23: Goods and Business Traffic in Germany

As in other countries, much less research has gone into goods traffic and business passenger traffic than into private passenger traffic, even though commercial traffic is gaining significance especially in the industrialised world. The intention of this chapter is to present surveys that were conceived with the aim of compensating for the lack of research in this sector in Germany.

Household surveys are the most valuable source for acquiring data on passenger traffic, because they supply the required information for all distances travelled by people within a defined period of time, including the means of transport they use and the purpose of each trip. Similar surveys performed for goods traffic would, by analogy, have to consider the distances travelled, loading processes, and possibly also the processing of the goods handled, i.e., processes that are of eminent relevance for logistics. Although it is a highly complex task to ensure that the complete goods handling chain is covered, in theory, it could be solved at the consignor’s end, i.e., households or business units. A major problem in this context is the question as to where to draw a dividing line within the population of all forwarding units, from which a representative sample can then be taken. However, because in the course of handling processes, goods are also transported by people, who normally use vehicles, goods traffic surveys can, at least for part of the handling process, also be conducted by interviewing people, e.g., drivers in households, business units, etc., or common carrier drivers.