Spatial, generational and gendered trends and trend-breaks in mobility

Abstract

Long-term trends and potential trend conversions in mobility are addressed, with special focus on the Swedish population. Consistent with observations of “peak travel” reported from other countries, we find that growth in everyday travel has recently stagnated and declined. Trends differ significantly between demographic groups. At a general level, there is a tendency towards (upward) convergence between women and men and a shift in travel volumes from young to old age groups. The daily travel by young women has been rather constant, for men under 45 years old it has been reduced, and in the youngest age group the decline is substantial. The observed travel reductions among young indicate that car-intensive lifestyles may not be strongly structurally determined. The implications for sustainable travel partly depend on travel development at higher time-spatial scales. The fact that intermittent transnational mobility has grown rapidly, not least among the young age groups, suggests a substitution of international travel for national travel.