English cars vs Dutch bikes: an international comparison of the energy costs of commuting RGS-IBG 28th August 2013 Robin Lovelace

Background Peak oil, obesity, climate change, recession Energy: 'master resource', affects all

Energy use transport: fundamentals It's "nature's money" Various ways of measuring it Direct (fuel) and indirect: fuel, vehicle and road construction (Lovelace, 2011) Average per unit distance - refine after 1 estimate

Data and methods Dutch data taken from Statistics Netherlands and English data from Casweb: official dataStatistics Netherlands Casweb Method uses estimates of vehicle energy use per km (Fels, 1975) All analysis + visualisation in RR E = distance * efficiency * number 'Best estimates' (MacKay, 2009) Result reproducible: RPubs documents + uploaded.zip folderRPubs.zip folder RMarkdown runs code 'live'

England vs the Netherlands AttributeEnglandNetherlandsUnits Population density407406ppl/km 2 GDP50,00046,000$/capita Income inequality34 (UK)31Gini Index Wellbeing0.875 (UK)0.921UN HDI Sources: UN Economic Commission for Europe, CIA Factbook, World Bank

National-level comparisons Average energy costs per one way trip to work in English regions (2001) and Dutch provinces (2010)

Headline figures The average commute is more energy intensive in NL By 10%: 34 MJ/trip in England vs 38 MJ/trip in the Netherlands Southern English regions (except London) have higher populations and energy use Populous and urbanised NL provinces: lower energy use

Explanation I - mode

Explanation II - Distance Average distance in UK: 14.8 km Netherlands average: 17.7 km NL distance: 27% further

Explanation III - Infrastructure ~2600 km of motorways in NL, ~3700 km EN (Eurostat, 2013): around 150 km vs 70 km per million people: more than double!Eurostat Credit: pricetags blog pricetags blog Credit: Michelin Michelin

Data inconsistencies and caveats 2001 vs 2010 data NL data highly aggregated, percentages and averages EN data provides actual counts, high spatial resolution available, but distance not yet available in 2011 Census Euclidean vs route distances are an issue Assume same car fleet efficiencies Best approximation (MacKay 2009), not 'final answer'

Scales of analysis Regional scale misses complexity of pattern NL data not available on this: no census Same spatial patterns across countries?

Distance changes over time (EN) Shifted very little since 2001 (DfT, 2011).

Conclusions Higher energy use in Netherlands for commuting is unexpected 'Good' transport policies do not automatically prevent 'bad' outcomes Links with 'green bling' effect of renewables Are bicycles a diversion? Sustainable transport policy should be 'joined up'

Key references Defra (2012) Guidelines to Defra / DECC’s GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting: Methodology PaperMethodology Paper DfT. (2011). Commuting and business travel factsheet tables.Commuting and business travel factsheet tables Dropbox.zip folder with all code + data for reproducible results and feedback.zip folder Fels, M. F. (1975). Comparative energy costs of urban transportation systems. Transportation Research, 9(5), 297–308. Lovelace, R. et al. (2011). Assessing the energy implications of replacing car trips with bicycle trips in Sheffield, UK. Energy Policy, 39(4)Energy Policy, 39(4) MacKay, D. (2009) Sustainable energy without the hot air. UIT Press. (Entirely free online).online robinlovelace on RPubs: reproducible code and output for EN, NL and comparedENNL Contact me: rob00x-at-gmail.com,rob00x-at-gmail.com youtube.com/robinlovelaceyoutube.com/robinlovelace, robinlovelace.wordpress.comrobinlovelace.wordpress.com

Input energy use data: "Something we prepared earlier" Direct and indirect costs of different transport modes. Direct energy costs from Defra (2012). Indirect energy costs calculated from a variety of sources.

Mode shifts in short term (EN) (DfT 2011) Habitual behaviour linked to housing, high intertia to change (Understanding Society dataset)