Transportation sector accounts for a major share of energy consumption in China, especially the petroleum products, which experienced rapid increases in energy demand. The purpose of this study is to forecast transport energy demand for 2010, 2015 and 2020 based on partial least square regression (PLSR) method under two scenarios. Transport energy demand is analyzed for the period of 1990-2006 based on gross domestic product (GDP), urbanization rate, passenger-turnover and freight-turnover. This method suggests that transport energy demand for 2020 will reach to a level of around 433.13 Mtce and 468.26 Mtce, respectively. Those figures are very close to the estimation obtained by Energy Research Institute of China. Thus this study provides an effective tool, which can be used as an alternative solution and estimation techniques for the transport energy demand. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.