What is the effect of economic growth on mobility?
How economic crises affect mobility was illustrated during the second global oil crisis in 1979, the global economic downturn in 1993, and the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2002. These past experiences showed that economic crisis only minimally affects the total mobility.
While car use for home-to-work travel and business purposes does indeed decrease, car use for pursuing leisure and educational activities increases. Nevertheless, there are indeed fewer traffic jams during times of economic crisis. Freight transportation and the aviation sector are especially sensitive to economic fluctuations.
Calculations based on recent estimates reveal the possible consequences the current economic crisis could have for traffic volumes and traffic jams in 2009 and 2010. In 2009, the traffic volumes on major road networks could fall by 0.5 percent to 2.5 percent, before slightly rising again by 0.5 percent in 2010. This could significantly reduce the number of traffic jams by as much as 8 percent to 15 percent in 2009, and again by another 3 percent in 2010. Freight transportation could.