The annual International Transport Forum (ITF) conference was held in Leipzig, Germany in late May 2024.

The ITF is a part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Both organizations are based in Paris and composed of governments from across the global-developed economies.

Sixty-nine countries are member of the ITF, and at the 2024 event, new members, Saudi Arabia, Dominican Republic, and Oman, joined the group. The presidency of the ITF rotates each year, and Lithuania was president through 2023/24, handing over to Chile for the coming year.

ITF 2024

The ITF conference gathered 1,200 delegates and 55 ministers of transport this year. The event offers a relatively unique opportunity for ministers of transport from many global countries to gather, understand, and exchange policy goals and progress in meeting these goals, see best practices, and hear from leading players in the global transport industry.

The event, while naturally focusing on sustainable transport, does consider the role, impacts, and needs of all modes of transport — both for people and goods. Importantly, the event also looks at the context of transport in other global social and geopolitical matters.

The May 2024 ITF event had as its focus “Greening Transport: Keeping Focus in Times of Crisis.”

The focus was topical as the world is facing perpetual and intensifying crises — multiple regional conflicts, supply chain disruptions, anti-globalization pressures, and challenges to global political and social cooperation. Yet, the challenges of climate change and its mitigation are increasingly complex.

Furthermore, transport remains a sector dependent on high-levels of fossil fuel use. The growth of our global cities and the need to make them function economically, but also socially and environmentally remains pressing. The context in which we as transport professionals need to manage our industry and its impacts seems to only be becoming ever more multifaceted.

Conference Programs

Several of the speakers at the conference plenaries and events focused on the critical need for global cooperation and exchange of best practices to improve global transport, as well as the need to highlight the explicit advantages of this cooperation to the wider world. That cooperation will occur should no longer be taken as an assumption.

The main conference plenary examined some of these issues with a showcase panel of ministers and deputy ministers of transport ,as well as industrial and non-governmental leaders, including Polly Trottenberg, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation, and the ministers of transport from Türkiye, Morocco, Spain, Lithuania, and China. The session also included directors from BP, the International Roads Union, UN Economic Commission for Europe, and World Tourism Council.

Of note in this session was the robust advocacy of high-speed rail from Spain, where 70% of the urban population currently has access to such services, and this is expected to rise to 95% by 2030.

The Spanish minister also highlighted the balancing of the relationship between costs and infrastructure investments versus expected benefits.

Spain strongly made the case the redistribution of urban space is critical to make cities operate more sustainably and fairly. This point was repeated in many ways throughout many of the sessions at the conference.

Allowing private car use to dominate urban spaces makes it difficult, if not unsafe for micromobility users, pedestrians, and ultimately the viability of classic public transport services.

The complexities of the potential solutions to contemporary mobility problems, even if they are now identifiable, are taking an extended period of time to implement. This is causing frustration amongst transport professionals, but also among the general population and making the political context increasingly challenging.

Thus, practical solutions that can be readily delivered and importantly are scalable to meet public needs and decarbonization’s challenges are critical. These solutions can include proven business models to roll out electric bus fleets in a range of markets, scaling shared and person micromobility use in many countries, local public transport infrastructure in cities, and urban low-emission zones, amongst other practical, scalable, and potentially ready solutions.

A particular session attended by this author looked at the latest trends in e-scooter safety. And in particular, an ITF staff report on “Are E-Scooters Getting Safer?”

In summary, the regularization of the e-scooter market has improved safety in many cities, but data is still limited, particularly due to the growth of privately-owned devices. However, the key challenge remains to make streets safer for all potentially vulnerable users. This publication is freely available from the ITF website.

The final plenary, which included the Mayor of Leipzig, Minister of Transport for Chile, UITP Secretary General, and financial and academic leaders, concluded with the rousing call that “cities need to be given back to people” through walking, cycling, and public transport, which will actually lead to clean, green, and sustainable transport that can actually deal with the challenges of climate change.

From London to Germany

As a side note, as a visitor to the ITF event, I for the first time traveled entirely by train from London to Leipzig and back.

The 530-mile journey took approximately eight hours of traveling time on three-train services, albeit with some service disruptions within Germany.

The cost was slightly less expensive than air and allowed for more productive use of the traveling time. In speaking to fellow travelers, one can see the impact of decarbonization on the travel choices people are now making is becoming not hypothetical, but increasingly very real.

The International Transport Forum will return to Leipzig in May 2025.