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Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece
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International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijtst 5 6
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Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece
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Tatiana Moschovou a,⇑, Yannis Tyrinopoulos b
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a b
National Technical University of Athens, Department of Transport, Greece University of West Attica, Department of Civil Engineering, Greece
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 19 January 2018 Received in revised form 29 September 2018 Accepted 5 October 2018 Available online xxxx Keywords: Economic crisis Greece Urban road passenger transport Urban road freight transport GDP
a b s t r a c t The transport sector is closely related to the economy of a country. This mainly applies to urban areas, which play an essential economic role in a country’s GDP. According to the EC’s Green Paper 2007 for urban mobility, approximately 1% of the EU’s GDP is annually lost due to the increased passenger and freight flow demands in city centres and its consequent impacts (e.g. pollution, delay, etc.). Since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008 the economies of many countries were affected and their transport sectors encountered a serious decline. On this basis, the principal aim of this paper is to explore the extent of the economic recession to the Greek passenger and freight road transport system. European transport data is exploited to compare the trends between the Greek transport system and the average European one. The analysis determines the key elements that influence road transport focusing on freight and passenger movement by identifying potential relationships between transport performance and socioeconomic factors. Ó 2018 Tongji University and Tongji University Press. Publishing Services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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1. Introduction
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During the last years, global economy has fallen sharply from the abrupt entry of financial crisis. Consequently, economies faced a 7.5% decline in real GDP even during the first quarter of 2008 (IMF, 2009). The crisis has affected all parts of socio-economic activities in European countries with severe consequences mainly in Southern ones (Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Italy), as well as Ireland. This is even more apparent in urban areas, since a major number of activities are generated in urban cities and their wider metropolitan regions, which play an essential role in a country’s economy and lead to a number of flows. Passengers and goods move and circulate on a daily basis, accounting for a significant proportion in national mobility. According to the EC Green Paper 2007 for urban mobility, approximately 1% of the EU’s GDP is annually lost due to the increased flow demand of passengers and goods in city centres (EC, 2007). The majority of major urban areas is characterized by high population density. Almost three quarters of the European population lived in an urban area in 2015 (Eurostat, 2016a,b). This percentage has consequent results in the quality of life, congestion and delays, as well as the environment. Fig. 1 illustrates the change of population concentrating among EU capital cities between years 2004 and 2014. All capitals presented an increased share of population through the years with the capitals of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania facing the higher share (4.2%, 2.8% and 2.6% respectively). In contrast, in Athens the shift
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Peer review under responsibility of Tongji University and Tongji University Press. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (T. Moschovou), [email protected] (Y. Tyrinopoulos). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003 2046-0430/Ó 2018 Tongji University and Tongji University Press. Publishing Services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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Fig. 1. Share of population of European capital cities in relation to the national population for the years 2004 and 2014 [Source: Eurostat, 2016a].
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of population over the years gave slightly lower share of population change from 36% in 2004 to 35.4% in 2014. This trend is partly justified by the tremendous effects from the ongoing economic crisis to the vast majority of the Greek people, who decided to move abroad, increasing the number of people immigrating. Variations in population shares and density affect several sectors in urban living. An increased percentage of people in major EU capital cities are exposed to high noise levels due to road transport. Almost one third of EU inhabitants were subject to over-exceeding air pollution levels between 2009 and 2011. Nevertheless, depending on the mode chosen exposure levels are differently affected (European Environment Agency, 2013). Several researchers have dealt with and generated useful results and proofs on the effects of economic recession on different transport activities (Sobrino & Monzon, 2014, Cascajo et al., 2018, Rothengatter, 2011). Dobruszkes and van Hamme (2011) concluded that air transport services encountered huge decline in USA, Europe and Japan than the rest of the world, while Pallis and de Langen (2010) focused on the fundamental effects on seaports through the examination of port throughput worldwide. Southern European countries like Italy and Spain (CNR, 2016, 2018) have also sought to define, analyse and estimate the severe impact of the crisis on the transport sector. Wang and Monzonb (2016) proved the influence of economic recession on land use and travel demand by implementing a spatial analysis, dividing Madrid area into regional, metropolitan and main city. For Greece, Mitsakis et al. (2013) recorded the consequences of the economic crisis on transport sector in Greece by analysing annual passenger traffic flows, vehicle-km, for urban, interurban and public transport, as well as tonnes, tonne-km and containers transported by road, rail, sea and maritime. Their research resulted in an interesting finding that the crisis does not have the same effect on all transport sectors, as maritime and logistics sectors seem to resist the impacts, contrary to road transport that receives the majority of negative impacts. Papoutsis et al. (2013) investigated the effects to urban road freight, taking as a case study the city of Thessaloniki. A survey with interviews addressing the logistic service providers of Thessaloniki city was conducted and a SWOT analysis was performed aiming to analyse the consequences on their operational and economic activities between the years 2009 and 2012. The reduced overall trade activity of the city, the limited bank borrowing levels, the insufficient cash flow of the freight transport industry, the increase on fuel costs as well as the overall decrease of the domestic demand have confirmed the declining trend of freight transport activity in the greater urban area of Thessaloniki. More recently, Nanaki (2018) assessed the impact of the economic recession on the new car sales level in the Greek vehicle market. The methodology followed a multiple regression analysis to calculate interrelationships between the number of car sales and a set of independent variables (unemployment rate, fuel prices, income per capita, average inflation rate in consumer price index as well as dummy variables) and verified that the crisis had a negative and statistically significant impact on car sales, lowering the levels of Greek car sales sector. The main goal of this research is to reveal the main effects of the current economic situation on the Greek passenger and freight road transport system. The paper depicts a short outlook of the Greek transport system during the period of the economic crisis, particularly for the two major metropolitan areas, Athens and Thessaloniki that concentrate the majority of transportation activities and compares it with the average European figures. The core part of the paper presents the key ele-
Please cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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ments that influence passenger and freight urban transport and demonstrates relationships between socioeconomic and transport factors.
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2. EU facts and figures
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A great number of people and goods are daily moving to, from and inside a region, determining its economic prosperity; a measure qualified by the region’s GDP per capita. High ratios of economic activities take place in capital cities and metropolitan areas, often characterized as centers of employment opportunities and logistics distribution hubs. Increased values of GDP per capita do not, in many cases, depict increased economic performance for the people living in a region. According to EU data, 85% of the EU’s GDP is generated in urban areas. Between the years 2008 and 2014, the change of GDP per capita relative to the EU-28 average for a number of EU regions recorded a fall (Eurostat, 2016b). The most affected regions for in the period of economic crisis are Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Italy, facing a fall of less than 10% in their GDP per capita relative to the EU-28 average. Regarding Greece, 12 regions encountered a major decline of economic activities. This shows the extent of the effect that the economic crisis has on the EU regions, especially in Southern ones. On the other hand, Polish, German and Austrian regions presented increased economic activities for the given period recording an increase of, at the majority of the regions, more than 10% (Fig. 2). The economic crisis struck the levels of freight transport in several countries that have been mostly affected by the economic crisis, such as Italy, Spain, or Portugal. For Italy, road transport has faced a downward trend since 2005. This drop was more evident in international transport causing approximately a -55% change in terms of tonnes transported and -70% in terms of tonne kilometers (t-km) between years 2005–2012, while national transport encountered a 35% change in terms of t-km. For Spain, the overall trend is a drop of 45% for national tonnes transported and 20% for t-km transported between 2005 and 2012. For Portugal, road freight transport suffered the most. Both in terms of tonnes but also in terms of t-km there is a significant drop between 2005 and 2012. The change in tonnes transported nationally was 58%, while for tonnes transported internationally this was 30% (Statistics Portugal, 2013). Passenger transport demand, in passenger kilometers (p-km) in EU-28 was following an almost stable increase rate until 2009 (Fig. 3). In 2010 it was slightly reduced (1.5% approximately) to rise again in 2011 back to 2009 levels and finally starting to stabilize in 2012. Freight transport demand, in t-km presents a different trend. After a tremendous upward direction until 2008, it experienced an also tremendous drop in 2009 (Moschovou, 2017). After that and between a three-year period it attempted to grow, but in 2012 it decreased again. EU-28 GDP experienced an abrupt reduction in 2009, however a limited increase in passenger transport demand occurred at the same year, showing that passenger performance is less affected by changes in GDP contrary to the freight performance, which could not follow the growth of GDP (European Environment Agency, 2013). EU freight transport performance has closely followed the evolution of GDP and even surpassed economic growth in 2004. Several steps have been made to stimulate research on passengers moving among regions, on city logistics and on the improvement of supply chain. The European Commission initiated the Green Paper (EC, 2007) for urban mobility to open the door and allow the access to further actions on this issue. These actions were outlined in 2009 by the European Commission’s Action Plan for urban mobility (EC, 2009), in which a list of measures and actions were proposed in order to motivate all regional and national authorities to facilitate policy making. Thus, in 2011, the White Paper (EC, 2011) recommended the development of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) to tackle key problems, such as congestion, pollution, noise etc. Recently, the European technology platforms ERTRAC-ERRAC-ALICE issued a Roadmap, which integrated and updated previous documents to further identify research priorities related on urban mobility (ERTRAC-ERRAC-ALICE, 2017).
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3. The case of Greece
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3.1. Existing Greek road system
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The Greek urban system is divided into 13 NUTS 2 regions, with the capital region of Attiki (the greater Athens area) and Thessaloniki to be the largest metropolitan centers of the country (Fig. 4). An increased share of population is living, working and visiting them, attracting their basic production units and labour tasks as well as plenty of consumption activities. One main element that characterizes these two areas is that they are located along main European transport corridors, such as the PanEuropean Transport Corridor IV and the Orient/East-Med TEN-T corridor. The country has completed 76% of the core road network of the TEN-T network until 2014, while the Global Expenditure on TEN-T for the period 2007–2013 was 19,249 million € (EU Transport Scoreboard for Greece, 2016). According to the World Economic Forum survey the quality of the Greek roads is ranked at a 4.3 level (to a 1–7 scale) and is close to the EU average (World Economic Forum, 2016). Clearly, these facts play a crucial role in the planning of new transport infrastructures and the improvement of the existing ones leading to growing their socioeconomic regional characteristics (the major investment of COSCO in the port of Piraeus is such a case). Cars, buses and trucks are considered as the dominant modes of passenger and freight transportation. In 2016, the total vehicles in circulation in Greece were 8 million, allocated to: 63% of passenger vehicles, 16% of trucks, 20% of motorcycles and only a 1% of buses (Hellenic Statistical Authority, 2016b), with a high share of 35% of passenger cars originated from
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Please cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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Fig. 2. Change of gross domestic product (GDP) per inhabitant (in PPS) in relation to the EU-28 average, by NUTS 2 regions for the years 2008–2014 [Source: Eurostat 2016b].
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Athens. Yet, from 2008 and after, the share of road freight trucks circulated in the greater Athens area (Attica region) was approximately 22% following a low trend in 2014 and reached 21%. In Thessaloniki region, the situation is steady to 17% through the years. The commercial vehicles fleet size in Greece has traditionally (i.e. up to 2008) presented an average growth rate of 2% per year. Nevertheless, between 2016 and 2017 the number of new trucks faced a drop of 9%. The market for passenger vehicles faced a tremendous reduction from 2008 to 2012 when an upward direction started after that. Nevertheless, due to the extensive taxation the fall was -77% lower than the period 2000–2009 (AMVIR, 2017). However, according to EU data, in 2015, capital region Attica had the highest motorisation rate among all other Greek regions. Apparently, this is due to the existence of a restriction for cars circulation according to the last digit of the plate number (odd and even number) in the centre of capital city of Athens. People tend to own at least two cars in order to be able to move on alternate days. For the same year, the highest number of public transport vehicles per 1000 inhabitants was estimated in Ionia islands, Western Macedonia and Athens regions. These areas gather a large share of tourists who need to be transported inside and around the regions, visit other neighbouring areas and be transferred to main transit hubs (Eurostat, 2015).
Please cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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Fig. 3. Passenger and goods transport growth relative to GDP for EU-28 for the years 1995–2015 [Source: European Commission (2017)].
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Passenger transport in urban areas and cities can be studied under the umbrella of certain parameters with emphasis on the availability of parking places, the distance from major transport facilities and networks, and the location of the residents’ home and work, which all play crucial role in the mode to choose. Studies in the city of Thessaloniki resulted in putting availability of free parking places as the main factor to affect modal choice (Tyrinopoulos, 2013). Distance to transport facilities is generally proportional to the mode choice, as for example the increased distance to bus or metro stations that increasingly affects the number of cars to be used. In contrast, urban road freight operations vary in relation to the passenger transport. The main differences are mainly focused on the type and purpose of the journey, the distance of delivery, as well as the type of goods carried. In order to make an analysis on the subject the modal split, the value of goods per tonnes transported and the distance of the trip are considered as the major determinants that play an important role in urban road freight system. Traditionally, in Greece road freight transport activities represent approximately 7% of the Greek GDP and attribute to more than 97% of the transported tonnage inside the country. Thus, this road share is clearly capable of affecting the relationship between economic growth and transport performance, defining road as the key transport mode. Therefore, modal split regarding urban freight transport in Greece can be disregarded since the vast majority of goods delivered to and inside cities and metropolitan areas are carried by trucks. Nevertheless, recent activities in key ports of the country, such as Piraeus port with COSCO terminal and the transport of fuels from port of Thessaloniki, have created infrastructure links with railway and freight centres noticeably improving freight activities. Another important parameter is the distance (in terms of km) of the journey playing a major role in the decision making process of goods delivery. A key parameter is the location of the distribution/collection point, as its position in or out the area affects the existence of (un)loading infrastructure facilities, the transit points, the frequency and accuracy of the deliveries.
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3.2. The effects from the economic recession
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In Greece, the main source of the economic crisis can be found to the chronic structural pathogenicities of the political, social and economic systems, which in turn caused the severe fiscal crisis. The economic recession has affected many sectors of Greece since 2009, one of which is transport, both in passenger and freight movement.
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3.2.1. Freight transport Fig. 5 illustrates the change of freight performance in t-km values between year 2008 and 2014 for the NUTS 2 regions. There is a clearly apparent decline in the goods loaded from the early start of the economic recession until the recently available data of year 2014 for almost every Greek region. Sharp downward trends of over 70% are obvious in the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Central Macedonia, Crete and Attica regions, while minor changes occurred in Western Macedonia and Central Greece. A deeper insight at the values (Table 1) shows that in 2008, the goods loaded in Attica and in Central Macedonia were 6931 and 6877 million t-km respectively, while in 2014 these values were reduced to 4015 and 3960 million tkm respectively (42% reduction in both areas). The most remarkable downfall appears in Ionian Islands, since from 184 milPlease cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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Fig. 4. Main Greek road network [Source: Hellenic Association of Toll Road Network].
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lion t-km only 11 million t-km were loaded in 2014. On the contrary, in South Aegean freight performance has gained a 12% over the same period and in Epirus just 1%. To value the consequences of the economic crisis to the urban road transport system of Greece, an analysis has been conducted to identify potential relationships between socioeconomic factors and urban transport parameters for main urban areas, placing particular emphasis on capital Attica region and Thessaloniki. These regions host a population of approximately 4 million and 1 million people respectively as recorded during the last (2011) population census. In these areas, the population density varies significantly from 1051 to 302 people per km2. Table 2 presents some preliminary data extracted for the above mentioned areas for the year 2014, such as population, geographical area, tonnes lifted and t-km measured for road freight within the selected urban areas as well as own calculations. A first insight into this data shows that in the capital Attica region a much higher quantity of goods was carried by road than in Thessaloniki accounted for 44,841 million tonnes. However, Thessaloniki was on top in terms of tonnes transported per capita, i.e. 21 in conjunction to 12 tonnes per capita for Athens. This fact can be explained as a result of the great number of volumes moved by road from the Port of Thessaloniki. A significantly higher transport performance (t-km) was observed for the Attica region justifying the obvious expectation of the fact that larger areas lead to higher distances transported and higher values of t-km moved. After some initial statistical analysis, estimations of relationships between economic and urban transport indicators were calculated. Incomplete data as well as disperse information rise the degree of difficulty of extracting accurate correlations, Please cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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8,000 7,000
2014
6,000
2008
t-km
5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0
Fig. 5. Cross-region comparison of freight volumes (t-km) for years 2008 and 2014 [Source: Own calculations based on data retrieved from Eurostat dataset: road_go_ta_rl].
Table 1 Goods loaded for Greek NUTS 2 areas for the period 2004 to 2014 (million t-km) [Data retrieved from Eurostat dataset: road_go_ta_rl. NUTS 1
NUTS 2
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
North Creece
East Macedonia & Thrace Central Macedonia Western Macedonia Epirus Thessaly Ionian Islands Western Greece Central Greece Peloponnese North Aegean South Aegean Crete Attiki
2,528 8,421 1,224 1,037 3,387 99 2,278 2,736 1,736 26 52 869 9,823
1,544 5,104 1,027 808 1,815 136 1,334 1,909 1,182 21 111 681 5,776
1,992 7,651 1,118 935 2,277 25 2,026 2,856 1,770 102 180 900 8,270
1,790 5,930 921 1,063 2,036 40 1,705 2,415 1,513 101 210 1,151 6,178
1,384 6,877 1,250 1,136 1,865 184 2,030 1,715 1,818 153 180 1.249 6,931
1,307 6,854 1,475 1,076 2,135 116 1,929 1,463 1,676 60 172 993 7,328
1,703 6,780 1,270 1,010 2,338 72 1,728 1,998 2,016 45 239 1,110 7,484
1,060 4,528 1,506 936 1,260 32 1,234 1,671 1,527 27 124 932 4,008
954 4,548 1,264 773 1,642 39 1,356 1,466 1,442 45 74 824 4,308
952 3,768 1,152 884 1,027 0 1,362 1,338 1,108 55 200 1,017 4,043
812 3,960 1,217 1,142 1,237 11 1,467 1,421 1,142 33 204 717 4,015
Central Greece
Aegean Islands & Crete
Attiki
Table 2 Main data for Greek NUTS 2 areas for the year 2014 [Sources: Hellenic Statistical Authority and own calculations from Eurostat dataset road_go_ta_rl]. NUTS 2 areas
Population
Area (km2)
Population Density (pop/km2)
Goods loaded(by road) (thousands tonnes)
Density of road freight (tonnes per capita)
Goods loaded per km2 (tonnes per km2)
East Macedonia & Thrace Central Macedonia Western Macedonia Epirus Thessaly Ionian Islands Western Greece Central Greece Peloponnese North Aegean South Aegean Crete Attiki Thessaloniki
608,182
14,180
43
11,139
94
4,260
1,882,108
18,812
100
40,238
156
12,911
283,689
9,451
30
136,541
1,599
52,323
336,856 732,762 207,855 679,796 547,390 577,903 199,231 309,015 623,065 3,828,434 1,110,551
9,473 14,037 2,307 11,350 15,551 15,490 3,836 4,598 8,336 3,643 3,683
36 52 90 60 35 37 57 67 75 1,051 301
17,431 25,114 340 41,222 17,811 32,114 1,964 9,791 20,785 44,841 23,545
202 158 10 170 152 324 24 70 131 12 21
7,043 7,665 432 10,606 5,326 9,790 1,251 4,552 9,357 12,309 6,393
Please cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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Fig. 6. Line fit plot for the relation of urban road freight performance in t-km and GDP in Athens for the years 2004–2014.
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especially in the case of passenger urban transport figures. At this point it should be underlined that passenger transport data appropriate for this analysis, such as the annual passenger flows for Greece or its major urban areas between 2008 and 2016, does not exist. Regarding urban freight transport and based on the existing data, realistic relation s through statistical correlation and regression techniques could be found on time series for transport output. Regression testing was endeavored in order to investigate the relativity between on one hand the freight transport performance in terms of t-km as well as concerning tonnes carried and on the other hand the GDP per capita for different Greek NUTS 2 and NUTS 3 regions. The modelling techniques required an initial test for spatial effects and autocorrelations. This danger was apparent firstly due to the current environment of economic recession affecting both the economic and transport system of the country, and secondly because of the potential dependency of the values of one area to other areas justified by the different levels of economic activities between the regions. These limitations in the statistical analysis (e.g. homogeneity of the data, accuracy, consistency, reliability etc.) created restrictions in the type of analysis to follow. Consequently, the use of disaggregate time series data for the period 2004 to 2014 for the areas of capital Athens area and Thessaloniki proved to give significant results. Regression tests were performed between road freight performance and economic ones, as shown in Fig. 6 below. Significant relations were formed between the total t-km and the GDP per capita for the Athens area. The high rate of the statistical measure R2 verifies the close correlation between the GDP and the freight volume. 3.2.2. Passenger transport The respective passenger transport analysis performed to examine the relationship between the socioeconomic reality in the period of the economic crisis and the passenger transport sector followed a different path and it has been based on the available data. The indicator of the volume of passenger transport relative to GDP was used as a ratio between the volume of inland passenger transport measured in p-kilometers and GDP (chain-linked volumes, at 2005 exchange rates). It includes transport on national territory by passenger car, bus and coach, and train. Fig. 7 demonstrates the values of this indicator for the European countries France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland and Greece, for the years 2004 to 2015. The indicator shows a more or less steady trend for all countries, except from Greece and Cyprus. For Greece, the indicator shows an
Fig. 7. The volume of passenger transport relative to GDP for selected European countries for the years 2004–2015 [source: Eurostat database tsdtr240].
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Table 3 Evolution (percentage change) of selected socioeconomic and passenger transport indicators between 2009 and 2016 [Source: OECD, 2018a,b,c, Eurostat, 2017]. Indicators (% change) GDP per capita Employment rate Passenger cars registration Renewal rate of passenger cars
2009 1.6% 0.9% 17.8% 18.6%
2010 7.2% 2.9% 35.6% 39.6%
2011 7.2% 6.8% 31.0% 27.6%
2012 3.3% 7.8% 40.1% 42.9%
2013
2014
2015
2016
3.2% 3.9% 0.4% 8.3%
2.8% 1.3% 21.3% 30.8%
0.5% 2.8% 6.4% 11.8%
0.2% 2.4% 4.0% 5.3%
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apparent increase at the beginning of the economic crisis in 2009 not due to the increase of the volume of inland passenger transport, but due to the dramatic decrease of the country’s GDP. The passenger transport analysis also used two important socioeconomic indicators: GDP per capita and employment rate (% of working age population), and two passenger transport indicators: passenger cars registration and renewal rate of passenger cars. The relevant data is presented in Table 3 as percentage changes for the years 2009 to 2016. The above figures clearly demonstrate that the two passenger transport indicators are running in parallel. The beginning of the economic crisis seriously affected the number of passenger cars running in the Greek road networks. This decline stopped in 2012 until 2015, during which an increase was encountered, and then it dropped again until 2016. Concerning the relation between the socioeconomic and the passenger transport indicators, according to the statistical measure R2 there is a relatively good relationship between the employment rate and both transport indicators, since R2 = 0.72 in both cases. This relation can be easily explained, since unemployed persons do not care so much for buying a new car as they cannot afford it.
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4. Conclusions
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Road transport, especially urban, can be a principal and crucial factor for a competitive and sustainable transport system. A great number of passengers and goods is daily moved and circulated, accounting for a significant proportion in national mobility. This paper investigated the impacts of the economic crisis to the road transport system, passenger and freight, in Greece. The analysis was focused on the relation between socioeconomic factors, especially GDP, and road transport performance. At EU level, passenger performance is less affected by changes in GDP contrary to the freight performance, which cannot follow the growth of GDP. For Greece, one of the main conclusions of the analysis is the high dependency between the urban road freight transport performance and the country’s GDP. Moreover, in the two major metropolitan areas, Athens and Thessaloniki, the freight volumes in 2014 were reduced by 42% in relation to 2008. For passenger transport, the situation is different, as the dramatic decrease of the country’s GDP at the beginning of the economic crisis in 2009 clearly affected the performance of passenger transport. This analysis also revealed a relatively good relation between the employment rate and the passenger cars registration and renewal rate of passenger cars. In Greece, the economic recession still remains. So, it would be interesting enough to repeat the above analysis for a longer period of time especially taking into account the end of the economic crisis, and also to investigate how other parameters and indicators (e.g. taxes, fuel cost, etc.) affect road transport, but also other modes of transport. The need for a more efficient urban transport system in the future lies in the definition of integrated policy measures that will aim to manage transport demand and therefore create an efficient and competitive road transport system. Towards such a prospect, transport research through the international cooperation schemes, the participation and connection of all authorities granted jurisdiction (Aparicio, 2018) could be the key solution in finding the requested funds and in implementing the decision making process.
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Uncited references
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Hellenic Association (2018), Commission of the European Communities (2009), Statistics Portugal (2014), EU Transport Scoreboard for Greece (2016).
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References
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European Environment Agency, 2013. A closer look at urban transport TERM 2013: transport indicators tracking progress towards environmental targets in Europe, EEA Report, No 11/2013. AMVIR, 2017. http://www.seaa.gr/en/content/81. Aparicio, A., 2018. The Changing Context of Transport Research, Publicly funded transport research in the P.R.China, Japan and Korea, Policies, Governance and prospects for cooperation with the outside world, Giannopoulos G.A (ed.). Hellenic Association of Toll Road Network, https://www.hellastron.com, Accessed on January 2018. Cascajo, R., Diaz, Olvera L., Monzon, A., Plat, D., Ray, J.B., 2018. Impacts of the economic crisis on household transport expenditure and public transport policy: Evidence from the Spanish case. Transport Policy 65, 40–50. CNR, 2016. The Spanish RFT Sector – A Summary. CNR European Studies. CNR, 2018. Road Freight Transport in Italy – A Summary. CNR European Studies.
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Commission of the European Communities, 2009. Action Plan for Urban Mobility, COM (2009) 490 final. ‘‘Action Plan on Urban Mobility”. European Communities, Brussels. European Commission, 2011. White Paper Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system. COM 144. http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/strategies/2011_white_paper_en.htm. European Commission, 2017. EU Transport in Figures: Statistical Pocketbook 2017, Luxembourg: Publications office of the European Union, https://ec. europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/statistics/pocketbook-2017_en (Accessed on 14 January 2018). Dobruszkes, F., van Hamme, G., 2011. The impact of the current economic crisis on the geography of air traffic volumes: an empirical analysis. J. Transport Geogr. 19 (6), 1387–1398. ERTRAC-ERRAC-ALICE, Integrated Urban Mobility Roadmap available at: http://www.ertrac.org/index.php?page=ertrac-roadmap, accessed March 2017. European Commission, 2007. Green Paper Towards a new culture for urban mobility. http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/urban/ urban_mobility/green_paper/green_paper_en.htm. Eurostat, 2015. Regional Yearbook 2015 Edition. Publications office of the European Union, Luxembourg. Eurostat, 2016a. Urban Europe Statistics on Cities, Towns and Suburbs 2016 Edition. Publications office of the European Union, Luxembourg. Eurostat, 2016b. Regional Yearbook 2016 Edition. Publications office of the European Union, Luxembourg. Eurostat, 2017. Energy, transport and environment indicators. Hellenic Statistical Authority, 2016. Issuing of Motor Vehicle Circulation Licenses. IMF, 2009. World Economic Outlook (WEO), Crisis and Recovery. IMF, Washington, D.C.. Mitsakis, E., Stamos, I., Salanova, J.M., Chrysochoou, E., Iordanopoulos, P., Aifadopoulou, G., 2013. Urban mobility indicators for thessaloniki. J. Traffic Log. Eng. 1 (2). Moschovou, T., 2017. Freight transport impacts from the economic crisis in Greece. Transp. Policy 57, 51–58. Nanaki, E., 2018. Measuring the impact of economic crisis to the Greek vehicle market. Sustainability MDPI 10 (2). OECD, 2018. Gross domestic product (GDP) (indicator). doi: 10.1787/dc2f7aec-en (Accessed on 09 January 2018). OECD, 2018. Employment rate (indicator). doi: 10.1787/1de68a9b-en (Accessed on 09 January 2018). OECD, 2018, Passenger car registrations (indicator). doi: 10.1787/c58fcf22-en (Accessed on 09 January 2018). Pallis, A., de Langen, P.W., 2010. Seaports and the structural implications of the economic crisis. Res. Transport. Econ. 27 (1), 10–18. Papoutsis, K., Basbas, S., Bouhouras, E., Sdoukopoulos, E., 2013. Impact Investigation of the Economic Crisis to the Road Freight Sector in Thessaloniki, Greece, Urban Transport XIX 547–557 WIT. (Wessex Institute of Technology) Press, Southampton UK. Rothengatter, W., 2011. Economic crisis and consequences for the transport sector. In: Rothengatter, W., Hayashi, Y., Schade, W. (Eds.), Transport Moving to Climate Intelligence. Springer, New York. Sobrino, N., Monzón, A., 2014. The impact of the economic crisis and policy actions on GHG emissions from road transport in Spain. Energy Policy 74, 486– 498. Statistics Portugal, 2013. Statistical yearbook of Portugal 2012. Lisboa, Portugal. Statistics Portugal, 2014. Portugal in figures 2012. Lisboa, Portugal. EU Transport Scoreboard for Greece, 2016. https://ec.europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/scoreboard/countries/greece/investments-infrastructure_en (Accessed on January 2018). Tyrinopoulos, Y., Antoniou, C., 2013. Factors affecting modal choice in urban mobility. Eur. Trans. Res. Rev. 5 (1), 27–39. Wang, Y., Monzonb, A., 2016. Economic crisis and its influences on the interaction between land use and transport in Madrid region. Transport. Res. Proc. 18, 100–107. World Economic Forum, 2016. The Global Competitiveness Report. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2016-2017-1
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijtst 5 6
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Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece
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Tatiana Moschovou a,⇑, Yannis Tyrinopoulos b
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a b
National Technical University of Athens, Department of Transport, Greece University of West Attica, Department of Civil Engineering, Greece
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 19 January 2018 Received in revised form 29 September 2018 Accepted 5 October 2018 Available online xxxx Keywords: Economic crisis Greece Urban road passenger transport Urban road freight transport GDP
a b s t r a c t The transport sector is closely related to the economy of a country. This mainly applies to urban areas, which play an essential economic role in a country’s GDP. According to the EC’s Green Paper 2007 for urban mobility, approximately 1% of the EU’s GDP is annually lost due to the increased passenger and freight flow demands in city centres and its consequent impacts (e.g. pollution, delay, etc.). Since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008 the economies of many countries were affected and their transport sectors encountered a serious decline. On this basis, the principal aim of this paper is to explore the extent of the economic recession to the Greek passenger and freight road transport system. European transport data is exploited to compare the trends between the Greek transport system and the average European one. The analysis determines the key elements that influence road transport focusing on freight and passenger movement by identifying potential relationships between transport performance and socioeconomic factors. Ó 2018 Tongji University and Tongji University Press. Publishing Services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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1. Introduction
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During the last years, global economy has fallen sharply from the abrupt entry of financial crisis. Consequently, economies faced a 7.5% decline in real GDP even during the first quarter of 2008 (IMF, 2009). The crisis has affected all parts of socio-economic activities in European countries with severe consequences mainly in Southern ones (Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Italy), as well as Ireland. This is even more apparent in urban areas, since a major number of activities are generated in urban cities and their wider metropolitan regions, which play an essential role in a country’s economy and lead to a number of flows. Passengers and goods move and circulate on a daily basis, accounting for a significant proportion in national mobility. According to the EC Green Paper 2007 for urban mobility, approximately 1% of the EU’s GDP is annually lost due to the increased flow demand of passengers and goods in city centres (EC, 2007). The majority of major urban areas is characterized by high population density. Almost three quarters of the European population lived in an urban area in 2015 (Eurostat, 2016a,b). This percentage has consequent results in the quality of life, congestion and delays, as well as the environment. Fig. 1 illustrates the change of population concentrating among EU capital cities between years 2004 and 2014. All capitals presented an increased share of population through the years with the capitals of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania facing the higher share (4.2%, 2.8% and 2.6% respectively). In contrast, in Athens the shift
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Peer review under responsibility of Tongji University and Tongji University Press. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (T. Moschovou), [email protected] (Y. Tyrinopoulos). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003 2046-0430/Ó 2018 Tongji University and Tongji University Press. Publishing Services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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Fig. 1. Share of population of European capital cities in relation to the national population for the years 2004 and 2014 [Source: Eurostat, 2016a].
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of population over the years gave slightly lower share of population change from 36% in 2004 to 35.4% in 2014. This trend is partly justified by the tremendous effects from the ongoing economic crisis to the vast majority of the Greek people, who decided to move abroad, increasing the number of people immigrating. Variations in population shares and density affect several sectors in urban living. An increased percentage of people in major EU capital cities are exposed to high noise levels due to road transport. Almost one third of EU inhabitants were subject to over-exceeding air pollution levels between 2009 and 2011. Nevertheless, depending on the mode chosen exposure levels are differently affected (European Environment Agency, 2013). Several researchers have dealt with and generated useful results and proofs on the effects of economic recession on different transport activities (Sobrino & Monzon, 2014, Cascajo et al., 2018, Rothengatter, 2011). Dobruszkes and van Hamme (2011) concluded that air transport services encountered huge decline in USA, Europe and Japan than the rest of the world, while Pallis and de Langen (2010) focused on the fundamental effects on seaports through the examination of port throughput worldwide. Southern European countries like Italy and Spain (CNR, 2016, 2018) have also sought to define, analyse and estimate the severe impact of the crisis on the transport sector. Wang and Monzonb (2016) proved the influence of economic recession on land use and travel demand by implementing a spatial analysis, dividing Madrid area into regional, metropolitan and main city. For Greece, Mitsakis et al. (2013) recorded the consequences of the economic crisis on transport sector in Greece by analysing annual passenger traffic flows, vehicle-km, for urban, interurban and public transport, as well as tonnes, tonne-km and containers transported by road, rail, sea and maritime. Their research resulted in an interesting finding that the crisis does not have the same effect on all transport sectors, as maritime and logistics sectors seem to resist the impacts, contrary to road transport that receives the majority of negative impacts. Papoutsis et al. (2013) investigated the effects to urban road freight, taking as a case study the city of Thessaloniki. A survey with interviews addressing the logistic service providers of Thessaloniki city was conducted and a SWOT analysis was performed aiming to analyse the consequences on their operational and economic activities between the years 2009 and 2012. The reduced overall trade activity of the city, the limited bank borrowing levels, the insufficient cash flow of the freight transport industry, the increase on fuel costs as well as the overall decrease of the domestic demand have confirmed the declining trend of freight transport activity in the greater urban area of Thessaloniki. More recently, Nanaki (2018) assessed the impact of the economic recession on the new car sales level in the Greek vehicle market. The methodology followed a multiple regression analysis to calculate interrelationships between the number of car sales and a set of independent variables (unemployment rate, fuel prices, income per capita, average inflation rate in consumer price index as well as dummy variables) and verified that the crisis had a negative and statistically significant impact on car sales, lowering the levels of Greek car sales sector. The main goal of this research is to reveal the main effects of the current economic situation on the Greek passenger and freight road transport system. The paper depicts a short outlook of the Greek transport system during the period of the economic crisis, particularly for the two major metropolitan areas, Athens and Thessaloniki that concentrate the majority of transportation activities and compares it with the average European figures. The core part of the paper presents the key ele-
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ments that influence passenger and freight urban transport and demonstrates relationships between socioeconomic and transport factors.
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2. EU facts and figures
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A great number of people and goods are daily moving to, from and inside a region, determining its economic prosperity; a measure qualified by the region’s GDP per capita. High ratios of economic activities take place in capital cities and metropolitan areas, often characterized as centers of employment opportunities and logistics distribution hubs. Increased values of GDP per capita do not, in many cases, depict increased economic performance for the people living in a region. According to EU data, 85% of the EU’s GDP is generated in urban areas. Between the years 2008 and 2014, the change of GDP per capita relative to the EU-28 average for a number of EU regions recorded a fall (Eurostat, 2016b). The most affected regions for in the period of economic crisis are Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Italy, facing a fall of less than 10% in their GDP per capita relative to the EU-28 average. Regarding Greece, 12 regions encountered a major decline of economic activities. This shows the extent of the effect that the economic crisis has on the EU regions, especially in Southern ones. On the other hand, Polish, German and Austrian regions presented increased economic activities for the given period recording an increase of, at the majority of the regions, more than 10% (Fig. 2). The economic crisis struck the levels of freight transport in several countries that have been mostly affected by the economic crisis, such as Italy, Spain, or Portugal. For Italy, road transport has faced a downward trend since 2005. This drop was more evident in international transport causing approximately a -55% change in terms of tonnes transported and -70% in terms of tonne kilometers (t-km) between years 2005–2012, while national transport encountered a 35% change in terms of t-km. For Spain, the overall trend is a drop of 45% for national tonnes transported and 20% for t-km transported between 2005 and 2012. For Portugal, road freight transport suffered the most. Both in terms of tonnes but also in terms of t-km there is a significant drop between 2005 and 2012. The change in tonnes transported nationally was 58%, while for tonnes transported internationally this was 30% (Statistics Portugal, 2013). Passenger transport demand, in passenger kilometers (p-km) in EU-28 was following an almost stable increase rate until 2009 (Fig. 3). In 2010 it was slightly reduced (1.5% approximately) to rise again in 2011 back to 2009 levels and finally starting to stabilize in 2012. Freight transport demand, in t-km presents a different trend. After a tremendous upward direction until 2008, it experienced an also tremendous drop in 2009 (Moschovou, 2017). After that and between a three-year period it attempted to grow, but in 2012 it decreased again. EU-28 GDP experienced an abrupt reduction in 2009, however a limited increase in passenger transport demand occurred at the same year, showing that passenger performance is less affected by changes in GDP contrary to the freight performance, which could not follow the growth of GDP (European Environment Agency, 2013). EU freight transport performance has closely followed the evolution of GDP and even surpassed economic growth in 2004. Several steps have been made to stimulate research on passengers moving among regions, on city logistics and on the improvement of supply chain. The European Commission initiated the Green Paper (EC, 2007) for urban mobility to open the door and allow the access to further actions on this issue. These actions were outlined in 2009 by the European Commission’s Action Plan for urban mobility (EC, 2009), in which a list of measures and actions were proposed in order to motivate all regional and national authorities to facilitate policy making. Thus, in 2011, the White Paper (EC, 2011) recommended the development of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) to tackle key problems, such as congestion, pollution, noise etc. Recently, the European technology platforms ERTRAC-ERRAC-ALICE issued a Roadmap, which integrated and updated previous documents to further identify research priorities related on urban mobility (ERTRAC-ERRAC-ALICE, 2017).
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3. The case of Greece
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3.1. Existing Greek road system
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The Greek urban system is divided into 13 NUTS 2 regions, with the capital region of Attiki (the greater Athens area) and Thessaloniki to be the largest metropolitan centers of the country (Fig. 4). An increased share of population is living, working and visiting them, attracting their basic production units and labour tasks as well as plenty of consumption activities. One main element that characterizes these two areas is that they are located along main European transport corridors, such as the PanEuropean Transport Corridor IV and the Orient/East-Med TEN-T corridor. The country has completed 76% of the core road network of the TEN-T network until 2014, while the Global Expenditure on TEN-T for the period 2007–2013 was 19,249 million € (EU Transport Scoreboard for Greece, 2016). According to the World Economic Forum survey the quality of the Greek roads is ranked at a 4.3 level (to a 1–7 scale) and is close to the EU average (World Economic Forum, 2016). Clearly, these facts play a crucial role in the planning of new transport infrastructures and the improvement of the existing ones leading to growing their socioeconomic regional characteristics (the major investment of COSCO in the port of Piraeus is such a case). Cars, buses and trucks are considered as the dominant modes of passenger and freight transportation. In 2016, the total vehicles in circulation in Greece were 8 million, allocated to: 63% of passenger vehicles, 16% of trucks, 20% of motorcycles and only a 1% of buses (Hellenic Statistical Authority, 2016b), with a high share of 35% of passenger cars originated from
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Fig. 2. Change of gross domestic product (GDP) per inhabitant (in PPS) in relation to the EU-28 average, by NUTS 2 regions for the years 2008–2014 [Source: Eurostat 2016b].
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Athens. Yet, from 2008 and after, the share of road freight trucks circulated in the greater Athens area (Attica region) was approximately 22% following a low trend in 2014 and reached 21%. In Thessaloniki region, the situation is steady to 17% through the years. The commercial vehicles fleet size in Greece has traditionally (i.e. up to 2008) presented an average growth rate of 2% per year. Nevertheless, between 2016 and 2017 the number of new trucks faced a drop of 9%. The market for passenger vehicles faced a tremendous reduction from 2008 to 2012 when an upward direction started after that. Nevertheless, due to the extensive taxation the fall was -77% lower than the period 2000–2009 (AMVIR, 2017). However, according to EU data, in 2015, capital region Attica had the highest motorisation rate among all other Greek regions. Apparently, this is due to the existence of a restriction for cars circulation according to the last digit of the plate number (odd and even number) in the centre of capital city of Athens. People tend to own at least two cars in order to be able to move on alternate days. For the same year, the highest number of public transport vehicles per 1000 inhabitants was estimated in Ionia islands, Western Macedonia and Athens regions. These areas gather a large share of tourists who need to be transported inside and around the regions, visit other neighbouring areas and be transferred to main transit hubs (Eurostat, 2015).
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Fig. 3. Passenger and goods transport growth relative to GDP for EU-28 for the years 1995–2015 [Source: European Commission (2017)].
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Passenger transport in urban areas and cities can be studied under the umbrella of certain parameters with emphasis on the availability of parking places, the distance from major transport facilities and networks, and the location of the residents’ home and work, which all play crucial role in the mode to choose. Studies in the city of Thessaloniki resulted in putting availability of free parking places as the main factor to affect modal choice (Tyrinopoulos, 2013). Distance to transport facilities is generally proportional to the mode choice, as for example the increased distance to bus or metro stations that increasingly affects the number of cars to be used. In contrast, urban road freight operations vary in relation to the passenger transport. The main differences are mainly focused on the type and purpose of the journey, the distance of delivery, as well as the type of goods carried. In order to make an analysis on the subject the modal split, the value of goods per tonnes transported and the distance of the trip are considered as the major determinants that play an important role in urban road freight system. Traditionally, in Greece road freight transport activities represent approximately 7% of the Greek GDP and attribute to more than 97% of the transported tonnage inside the country. Thus, this road share is clearly capable of affecting the relationship between economic growth and transport performance, defining road as the key transport mode. Therefore, modal split regarding urban freight transport in Greece can be disregarded since the vast majority of goods delivered to and inside cities and metropolitan areas are carried by trucks. Nevertheless, recent activities in key ports of the country, such as Piraeus port with COSCO terminal and the transport of fuels from port of Thessaloniki, have created infrastructure links with railway and freight centres noticeably improving freight activities. Another important parameter is the distance (in terms of km) of the journey playing a major role in the decision making process of goods delivery. A key parameter is the location of the distribution/collection point, as its position in or out the area affects the existence of (un)loading infrastructure facilities, the transit points, the frequency and accuracy of the deliveries.
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3.2. The effects from the economic recession
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In Greece, the main source of the economic crisis can be found to the chronic structural pathogenicities of the political, social and economic systems, which in turn caused the severe fiscal crisis. The economic recession has affected many sectors of Greece since 2009, one of which is transport, both in passenger and freight movement.
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3.2.1. Freight transport Fig. 5 illustrates the change of freight performance in t-km values between year 2008 and 2014 for the NUTS 2 regions. There is a clearly apparent decline in the goods loaded from the early start of the economic recession until the recently available data of year 2014 for almost every Greek region. Sharp downward trends of over 70% are obvious in the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Central Macedonia, Crete and Attica regions, while minor changes occurred in Western Macedonia and Central Greece. A deeper insight at the values (Table 1) shows that in 2008, the goods loaded in Attica and in Central Macedonia were 6931 and 6877 million t-km respectively, while in 2014 these values were reduced to 4015 and 3960 million tkm respectively (42% reduction in both areas). The most remarkable downfall appears in Ionian Islands, since from 184 milPlease cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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Fig. 4. Main Greek road network [Source: Hellenic Association of Toll Road Network].
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lion t-km only 11 million t-km were loaded in 2014. On the contrary, in South Aegean freight performance has gained a 12% over the same period and in Epirus just 1%. To value the consequences of the economic crisis to the urban road transport system of Greece, an analysis has been conducted to identify potential relationships between socioeconomic factors and urban transport parameters for main urban areas, placing particular emphasis on capital Attica region and Thessaloniki. These regions host a population of approximately 4 million and 1 million people respectively as recorded during the last (2011) population census. In these areas, the population density varies significantly from 1051 to 302 people per km2. Table 2 presents some preliminary data extracted for the above mentioned areas for the year 2014, such as population, geographical area, tonnes lifted and t-km measured for road freight within the selected urban areas as well as own calculations. A first insight into this data shows that in the capital Attica region a much higher quantity of goods was carried by road than in Thessaloniki accounted for 44,841 million tonnes. However, Thessaloniki was on top in terms of tonnes transported per capita, i.e. 21 in conjunction to 12 tonnes per capita for Athens. This fact can be explained as a result of the great number of volumes moved by road from the Port of Thessaloniki. A significantly higher transport performance (t-km) was observed for the Attica region justifying the obvious expectation of the fact that larger areas lead to higher distances transported and higher values of t-km moved. After some initial statistical analysis, estimations of relationships between economic and urban transport indicators were calculated. Incomplete data as well as disperse information rise the degree of difficulty of extracting accurate correlations, Please cite this article in press as: Moschovou, T., Tyrinopoulos, Y. Exploring the effects of economic crisis in road transport: The case of Greece. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2018.10.003
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8,000 7,000
2014
6,000
2008
t-km
5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0
Fig. 5. Cross-region comparison of freight volumes (t-km) for years 2008 and 2014 [Source: Own calculations based on data retrieved from Eurostat dataset: road_go_ta_rl].
Table 1 Goods loaded for Greek NUTS 2 areas for the period 2004 to 2014 (million t-km) [Data retrieved from Eurostat dataset: road_go_ta_rl. NUTS 1
NUTS 2
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
North Creece
East Macedonia & Thrace Central Macedonia Western Macedonia Epirus Thessaly Ionian Islands Western Greece Central Greece Peloponnese North Aegean South Aegean Crete Attiki
2,528 8,421 1,224 1,037 3,387 99 2,278 2,736 1,736 26 52 869 9,823
1,544 5,104 1,027 808 1,815 136 1,334 1,909 1,182 21 111 681 5,776
1,992 7,651 1,118 935 2,277 25 2,026 2,856 1,770 102 180 900 8,270
1,790 5,930 921 1,063 2,036 40 1,705 2,415 1,513 101 210 1,151 6,178
1,384 6,877 1,250 1,136 1,865 184 2,030 1,715 1,818 153 180 1.249 6,931
1,307 6,854 1,475 1,076 2,135 116 1,929 1,463 1,676 60 172 993 7,328
1,703 6,780 1,270 1,010 2,338 72 1,728 1,998 2,016 45 239 1,110 7,484
1,060 4,528 1,506 936 1,260 32 1,234 1,671 1,527 27 124 932 4,008
954 4,548 1,264 773 1,642 39 1,356 1,466 1,442 45 74 824 4,308
952 3,768 1,152 884 1,027 0 1,362 1,338 1,108 55 200 1,017 4,043
812 3,960 1,217 1,142 1,237 11 1,467 1,421 1,142 33 204 717 4,015
Central Greece
Aegean Islands & Crete
Attiki
Table 2 Main data for Greek NUTS 2 areas for the year 2014 [Sources: Hellenic Statistical Authority and own calculations from Eurostat dataset road_go_ta_rl]. NUTS 2 areas
Population
Area (km2)
Population Density (pop/km2)
Goods loaded(by road) (thousands tonnes)
Density of road freight (tonnes per capita)
Goods loaded per km2 (tonnes per km2)
East Macedonia & Thrace Central Macedonia Western Macedonia Epirus Thessaly Ionian Islands Western Greece Central Greece Peloponnese North Aegean South Aegean Crete Attiki Thessaloniki
608,182
14,180
43
11,139
94
4,260
1,882,108
18,812
100
40,238
156
12,911
283,689
9,451
30
136,541
1,599
52,323
336,856 732,762 207,855 679,796 547,390 577,903 199,231 309,015 623,065 3,828,434 1,110,551
9,473 14,037 2,307 11,350 15,551 15,490 3,836 4,598 8,336 3,643 3,683
36 52 90 60 35 37 57 67 75 1,051 301
17,431 25,114 340 41,222 17,811 32,114 1,964 9,791 20,785 44,841 23,545
202 158 10 170 152 324 24 70 131 12 21
7,043 7,665 432 10,606 5,326 9,790 1,251 4,552 9,357 12,309 6,393
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Fig. 6. Line fit plot for the relation of urban road freight performance in t-km and GDP in Athens for the years 2004–2014.
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especially in the case of passenger urban transport figures. At this point it should be underlined that passenger transport data appropriate for this analysis, such as the annual passenger flows for Greece or its major urban areas between 2008 and 2016, does not exist. Regarding urban freight transport and based on the existing data, realistic relation s through statistical correlation and regression techniques could be found on time series for transport output. Regression testing was endeavored in order to investigate the relativity between on one hand the freight transport performance in terms of t-km as well as concerning tonnes carried and on the other hand the GDP per capita for different Greek NUTS 2 and NUTS 3 regions. The modelling techniques required an initial test for spatial effects and autocorrelations. This danger was apparent firstly due to the current environment of economic recession affecting both the economic and transport system of the country, and secondly because of the potential dependency of the values of one area to other areas justified by the different levels of economic activities between the regions. These limitations in the statistical analysis (e.g. homogeneity of the data, accuracy, consistency, reliability etc.) created restrictions in the type of analysis to follow. Consequently, the use of disaggregate time series data for the period 2004 to 2014 for the areas of capital Athens area and Thessaloniki proved to give significant results. Regression tests were performed between road freight performance and economic ones, as shown in Fig. 6 below. Significant relations were formed between the total t-km and the GDP per capita for the Athens area. The high rate of the statistical measure R2 verifies the close correlation between the GDP and the freight volume. 3.2.2. Passenger transport The respective passenger transport analysis performed to examine the relationship between the socioeconomic reality in the period of the economic crisis and the passenger transport sector followed a different path and it has been based on the available data. The indicator of the volume of passenger transport relative to GDP was used as a ratio between the volume of inland passenger transport measured in p-kilometers and GDP (chain-linked volumes, at 2005 exchange rates). It includes transport on national territory by passenger car, bus and coach, and train. Fig. 7 demonstrates the values of this indicator for the European countries France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland and Greece, for the years 2004 to 2015. The indicator shows a more or less steady trend for all countries, except from Greece and Cyprus. For Greece, the indicator shows an
Fig. 7. The volume of passenger transport relative to GDP for selected European countries for the years 2004–2015 [source: Eurostat database tsdtr240].
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Table 3 Evolution (percentage change) of selected socioeconomic and passenger transport indicators between 2009 and 2016 [Source: OECD, 2018a,b,c, Eurostat, 2017]. Indicators (% change) GDP per capita Employment rate Passenger cars registration Renewal rate of passenger cars
2009 1.6% 0.9% 17.8% 18.6%
2010 7.2% 2.9% 35.6% 39.6%
2011 7.2% 6.8% 31.0% 27.6%
2012 3.3% 7.8% 40.1% 42.9%
2013
2014
2015
2016
3.2% 3.9% 0.4% 8.3%
2.8% 1.3% 21.3% 30.8%
0.5% 2.8% 6.4% 11.8%
0.2% 2.4% 4.0% 5.3%
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apparent increase at the beginning of the economic crisis in 2009 not due to the increase of the volume of inland passenger transport, but due to the dramatic decrease of the country’s GDP. The passenger transport analysis also used two important socioeconomic indicators: GDP per capita and employment rate (% of working age population), and two passenger transport indicators: passenger cars registration and renewal rate of passenger cars. The relevant data is presented in Table 3 as percentage changes for the years 2009 to 2016. The above figures clearly demonstrate that the two passenger transport indicators are running in parallel. The beginning of the economic crisis seriously affected the number of passenger cars running in the Greek road networks. This decline stopped in 2012 until 2015, during which an increase was encountered, and then it dropped again until 2016. Concerning the relation between the socioeconomic and the passenger transport indicators, according to the statistical measure R2 there is a relatively good relationship between the employment rate and both transport indicators, since R2 = 0.72 in both cases. This relation can be easily explained, since unemployed persons do not care so much for buying a new car as they cannot afford it.
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Road transport, especially urban, can be a principal and crucial factor for a competitive and sustainable transport system. A great number of passengers and goods is daily moved and circulated, accounting for a significant proportion in national mobility. This paper investigated the impacts of the economic crisis to the road transport system, passenger and freight, in Greece. The analysis was focused on the relation between socioeconomic factors, especially GDP, and road transport performance. At EU level, passenger performance is less affected by changes in GDP contrary to the freight performance, which cannot follow the growth of GDP. For Greece, one of the main conclusions of the analysis is the high dependency between the urban road freight transport performance and the country’s GDP. Moreover, in the two major metropolitan areas, Athens and Thessaloniki, the freight volumes in 2014 were reduced by 42% in relation to 2008. For passenger transport, the situation is different, as the dramatic decrease of the country’s GDP at the beginning of the economic crisis in 2009 clearly affected the performance of passenger transport. This analysis also revealed a relatively good relation between the employment rate and the passenger cars registration and renewal rate of passenger cars. In Greece, the economic recession still remains. So, it would be interesting enough to repeat the above analysis for a longer period of time especially taking into account the end of the economic crisis, and also to investigate how other parameters and indicators (e.g. taxes, fuel cost, etc.) affect road transport, but also other modes of transport. The need for a more efficient urban transport system in the future lies in the definition of integrated policy measures that will aim to manage transport demand and therefore create an efficient and competitive road transport system. Towards such a prospect, transport research through the international cooperation schemes, the participation and connection of all authorities granted jurisdiction (Aparicio, 2018) could be the key solution in finding the requested funds and in implementing the decision making process.
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Uncited references
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Hellenic Association (2018), Commission of the European Communities (2009), Statistics Portugal (2014), EU Transport Scoreboard for Greece (2016).
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