eu-europol-org-crime-report

Transportation and logistics
16
Innovation in transportation
and logistics will enable OCGs
to increasingly commit crime
anonymously over the internet,
anywhere and anytime without
being physically present.
Revolutionary road
The EU benefits from well-developed transportation
and logistics infrastructures, which move
people and goods across Member States. The
transportation and logistics sector is of crucial
importance to Member States’ economies and
provides employment for millions of people
in the EU. Private households in the EU spend
more than 10% of their total annual expenditure
on travel and commuting. Large volumes
of freight are transported throughout the EU.
In the future, transportation and logistics in the
EU will need to service the continuously growing
demand for increased mobility of people
and goods, while reducing the environmental
impact of the technologies used. 1 In order to
ensure customer satisfaction, the EU’s transportation
and logistics sector will need to provide
energy- and cost-efficient means of moving
goods and people. Environmental concerns
and increasing pressure on resources will make
the principle of a sharing economy increasingly
popular. This economic model favours alternative
modes of transportation such as new forms
of mass public transit and on-demand ride
services enabled through online applications
in addition to established models like car- and
bike-sharing. Advances in technology and the
increasing exchange of data will facilitate these
developments. Fuel may become prohibitively
expensive to individual commuters and this
may encourage car-sharing enabled by online
applications.
Innovation and development in transportation
and logistics require significant capital investments:
the financing of new projects and the
maintenance of existing infrastructures will be
a key issue in this sector. Project funding will
increasingly rely on public-private cooperation.
In logistics, crowd-sourcing schemes might be
used to make supply chains more cost-effective.
For instance, citizens living and travelling
in urban areas on a daily basis may coordinate
the delivery of packages amongst themselves.
Collaboration between competitors, so-called
'co-opetition', will make transportation and
logistics more cost-efficient and sustainable.
Global trade will continue to increase each year
and will require the creation of new modes
and routes of transportation resulting in the
emergence or further development of a number
of key global infrastructure hubs. China and
Brazil are likely to continue their development
as key markets for transportation and logistics.
Central Asia is likely to emerge as a key transit
region. The melting of the arctic ice will enable
the use of shipping routes in the Arctic Ocean
that were previously inaccessible. New routes
connecting parts of Asia, North America and
Europe will result in a diversification of maritime
transportation options providing for faster
and cheaper transit of goods.
E-commerce will rely heavily on an efficient
global transportation and logistics sector
to sustain its unprecedented growth and to
service customers in all parts of the world.
Courier, express and parcel services will become
increasingly important and sophisticated
requiring more regional warehouses closer to
delivery markets. Securing these warehouses
and supply chains will become increasingly
difficult and different delivery models for this
security will emerge, involving both the private
and the public sector.
Much future mobility will rely on digital solutions.
Many of these will use Big Data analysis
often involving real-time open data.
EUROPOL / Exploring tomorrow’s organised crime / 2015
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