Assessment of Fuel Economy Technologies for Medium and Heavy ...

In Stockholm, the cordon pricing scheme reduced total GHG emissions from vehicles by 10 to 14
percent in the pricing zone. According to the manual counts of travel within the zone, there has
been a 13 percent reduction of truck trips, but only a 7.8 percent reduction in truck VMT once the
scheme was implemented. The total VMT is 2,185,000 and heavy truck VMT is 55,994, 2.8 percent
of total VMT. If the GHG were reduced by 14 percent, then trucks were responsible for 0.4
percent of the total reductions, a modest amount.
To estimate the maximum potential fuel savings from congestion reduction, it is necessary to
estimate total freight truck delay as well as total fuel consumption by hour of delay. Winston and
Langer 35 estimate the cost of congestion to freight trucks to be approximately $10 billion in the
year 2000, based on the Texas Transportation Institute‘s measures of urban delay in 2000 and the
FHWA Freight Analysis Framework estimates of total origin-destination delay. Using the
authors‘ value of time of $30 per hour of delay, the results imply a total of 333 million hours of
delay ($10 billion/$30 per hour). According to a 1993 FHWA study, which produced fuel
consumption estimates for the Highway Performance Monitoring System, a combination truck
consumes 1.934 gallons of fuel per hour in congestion. 36 These values imply that, in 2000, the
total excess national fuel consumption resulting from highway congestion was at most 500
million gallons (333 million hours * 1.51 gallons/hour), or 2.0 percent of (current) truck fuel
consumption. 37 This value provides the upper bound for the potential fuel consumption savings
from congestion reduction strategies (including congestion pricing), assuming that only
operational (and not demand) effects are considered.
Potential for Government Promotion: Congestion pricing has been experimented with in a
number of areas, primarily on existing tolled facilities, but has not yet gained widespread
popularity. From a technical standpoint, congestion pricing is relatively easy to implement on
facilities that already are tolled. The broader-scale application of this strategy beyond existing or
proposed toll highway facilities, however, is likely to require the universal deployment of
electronic toll collection technologies. This will require coordination by a state or regional
transportation agency. The U.S. DOT is encouraging greater experimentation in this area. In
2007, the Department awarded $853 million in funding to five metro areas for Urban Partnership
Agreements to reduce congestion, which include a significant focus on tolling/pricing strategies.
(iii) Intermodal Transport
Key Question: What impact would public-sector initiatives to improve intermodal transport
have on fuel consumption
35
Winston and Langer, ―The Effect of Government Highway Spending on Road Users‘ Congestion
Costs,‖ AEI-Brookings, May 2006.
36
Science Applications International Corporation, Speed Determination Models for the Highway Performance
Monitoring System, prepared for the Federal Highway Administration, 1993.
37
Two factors may cause this estimate to be overstated – first, the use of the combination truck fuel
consumption rate slightly overestimates the total wasted fuel since this rate will be less for single-unit
trucks (1.607 gallons/hr); and second, trucks have become more fuel-efficient since that time (average
truck fuel efficiency increased by 22 percent between 1993 and 2007, according to the Transportation Energy
Data Book Edition 28, Table 5.1). On the other hand, total congestion has increased since the Winston and
Langer study was conducted in 2000.
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