We’re in unchartered territory.  The price of crude oil has confounded commodity economists and shattered the norms for oil-price forecasting.  Not only have optimistic predictions made just months ago failed to come to fruition, but “major disruption” price scenarios have also been downgraded to possible-to-likely price scenarios.  These rapid and persistent increases in oil prices have advanced transportation costs to the number one political issue heading into the 2008 U.S. election. 

The silver lining is that these challenges present TDM practitioners with an opportunity unseen since the 1980s, with the possibility of blunting the economic impact from oil price increase in ways the rest of the transportation industry cannot.

 TDM's Answer to the Price of Oil (801.27 kB)