue.
And, as it turns out, there are fundamental disagreements on those points.
Most highway agencies appear to be adopting what Goodwin labels the "interrupted growth" hypothesis: because the downturn in traffic parallels that in the global economy, the bad economy is to blame for the motoring decline. Traffic growth will resume once there's a global economic recovery, they predict. Backing for this view comes from data from the last two years in the US, where total VMT increased as the economy recovered and gasoline prices fell. The miles travelled grew by 0.4 per cent in 2013 and 1.7 per cent last year.
Others - often people who are also advocates for public transit, curbing sprawl and so on - attribute traffic falls to changes in society and consumer preferences, such as the increasing rejection of the car by young people. Supporters of this view see the current situation as peak car and expect these changes to continue into the future.