Traffic Forecast 2040: Wissing's Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Misses Climate Targets

No other mode of transport in Germany is expected to grow as strongly in the coming years as rail, but this will not noticeably change the dominance of road transport. This is shown by the current 2040 traffic forecast presented by Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).

"The results clearly show that traffic is growing and that we can only achieve our goal of demand-oriented transport by expanding all modes of transport," said the minister. "We still need full steam ahead for the maintenance and expansion of the railways." However, the expansion and construction of new roads must also be advanced. "This is essential to accommodate the traffic we will have in this area."

The traffic forecast involves long-term scenarios that depict the development of traffic up to 2040 under certain conditions. Based on these scenarios, the federal government is now reviewing its plans to expand infrastructure, known as the demand plans for the individual modes of transport - road, rail, and water.

The most important results for passenger and freight transport:

• In passenger transport, the study authors expect an increase in transport performance of just under eight percent by 2040 compared to 2019. This is partly due to a growing population, mainly through immigration, which is assumed in the forecast. 
• Rail transport is expected to grow the most, by about 60 percent, to around 163.4 billion passenger kilometers. "This increasing demand requires punctual and reliable rail transport," said a spokesperson for Deutsche Bahn. The company is currently focusing on this with its renovation program and the modernization of the rail network and stations. 
• For domestic air travel within Germany, analysts expect an increase of 30 percent to around 66 billion passenger kilometers. 
• In contrast, car traffic is expected to decline by around 1 percent to more than 907 billion passenger kilometers by 2040. Although the share of motorized individual transport will decrease significantly, it will remain the dominant mode of movement for people, with around two-thirds. 
• The forecast paints a similar picture for freight transport in Germany. Here, too, transport performance is expected to increase significantly by more than 31 percent by 2040. Rail and road are expected to grow by roughly one-third each. As a result, the current share of rail freight transport, which is around 20 percent, will not change much by 2040. 

Federal Government Misses Self-Imposed Goals

This puts two central objectives of the federal government at stake, which it had originally set for 2030: to double the traffic performance in passenger rail transport by the end of this decade and to increase the share of rail freight transport in Germany's total transport volume from currently about one-fifth to then one-fourth. Wissing did not want to abandon these projects. "These are ambitious goals; in the end, we can only implement what is feasible," he said.

Climate Target Likely to be Missed as Well

Transport in Germany is one of the few sectors where CO2 reduction targets have been missed for many years. According to the Federal Environment Agency, emissions in the years before the Corona pandemic even exceeded the levels of 1990. This is expected to change in the coming years. The authors of the traffic forecast assume that CO2 emissions in transport will decrease by around 77 percent by 2040. The main contributors to this are alternative propulsion systems in road transport. By then, around two-thirds of passenger cars are expected to be fully electric, said study author Tobias Kluth. However, the report acknowledges that even with this reduction, the target anchored in the Climate Protection Act, to reduce emissions in the transport sector by 88 percent by 2040, would not be achieved.