ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN ROAD TRANSPORT: DATA-COLLECTION REQUIREMENTS

Despite recent softening in world oil prices, oil imports continue to represent a serious drain on the foreign-exchange reserves of many countries. As a result, governments throughout the world are pursuing a variety of policies--from increased exploitation of indigenous resources to conservation and other improvements in energy-conversion efficiency--in an effort to reduce their reliance on imported oil. Road transport, representing upwards of 30% of petroleum-product consumption in many countries, represents a logical target for such efforts. However, beyond the gross statistics available from oil company records on fuel sales, oftimes little is know about precisely how this sizeable quantity of fuel is consumed. Without more specific data on the modal composition of road-transport demand, the energy-conversion characteristics of the vehicles serving that demand, the operational features of those vehicles, etc., governments cannot hope to develop the conservation programs so urgently needed. Data on road freight are particularly sparse and, given the developing supply/demand imbalance for middle-distillate fuels, current data gaps may well develop into future supply shortages or cross-subsidization issues. Since the mid-1970s, most of the nations of North and South America have mounted programs to collect data on the energy-consumption characteristics of road transport. This paper reports on one such effort now underway in Jamaica. While certain of the transportation and data-collection issues which influenced methodology selection may be unique to that country, others are common to many countries at similar levels of urbanization, motorization, and income. With appropriate modification to account for distinctive local conditions, the Jamaican data-collection procedure has broad applicability, in whole or in part, to a variety of national and regional contexts.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Panamerican Transport Congress Meeting, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 31 May 1983.
• Corporate Authors:

  Argonne National Laboratory

  9700 South Cass Avenue
  Argonne, IL  United States  60439

  Department of Energy

  1000 Independence Avenue, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20585
• Authors:
  • Millar, M
  • Bernard, M J
• Publication Date: 1983-6-3

Media Info

• Pagination: 21 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Data collection; Developing countries; Energy consumption; Highway transportation; Modal split; Public transit; Urbanization
• Subject Areas: Energy; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00381554
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: CONF-8305104-1
• Contract Numbers: W-31-109-ENG-38
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 29 1984 12:00AM