Assessment of the sustainable development of the transport sector in EU countries

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest challenge facing the world since the 1918 flu pandemic. The pandemic is also a huge challenge for states in achieving sustainable development goals. In recent years, many businesses have moved from physical activity to e-commerce as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the transport sector (specifically transportation of goods) has been severely tested by the increased need for activities that cannot be transferred to the electronic platform. For that reason some environmental problems occur that threaten Europe and the world with an existential threat. The sector of transport is the most polluting one for the environment, therefore, the sustainable development must be under the particular emphasis and development in order to maximise the needs of the society by having the least negative impact on it. The aim of the paper is to assess the sustainability of the EU transport sector. The analysis of the scientific literature, the multi-criteria complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) method and cluster analysis were used for the research. The results of the research suggest that the most sustainable transport sector is in Luxembourg, Belgium and the Czech Republic, while the most incoherent is in Germany, Latvia and France.