sectoral economic costs and benefits of ghg mitigation - IPCC

Transport
Altering the mix of vehicles used to carry travellers requires policies to move people away from
the use of private automobiles towards other forms of transportation. Here, experience has shown
that a two-prong approach is required. The first prong is to raise the cost of private vehicle use.
Options include traffic management (for example, one-way systems, closing streets, downtown
pedestrian zones, and provision of exclusive bus lanes) and demand management (such as
increased parking fees, road tolls, fuel taxes, and car-pooling programs). The second prong is to
provide alternatives to private automobiles, which can be in favour of either larger vehicles
(vans, buses, or mass transit), or non-motorized options, primarily bicycles. Without viable
transit alternatives, the higher road user fees would lead to higher financial costs of travel with
relatively little decrease in actual travel.
Also, the mere provision of public transport is not enough to lure commuters away from their
cars onto public transport. Simultaneous disincentives for private vehicle use are required to
achieve ridership. Similarly, the provision of public transport alternatives is not sufficient to
achieve reduced congestion or emissions. As motorists switch to public transit, others will start
driving upon seeing the congestion slightly relieved. Thus, it is always essential to attack urban
congestion through comprehensive measures – both traffic management and pricing –which
restrict automobile use.
Strategy to reduce GHG emissions
The main GHG produced from the use of fossil fuels in the transport sector is CO 2 . Abatement of
CO 2 , the principal GHG from the transport sector, would require curtailment of energy
consumption for transportation activity that includes passenger and freight movement,
particularly by road. Strategies for reducing transport energy demand (or at least to reduce its
growth) and its concomitant carbon emissions are manifold. Policies that can help reduce CO 2
emissions by the transport sector can be classified into following groups: (1) Fuel efficiency
improvements, (2) system efficiency improvements, (3) modal split changes, (4) behavioural
changes, and (5) technological change.
Fuel efficiency improvements
Fuel efficiency in developing countries is characterized by much slower rates of fleet turnover,
resulting in a higher average age of vehicles, which are often imported from industrialized
countries and which also tend to be poorly maintained. The energy consumption of these vehicles
is naturally higher than that of new vehicles. For instance, most cars, buses, and other vehicles
exported to Bangladesh are the reconditioned ones. These reconditioned vehicles are four to five
years old. Many of them are in a poor condition and deteriorate very quickly. The energy
consumption of these vehicles is naturally higher than that of new vehicles.
Following the economic liberalization in India in 1991, the most fuel-efficient car available on
the Indian market is about twice as fuel efficient as the current fleet average. New car models in
the small car segments have an average gasoline consumption of less than 5 litres/100 vehiclekm.
This represents an improvement over current fleet averages by a factor of two. Similarly, the
most fuel-efficient 4-stroke two-wheelers (scooters and motorcycles), with an average gasoline
consumption of less than 2 litres/100 vehicle-km, are as much as one and a half times more
efficient than other motor cycles on the road. The existing 2-stroke engines of two- and threewheelers
in India and Bangladesh, which together account for majority of the total vehicles inuse
on road, are highly fuel inefficient and polluting too. Their replacement by improved 4-stroke
engines has tremendous oil conservation and emission benefits.
The buses with the best current designs consume 20 litres/100 vehicle-km, as against the
traditional ones (28 litres/vehicle-km). In India, these are modelled around a truck chassis, which
is basically designed for long-distance inter-city traffic. Buses need to be designed specifically
for intra-city traffic to achieve higher efficiency of diesel combustion.
170