The Importance of Material Flow Analysis for Commodity Transport Demand and Modelling

It can be shown that generated and attracted transport volumes, measured in tons, are closely related to direct material input (DMI). However, structural changes and new logistics concepts still lead to an increase of transportation performance. Therefore, the paper at hand aims to explain the scales of freight transport volumes (measured in tons) and performance (measured in ton-kilometers) from material flow analysis by additionally taking into account information from physical input-output tables. In so doing, effects of changing final demand on transport indicators can be identified. But while input-output tables give a good idea about technological processes, important information on the transport chain is missing. For this reason, the macroscopic approach of input-output analysis is supported by a microscopic analysis on freight transport markets and modern logistic concepts.