The aim of the project is to produce flexible short- and medium-term forecasts of the most important indicators of transport demand for freight and passenger transport in the years from 2021 to 2023.

— to assess the economic situation in relation to macroeconomic developments,

— to compare with the federal government's long-term traffic forecasts,

— as basic information for different political activities and

— to substantiate investment decisions.

In addition, the short- and medium-term forecast of transport development has a high impact on planning and decisions of other policy areas (economy, environment, energy, etc.) as well as the transport industry and other sectors of the economy (automotive engineering, petroleum industry, etc.).

In the medium-term moving forecast, the expected development of freight and passenger transport should be forecast in a differentiated manner by mode of transport or mode of transport. The focus will be on the two parameters “traffic volume” (= transported tonnes or passengers transported) and “transport performance” (= tonne-kilometres or passenger-kilometres).

It is a “moving” forecast. This means that a forecast always replaces the previous forecast and a new short- or medium-term forecast takes place every half years. The medium-term rolling forecast is therefore subject to a continuous review on the basis of actual developments. For this reason, all targets are always measured against the figures reported by official statistics. This principle implies that conceptual and definitive changes in the statistical collection as well as subsequent revisions of the forecast are to be traced, as far as possible and as soon as possible. For any gaps or weaknesses in de-finition, delimitation and collection of data, it is necessary to use or develop auxiliary variables.