The Asian Transport Observatory (ATO) presented at the 11th Transport Statistics Meeting organized by the International Transport Forum (ITF) held at the OECD in Paris on April 15-16, 2025. Sudhir Gota, Co-Team Lead at the Asian Transport Observatory, presented during the "Shaping Future Transport through Data" session on Day 1 of the event.

Mr. Gota's presentation focused on "Asia and the Pacific’s Transport and Infrastructure and Investment Outlook 2035," one of the key publications of the ATO. The presentation highlighted the methodology used to project Asia's transport infrastructure investment needs which incorporates economic and demographic factors, infrastructure stocks, project pipeline data for urban rail, heavy railways, and HSR projects, as well as policy targets and unit costs.

Key findings from the Outlook underscored the significant scale of future investment required, estimating that $43 Trillion is needed for total transport infrastructure (construction, maintenance, climate proofing) in Asia-Pacific between 2020 and 2035. This total includes substantial projected investments in roads ($27 Trillion), heavy rail ($4.2 Trillion), and HSR ($3.1 Trillion), among other modes like Metro, LRT, BRT, Ports, and Airports.

The Outlook also projects considerable growth in transport infrastructure length across Asia-Pacific, including heavy rail, HSR, rapid transit (Metro, LRT, BRT), and roads by 2035. It was noted that one-third of all railway expansion in Asia from 2020 to 2035 is projected to consist of high-speed rail. The presentation also provided comparisons of projected infrastructure availability in Asia-Pacific regions against the current OECD average for various modes. ATO’s estimates are well within the range of existing studies, if we compare the derived transport investments as a share of GDP (~2.1%).

For more information, please download the main document here: https://asiantransportobservatory.org/analytical-outputs/asia-transport-infrastructure-investment-needs/

The main page for the 11th ITF Transport Statistics Meeting can be found here.

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