From: Robin Hanson (hanson@econ.berkeley.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 01 1998 - 16:41:42 MDT
I just stumbled upon an Oct '97 Scientific American article,
by A. Schafer & D. Victor (pp. 58-61) on "The Past and Future
of Global Mobility." The article, minus some graphs:
http://www.sciam.com/1097issue/1097schafer.html . They make
forecasts out to 2050 which, suprisingly enough, I find believable.
The main reason one might forecast out so far is that transportation
infrastructures take a long time to change, and there are some robust
relationships to build on. Across diverse societies, transportation
time seems to take a bit over an hour per day, and distance
travelled seems to be roughly linear with income. People in poor
countries spend about 3-5% of income on bikes & buses, and this
fraction rises till it stabilizes at 10-15% of income when there is
about one car per five people.
It seems that the future of tranport is airplanes, which by 2050
should take 12 minutes per day on average in the U.S., and
account for 41% of world distance traveled. (Buses would account
for 20%, and cars 35%.)
The same issue also contains a reasonable skeptical take on
telecommuting, at http://www.sciam.com/1097issue/1097mokhtarian.html .
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614
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