Report: Hot growth in emerging markets could stall with traffic jams

Emerging markets are broadly forecast to drive demand for retail services in coming decades, but a report released today says poorly planned road networks could throw a wrench into efforts by developing regions to keep up with rising demands for freight movement.

Despite rising consumer demand, many developing countries are saddled with poor infrastructure that triggers road traffic jams, increased fuel waste, and monetary losses, according to the report from London-based analyst firm Research and Markets.

The problem is caused by planners' inability to keep up with a fast-changing regional landscape, leading to traffic congestion hot spots, poor traffic management, and extended traffic jams, the report says.

Possible solutions include privatized highways, new fees for road pricing, and the development of railway intelligent transportation systems (ITS), analysts report. Regions that adopt intelligent rail networks can build a transportation-system backbone that provides a competitive edge over other freight modes while preserving consumer safety, the report concludes.

The global ITS market is forecast to growth from $32.5 billion in 2015 to $57.2 billion in 2022, providing growth opportunities for IT firms such as Cisco Systems Inc., Computer Science Corp., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., Siemens AG, and ZTE Corp., Research and Markets said.