PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION REASONING REPORT

THE LIKELY DEMAND FOR PERSONAL TRAVEL IN NEW ZEALAND IN THE

FUTURE

ENCN261
Jim Knox
38580114

Submission Date: 1st April 2016

1. INVESTIGATION
Personal travel in New Zealand is something that many New Zealanders do. They
travel for work, education, and mostly for recreational activities. The demand for
personal travel in New Zealand is likely to change in the future due to several factors.
These factors may include the effects of development in technology and
communications, the trend in fuel or energy supply and price, the societal changes,
and changes in trip purposes and needs. With these factors, the demand for personal
travel in New Zealand is likely to change, and this report will identify and explain how
each factor has contributed to the changing demand. It will also envelop which factors
are likely to have the biggest influence on the changing personal travel demand.
2. DISCUSSION
The main transportation system role is to facilitate the activity system. The activity
system is defined as the need for work, shopping, recreation, economic activities and
education. Transport provides accessibility and mobility for people in their
environment. How people travel and their travel needs depend on many things
including age, work, stage of life and their geography (Ministry of Transport, 2014).
With regards to Figure 1, more than half of peoples time spent travelling is as a driver
in a private car or van.

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Figure 1. The pie chart portrayed different mode share of travel time from 2011 to
2014
(Ministry of Transport, 2014).
This has shown that private ownership of cars or vans in New Zealand is generally
high. Due to high car ownership, most people can travel whenever they want.
With developments in technology and communications, it can greatly alter the ways in
which people do their activities such as shopping and travelling. More People will do
online shopping which then reduces the need to travel to do shopping. More
communications will be done online, hence, there is no need to travel to meet the
other person. This will reduce the demand for personal travel and therefore, the traffic
will reduce.
On the other hand, it will be a less authentic way to communicate since there will be
less person-to-person contact. With increasing technology development in
manufacturing automatic vehicles, people preferred to travel more, since they will
have autonomous vehicles programmed to drive and follow the road rules (Lyons,
2016). As a result, this will increase the traffic by 35% (Lyons, 2016).
Another way that may change the personal travel demand is the trend in the fuel and
energy supply and price. The changes in the fuel price due to economic activities
locally and globally, for instance, can affect personal travel (Keall et al., 2011). People
who are unemployed will not choose to buy a car since its operational costs are high.
On the other hand, a decrease in the fuel price and higher annual average income of
$15,000.00 (2016 NZ$), a person can afford to buy a car, and which then will increase
their demand for personal travel (Saunders and Dalziel, 2014). The better road
conditions have boosted the economic, which then led to more people owning private
vehicles. This has increased the personal travel demand.
The societal changes such as building new malls, new supermarkets in new areas have
also increased the demand for personal travel. People have different purposes for
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travel such as travelling to watch a rugby or soccer game, travelling to meet families
and friends during holidays such as Christmas, Easter, have increased the demand for
personal travel. These societal changes and different purposes for travelling have
influenced the personal travel demand.
The factors that are likely to have the biggest influences on changing personal travel
demand are developments in technology and communications and the changes in trip
purposes and needs. The developments in technology and communications can reduce
the personal travel demand by enabling more people to do their shopping and
communications online. On the other hand, developments in technology and
communications can slightly increase the demand for personal travel, by people
owning integrated cars with autonomous vehicles programmed to drive and follow the
road rules (Lyons, 2016). It will be safer, therefore, more people will likely to afford
these vehicles and thus increase the demand for personal travel. Furthermore, one of
the basic reasons for the changing demand for personal travel in New Zealand is the
different purposes for travel.
3. CONCLUSIONS
This report aimed to understand how the demand for personal travel in New Zealand is
likely to change in the future due to several factors. The changes in the developments
in technology and communications and the changes in trip purposes and needs are
deemed to be the two factors that greatly altered the personal travel demand in New
Zealand. The likely scenario for the future would be an increase in the personal travel
demand in New Zealand. This is due to the development of technology and
communications for manufacturing cars with autonomous vehicles programmed to
drive and follow the road rules, and the different purposes of trips such as for family
reunions, and recreational activities.
With safer and sounder driving experiences, the demand for personal travel in New
Zealand will increase slightly in the future.
4. REFERENCES
Glenn Lyons. (2016, March 28). Future Demand.
http://www.transport.govt.nz/futures/stories/the-future-of-data-and-intelligencein-transport/, assessed 27 March 2016
Keall.M, Stroombergen. A, Sullivan. C, Cammeron. M, Weiss. H. (2011, March 26). An
analysis of potential factors behind the 2011 reduction in New Zealand road
fatalities.
http://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Documents/Analysis-oftraffic-fatality-trends-final-7-Sept-2012.pdf, assessed 26 March 2016
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Ministry of Transport. (2014, 03). 25 Years of New Zealand Travel.

http://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Documents/25yrs-ofTravel-Summary.pdf, assessed 27 March 2016
Saunders, C. and Dalziel, P. (2014, November 28). Economic Development and
Transport. http://www.lps.canterbury.ac.nz/lsc/documents/plagiarism_
%20self_lesson_01_05.pdf, assessed 27 March 2016