Key freight transport-related data

A. Economic Growth and Trade

• Global logistics and the delivery sector account for about 15% of global gross domestic product (GDP). On average, delivery costs represent about 7-8% of a product’s total costs. Transportation accounts for about 40% of the delivery costs. This share varies by type of product.
• Logistics usually accounts for 3 to 8% of the corporate carbon footprint.
• Between 2010 and 2050, intra-Asian trade is expected to grow sevenfold while intra-African trade is set to expand by a factor of more than 10. In comparison, intra-European trade is expected to treble between 2010 and 2050.
• The value of world trade is projected to increase by 200% to 270% from 2015 to 2050. [source]
• Multilateral trade liberalisation could increase freight volumes by 10% compared with the baseline. [source]

B. Freight Transport Activity

• In 2011, international trade resulted in 81,000 billion tonne-kilometres (tkm) of global freight transport.
• For every 1% increase in GDP per capita, road freight transport activity i.e. tkm per capita increases by 1.07% on average.
• About 65% of freight transport activity is accomplished by heavy-freight trucks(HFTs) – a mix of rigid body and articulated trucks with a gross vehicle weight of greater than 15 tonnes.
• The global fleet of trucks operating in 2015 was dominated by light commercial vehicles (LCVs), which, at more than 130 million vehicles, made up 70% of the truck stock.
• Urban freight transport accounts for only 1% of global freight measured in tkm but consumes 21% of energy demand from freight transport. [source]
• Between 2015 and 2050, freight transport activity is expected to grow much faster than GDP: Global freight transport demand is projected to grow by 3% annually while demand for air freight transport is expected to increase by 5%.
• According to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), the number of freight vehicles is expected to increase by 144% from 2010 to 2050 (Base scenario).
• Under the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) reference scenario, from 2015 to 2050
  • the HFT stock increases by a factor of 2.6 with the number of vehicles reaching 64 million in 2050.
  • the number of medium-freight trucks (MHTs) on the road is expected to grow by 60% over its 2015 level with the number of vehicles extending over 50 million. LCVs are expected to increase by 65%, reaching around 220 million vehicles.
• By 2050, the combined length of the road and rail networks is expected to have increased by over 60% compared to 2010. In terms, of freight transport surface infrastructure, the projected capacity increase is 67% in Asia, 46% in Africa and 9% in South America.[1] If no additional capacity is created in ports, trade distances increase by 43% by 2030 and 65% by 2050 as goods need to travel through alternative routes. Also, the increase in freight delays would be 48% higher by 2030.

C. Energy Consumption

• Road freight vehicles are a central source of global oil demand today: at around 17 million barrels per day (mb/d), road freight vehicles account for around one-fifth of global oil demand – equivalent to the current oil production of the United States of America and Canada combined.
• Freight transport consumes about 75 to 80% of diesel used in the transport sector. It has been established that exposure to diesel exhaust fumes causes cancer, in particular, lung cancer. [source]
• Road freight transport alone was responsible for 2.6 gigatonne (Gt) of energy related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 2015, or about 7% of total global energy-related CO₂ emissions.
• Biofuels contribute 2.2% of final energy to road freight transport.
• Without further policy efforts, oil demand from road freight vehicles is set to rise by 5 mb/d to 2050.
• Freight energy consumption is projected to increase by 60% from 2012 to 2050 by IEA in the business-as-usual scenario.

D. Air and Carbon Emissions

• In 2015, freight activity accounted for roughly about 7% of total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Global emissions from trade-related freight transport could rise from more than 2 billion tonnes in 2010 to 8 billion tonnes in 2050 under the International Transport Forum (ITF) baseline scenario. The share of freight emissions is expected to grow to 60% of transport emissions in 2050. [source]
• As a global average, the on-road emissions of the HFTs are around 1,080 grammes of CO₂ per kilometre (g CO₂/km) and for MFTs some 690 g CO₂/km, while LCVs emit only around 260 g CO₂/km.
• In the case of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), road freight vehicles contribute more than one-third of total transport-related emissions. For Particulate Matter (PM2.5) emissions, they account for nearly half of total transport-related emissions. For Sulphur Oxides (SOx), the share is much lower, at 4% of transport-related emissions.
• Commercial vehicles are estimated to make up roughly 20 to 40% of motorized road-space occupation and cause 20 to 40% of CO₂ For PM2.5, the commercial vehicle share is much higher.
• By 2050, the freight transport sector is expected to contribute 60% of PM2.5 and 52 % of NOx emissions related to the transport sector.
• By 2050, the CO₂ emissions in intra-Asian freight are projected to grow by 210%.
• Road freight transportation needs to contribute about 50% of transport emission reductions necessary to switch from a 6-degrees climate change scenario to a 2-degrees scenario. [source]
• The most ambitious scenario of IEA projects the GHG emissions from the road freight transport sector to half until 2050 compared to 2015. About 18% of cumulative GHG emission reductions result from the reductions in truck vehicle activity. An additional 12% of the cumulative emission savings come through increased loads. Advanced biofuels contribute about 24% reductions, and a switch to electricity generated by low-carbon sources contributes an additional 16%. At 30% of cumulative GHG savings, energy efficiency is the largest contributor to emission reductions.
• Compared to 3.8 billion tonnes in 2015, until 2050 freight transport emissions would need to be reduced between 19% under a 2-degrees scenario and 64% under a 1.5-degrees scenario.

E. Accidents and External Costs

• A total of 2 million people die each year on the world’s roads, making road traffic injuries a leading cause of death globally. Most of these deaths are in low- and middle-income countries where rapid economic growth has been accompanied by increased motorization and road traffic injuries. Freight transport is a significant contributor to road accidents (20 to 30%).
• Freight transport external costs have been quantified to range in the European Union (EU) from 5€ to 18€ per 1,000 tkm freight transport and in the United States of America from 2$ to 3$ per 1,000 tkm freight transport. [source]

[1] Capacity to grow – transport infrastructure needs for future trade growth.