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Quite apart from the widespread view that DfT estimates are nonsense, that traffic levels rise does not need to mean at all that 'the economy' is 'growing'. It could mean instead that people are having to travel further and further because the state of the economy is such that they can't do business in a more efficient way with more local contacts, whether they're going about their private household business or running/working for a business themselves. For instance, people might be having to travel further and further to access jobs.
It's actually very easy to generate traffic/vehicle miles; all you have to do is to increase geographic dissociation (not hard with our current planning system and the Government's tendency to favour big business operating from very few sites) and hey presto! you'll get the vehicle miles no problem.
Data of decent quality is almost impossible to come by, though. A lot more qualitative/geographically indexed research is needed to find out what really happens when you talk about movement.
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Oliver Schick
@skydancer
Some good news for a change:
https://www.transportxtra.com/publications/local-transport-today/news/49775/rising-traffic-welcomed-by-the-dft-as-a-sign-that-the-economy-is-growing
Hmmmm