Conclusions

Abstract

The underlying message of this book is that there is a need for government intervention on a global scale for three reasons. First, to free up capacity of road investment in other transport modes is urgently needed in all the major economies but particularly in China, the EU, and Mexico; government intervention is the only means to achieve large-scale investment. Second, there is a need for international institutions to regulate the freight transport sector particularly air transport as far as traffic volume and environmental impacts. Third, to adopt policy measures for sustainable freight transport, governments need to regulate the sector in the areas of 1) fuel economy of new trucks, 2) rail locomotives, 3) aircraft engines and 4) vessel engines. One ought to bear in mind that certain regions i.e. China or Mexico need to rely on an expanding transport sector to stimulate economic growth and trade. So the winners of global trade have recently been the Asian middle class and the global rich (Banister 2018). In ‘Air power and freight: The view from the European Union and China’, we build on insights, discoveries and theories of great economists, transport economists, geographers and urban planners to examine the recent past and to return to the future of freight transport