About Transport Statistics Phase II - 2008 In-Depth Study

The second phase of the Transport Statistics Programme aimed to update the existing information collated in Phase I, to compare the transport situation in these countries with those in the developed and developing world and, as with the first phase, to publish the data and their interpretation. In addition to continuing to develop the database of transport statistics to a wider group of countries, the second phase of the programme also aimed to determine the extent and availability of data on transport and economic activity in different countries.

Data for three additional groups of countries are included in the updated database:

• Developed countries not in Europe or North America
  The example selected for this group was Australia. Australia does have statistical information available, but also demonstrates the difficulties that can arise in a federal country, where some data is held at the level of the provinces, states and territories, rather than the federal government.
• Countries from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, which were developing rapidly
  Three countries were selected in this category: the Russian Federation, Poland and the Czech Republic. As well as being interesting in its own right, Russia is a very large country that is now recovering from a dramatic economic downturn. The Czech Republic is one of the more prosperous countries from Eastern Europe and also tests the problems with data sets that occur when a country is divided, as happened after the partition from Slovakia. All three additions to the database are in the area covered by the UN Economic Commission for Europe, and Poland and the Czech Republic are now part of the European Union, so data are available from both UNECE and EU, to cover any gaps in data available nationally.
• Large less-developed countries that were in the process of rapid economic development
  Three countries were selected in this category: China, India and Brazil. All are major economies, and the economic activity of China and India is affecting the rest of the world. The governments and statistical services of the three countries have developed differently, providing useful lessons in the availability of data. The only country for which it proved difficult to obtain a reasonable amount of transport data was Brazil.

In addition, some data are collected for the European Union as a whole, both the EU15 countries and the EU25 countries.

For each country data are provided on:

• general matters such as population, surface area and GDP;
• length of transport infrastructure (roads and railways), classified by category;
• stock of vehicles;
• vehicle km of traffic, if possible by type of vehicle and class of road;
• passenger km by mode;
• journeys per person;
• accidents and casualties;

Development of the internet, and the availability of specific data sets and national statistics yearbooks, mean that much high quality government data is now available, in a way that was not the case only five years ago. One of the outputs of the Transport Statistics Programme is a list of websites where data are available free of charge (see the Links page for more details). Sources for all data included on the site can be found by clicking the Show Sources tab at the foot of each table or Graph.