Public transport patronage by women is down significantly, and recent public opinion polls have shown that women are more strongly in favor of the car and roadworks than men. The car has given people the freedom to live, work, socialise and have holidays where they want to, as well as allowing them to take part in a much wider variety of social and entertainment activities. The car is also much more equitably distributed than other transport modes, with more than 90 per cent of all Australian households having one or more cars. Given the dominating influence of the car on most of our lives in the 20th century, it may come as a surprise to discover that the motor car is in decline and going down the same path as sailing ships and rural passenger trains. Road transport in Australia is in its mature phase because many per-person parameters such as road expenditures, network length, truck travel and car travel have reached their maximum in the past 10 to 20 years and are travelling along the top of the S curve.
Surveys show that increases in female driver travel have flattened off as a result of saturation.
Overall annual car travel growth rates are now down to between 1 and 2 per cent a year, and just slightly above the population growth rates. Most projections of travel in Australia find that business travel will grow much faster than private car travel and that road expenditure is now being driven by these increases in commercial vehicles. A decline in car travel per person is likely in the 21st century because other modes can carry out many of the present functions of cars more cheaply and quickly. The ageing of society will also reduce car travel, because older people drive less. It is ironic, therefore, that many of the extensively publicised environmental problems of cars will be solved just as this decline begins.