The PRIMES-TREMOVE transport model projects the evolution of demand for passengers and freight transport by transport mode and vehicle types/fuels/technologies. The model includes all Member States of the EU28 and is also able to provide detailed outlooks for Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, FYROM and Kosovo. The simulation horizon is until 2070, running on 5-year time steps.
PRIMES-TREMOVE simulates the equilibrium of the transport market. It has a modular structure, featuring a module projecting demand for transportation services for passenger and freight mobility and a supply module deriving ways of meeting the demand. The demand model features several types of trips split into geographical area, purpose and time of day. The supply module projects the optimum technology and fuel mix to produce transportation services which meet demand. It includes a vehicle stock sub-module which considers stock of transport means inherited from previous time periods and determines the necessary changes to meet demand. PRIMES-TREMOVE tracks vehicle vintages and formulates the dynamics of vehicle stock turnover by combining scrapping and new registrations. Regarding the purchasing of new vehicles, a detailed list of technology options is considered. The purchase choice of vehicles follows the approach of discrete choice modelling. The supply module of PRIMES-TREMOVE interacts with the demand module through the so-called generalised prices of transportation.
The model simulates a large range of measures for transport including: soft measures (e.g. eco-driving, deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems, labelling), economic measures (e.g. subsidies and taxes on fuels, vehicles, emissions, pricing of congestion and other externalities such as air pollution, accidents and noise; measures supporting R&D), infrastructure policies for alternative fuels (e.g. deployment of refuelling/recharging infrastructure for electricity, hydrogen, LNG) and regulatory measures (CO2 standards).
When developing a baseline scenario, PRIMES-TREMOVE is linked with another simulation tool called PRIMES-TAPEM. This tool is an econometric model for projecting transport activity to the future, which utilizes macroeconomic indicators (GDP, activity by sector, demographics and bilateral trade by product, and by country) as drivers. The simulation tool is linked with the GEM-E3 model. PRIMES-TAPEM also includes fuel prices as well as transport network infrastructure (length of motorways and railways) as drivers to project transport activity when developing a baseline scenario.
