Freight- and passenger forecasts 2006-2014. A comparison of forecasts and assumptions with actual development

In this report, we compare the ex ante forecasts for passenger and freight transport for the period 2006-2014 with the actual ex post transport statistics. We also compare the forecasted input variables for the model, e.g., growth rates for population, income, GDP and transport prices, with their actual values ex post. In many cases, the forecasts for general growth rates turned out to be fairly accurate. However, both over- and underestimations occurred because of large variations from one year to the next in the transport statistics. Unpredicted variations are especially evident in freight transport, related to the economic decline in 2008 followed by new growth up to 2014. The passenger transport forecasts underestimated the total number of trips, but the accuracy was better for passenger kilometres. Over the period 2006-2014, the population grew considerably faster than assumed in the earliest forecasts in 2007. This was corrected in the later prognoses. On the other hand, income growth was somewhat lower than assumed in the forecasts. Also, transport prices developed differently for different passenger transport modes, which was not foreseen in the prognoses. Consequently, some input variables will cause forecasting errors in one direction, and other input variables have a compensating effect by driving the results in the other direction.