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(a) Passenger
transport
4.
The
principal means of passenger transport by road is still the car with 53 per
cent of the 25,000 billion passenger/kilometres of motorized journeys completed
throughout the world in 1995. However,
to a very large extent, the GATS does not apply to this type of transport which
mainly involves individuals travelling on their own account in their own
vehicle. Only taxis are covered by the
GATS, and there are no world statistics that would make it possible to isolate
their share which, however, must be very small.
5.
The rest
of passenger transport at world level is distributed as follows: 4 per cent for two-wheel traffic and the like
(here again, mainly on a private basis, with the marginal exception of vehicles
such as rickshaws), 24 per cent for buses and coaches, 8 per cent for the
railways (already dealt with), 0.8 per cent for trams and subways (already
dealt with as far as the latter is concerned), 10 per cent for air
transport, and 0.4 per cent for water transport. Measured in passenger/kilometres, 60 per
cent of motorized transport takes place in the developed countries (including
20 per cent in the European Union),
since the number of kilometres travelled increases with the level of
development. The modal distribution of motorized
transport also varies considerably with the level of development: thus, in the developed countries the share
taken by cars is approximately 80 per cent.
6.
Altogether,
then, road passenger transport
represents about 25 to 30 per cent of world passenger transport consisting of
the 24 per cent accounted for by buses and coaches, the tramways' share of the
tram and subway item, and the indeterminate but small share corresponding to
individual vehicle and two-wheel transport.
7.
The
geographical breakdown of the millions of passenger/kilometres travelled in
buses and coaches (urban and interurban) gives some idea of the relative
importance of markets: out of a total of
6,000 billion passenger/kilometres travelled, 460 (7.6 per cent) were travelled
in China, 360 (6 per cent) in the European Community, 230 (3.8 per cent)
in the United States, 120 (2 per cent) in the countries of Central and Eastern
Europe, 100 (1.6 per cent) in Japan, and 4,730 (79 per cent) in the rest of the
world.
8.
Again,
these aggregates are of only relative significance since the urban bus
regulatory and economic regime, characterized by public service concerns, often
by public or subsidized operation and by competition from taxis, trams and
subways, is generally very different from that of the interurban coaches, which
are usually privately operated and generally profitable, compete with the
railways and airlines, and include an international dimension.
i)
Urban
passenger transport
9.
Some
indication of the potential market is given by the steady long-term increase in
the world's urban population, in both absolute and relative terms. It was 735 million in 1950 (29.5 per cent of
the total), 2 billion in 1985 (39.9 per cent of the total), and it is projected
that it will have risen to 2.95 billion (48.2 per cent of the total) by the
year 2000. In 1989, there were 270
cities or conurbations with more than 1 million inhabitants worldwide,
including 11 with more than 10 million inhabitants, eight of them in
developing countries. In addition, it
was forecast that by the year 2000 there would be 16 cities with more than 12
million inhabitants in the developing countries. In 1985, 60 per cent of the urban population
was living in developing countries and 40 per cent in developed countries,
exactly the opposite of the 1950 distribution.
Since then this trend has continued to strengthen. The demand for urban transport has kept pace
with this growth and even outstripped it, since distances and particularly
journey times increase considerably as cities develop.
10.
The
distribution of the demand among the various means of transport: private car, taxi, bus, tram and subway is
extremely variable and depends on such factors as the level of development (as
far as private cars are concerned), congestion, the existence or non-existence
of a subway network (only 93 cities have subways)
or a tramway system (350 cities),
the number of buses and their condition, the existence or non-existence of
dedicated lanes, the fares charged, the feeder networks, etc. The following table, taken from a World Bank
study,
gives an indication of this breakdown for a number of representative cities:
City
|
Breakdown by Mode of
Motorized Transport
|
|
Car
|
Taxi
|
Bus
|
Paratransit
|
Tram/
subway
|
Other
|
Developing countries
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Abidjan
|
33
|
12
|
50
|
..
|
-
|
5
|
Accra
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Amman
|
44
|
11
|
19
|
26
|
0
|
0
|
Ankara
|
23
|
10
|
53
|
9
|
2
|
2
|
Bangkok
|
25
|
10
|
55
|
10
|
-
|
-
|
Bogota
|
14
|
1
|
80
|
0
|
0
|
5
|
Bombay
|
8
|
10
|
34
|
13
|
34
|
-
|
Buenos Aires
|
-
|
-
|
45
|
27
|
-
|
28
|
Cairo
|
15
|
15
|
70
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Calcutta
|
-
|
2
|
67
|
14
|
10
|
4
|
Harare
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Hong-Kong
|
8
|
13
|
60
|
-
|
19
|
-
|
Jakarta
|
27
|
-
|
51
|
-
|
1
|
21
|
Karachi
|
3
|
7
|
52
|
18
|
6
|
13
|
Kuala Lumpur
|
37
|
-
|
33
|
17
|
0
|
13
|
Lagos
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Lima
|
-
|
-
|
45
|
27
|
-
|
28
|
Manilla
|
16
|
2
|
16
|
59
|
-
|
8
|
Medellin
|
6
|
4
|
85
|
5
|
0
|
-
|
Mexico City
|
19
|
-
|
51
|
13
|
15
|
2
|
Nairobi
|
45
|
-
|
31
|
15
|
0
|
9
|
Rio de Janeiro
|
24
|
2
|
62
|
2
|
11
|
-
|
San José
|
21
|
2
|
75
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
Sao Paulo
|
32
|
3
|
54
|
-
|
10
|
1
|
Seoul
|
9
|
15
|
68
|
0
|
7
|
0
|
Singapore
|
47
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
53
|
Tunis
|
24
|
4
|
61
|
-
|
10
|
-
|
Developed countries
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
London
|
61
|
1
|
23
|
0
|
12
|
2
|
New York
|
12
|
2
|
14
|
0
|
72
|
0
|
Paris
|
56
|
-
|
8
|
0
|
21
|
15
|
Stockholm
|
48
|
-
|
53
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Stuttgart
|
44
|
6
|
33
|
6
|
-
|
11
|
Tokyo
|
32
|
-
|
6
|
0
|
61
|
0
|
Wellington
|
56
|
-
|
26
|
-
|
5
|
10
|
Source: Alan Armstrong Wright, "Urban Transit
System: Guidelines for Examining
Options", World Bank technical paper, No. 52, May 1986.
11.
For what
this average is worth, worldwide transport capacity can be broken down as
follows:
Type of
transport
|
Vehicle fleet
|
Capacity
(in thousands)
|
Share of total
capacity
|
Buses
|
850,000
|
68,000
|
66.7%
|
Trolleybuses
|
20,000
|
1,600
|
1.6%
|
Shared taxis
|
350,000
|
5,250
|
5.1%
|
Taxis
|
1,000,000
|
5,000
|
4.9%
|
Suburban trains
|
100,000
|
10,000
|
9.8%
|
Subways
|
40,000
|
6,000
|
5.9%
|
Trams
|
45,000
|
5,850
|
5.8%
|
Total
|
2,405,000
|
101,700
|
100%
|
12.
This table lists two types
of taxis: individual taxis which
constitute a luxury mode of urban transport by reason of their flexibility and
comfort, and shared taxis, very common in developing countries, which carry
between four and ten people on predetermined routes at fares competitive with
or even cheaper than bus fares and help to make good the shortcomings of an overloaded
bus system. This applies to the
"jeepneys" in the Philippines, the "sergentos" in Ethiopia,
the "mammy wagons" in Ghana, the "dolums" in Turkey, etc. These shared taxis may account for up to 30
per cent of the traffic or even more (80 per cent in Addis Ababa). These
differences apart, the regulatory regime for taxis is fairly similar all over
the world with a licensing and quota system, which sometimes gives rise to a
grey market for licences, and some control over fares.