#PfG contains some big changes in transport with a proposed 2:1 ratio for infrastructure expenditure in favour of public transport over roads. Will it be enough to cause a modal shift away from cars? (A data thread, 1/9)

It’s hard to predict the future (and I’m not going to) but data on modal transport trends and transport expenditure (from OECD) for Europe (2005-2016) can shed some light. (2/9)

Modal trends for passenger transport are dominated by car, for most countries car journeys are greater than 80% of all passenger journeys! Also striking is the stability of a high share of car transport across countries and across time (3/9)

For freight transport, there is more variation between countries & over time. Netherlands & Romania use waterways. V high share of rail transport in Baltic countries suggest Soviet legacy infrastructure. Islands, including Ireland, Cyprus, UK, Malta all dominated by roads (4/9)

Data on annual expenditure on transport infrastructure is very spikey (because the expenditure tends to be large) so we aggregated the 2005-2016 data into cumulative trends. So is there a relationship between transport infrastructure expenditure and modal share? It depends (5/9)

In some countries there is a correlation between expenditure and modal trends for rail passenger (Switzerland, Austria, Spain) and rail freight (Portugal, Slovenia, Romania, Italy), but all the trends of change are gradual (6/9)

In a few countries there is a correlation between expenditure and modal trends for roads & cars (Greece, Bulgaria) and roads & road freight (Spain, Portugal). In many countries there is no clear correlation between expenditure and modal share (7/9)

The number of countries with a correlation between transport spend and modal trends is slightly higher, so some evidence that transport infrastructure spend leads to higher modal share, but other factors matter too, correlation ≠ causation, & our data isn’t perfect. (8/9)

Is the current commitment in the PfG enough for a modal shift to public transport? That’s a question Green Party members will have to answer themselves this week. But it was the Green Party who got the issue on the table, so kudos for that (9/9)