Transport intensity of the global economy in the years

The article presents the results of research on the transport intensity of the global economy between 1995 and 2007. The research was conducted in selected countries generating over 70% of global GDP using an exponential function and a sixth-degree polynomial curve. The general conclusion drawn from the analysis of trends in the formation of both transport intensity polynomial curves and exponential curves indicates that the transport intensity of the global economy has a downward trend.INTRODUCTION
The importance of the transport sector for the global economy (in various scopes) has been discussed multiple times in the Author’s works. Transport covers an area of activity where mutual relations occur between the economy and its requirements, and its – not always
The article was prepared based on the book by Maciej Mindur “Transport in the era of economic globalization”, ITE-PIB publishing house, Warsaw-Radom 2010. The research covered the transport of countries characterized by the highest degree of development – which have been the largest economies for several decades, creating the bulk of global GDP and setting the development trends of the modern world – namely the United States
of North America, Japan, and the European Union – 15. The European Union – 15 (EU-15) was adopted for analysis to present the functioning of an organism that has been built for nearly sixty years. An attempt was made to examine to what extent it is coherent, and to what extent it is a set of independently, autonomously functioning transport systems. The decision to forgo the description of the EU-27 was also supported by the fact that too little time had passed since the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007. The newly admitted European countries had followed a completely different path of development for the last several dozen or rather several hundred years, and they did not participate in building
a Common Europe. However, due to the impossibility of obtaining the data necessary to develop current trends in the formation of transport in the EU, numerical data concerning
the EU-27 were used in point 3.
Two countries with enormous potential, the largest area, significant natural and military resources – which have been developing dynamically in recent years – were also included: Russia and China (the most populous country in the world, developing continuously for thirty years and, according to some reports, having a larger share in creating global GDP than Japan). Poland is also presented in the paper. (…)

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