Abstract for: Drivers of long distance travel in Europe – a system dynamics approach

Long-distance travel is growing. While it only accounts for around 3% of trips made, it contributes around a third of distance travelled and so contributes to the growing problem of carbon emissions. Despite this there has been little evidence on what drives this growth in long-distance travel. This paper presents the LUNA model which is a System Dynamics model of long-distance travel in Europe able to take account of both socio-demographic and transport policy scenarios. We present the development and calibration of the model and application to three different future scenarios based on recent EU evidence and policy. We show that socio-demographic assumptions can play a significant role in the evolution of long-distance travel related emissions while transport policy tends to affect mode choice and only efficiency improvements really contribute to a reduction in emissions. Even quite strong policy change is nowhere near enough to meet the EU reduction targets by 2050.