25 years of U.S. energy policy successes, failures, and some general lessons for public policy

Transportation Quarterly

Volumn 52, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 7-13

  Lave, Charles ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 11544308943     PISSN: 02789434     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. The common assumption that buses run full is based on observer bias. Few people are riding at times when loads are light, so there will be few observers to report this low load factor. The great majority of people are riding together at common times and observing full vehicles. Thus, the average observer will tell us that load factors are very high, even though they are not. A simple-minded model gives an approximately correct estimate of load factors. Suppose a bus starts on the edge of the city and picks up passengers uniformly all the way along its route to downtown: average load factor is 50%. Then the bus returns to the edge with no passengers, a 0% load factor, producing a round-trip average of 25%.
2. Stacy Davis, Transportation Energy Data Book, 17th edition. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 1997, p. 2-18.
3. Charles Lave. "Measuring the Decline in Transit Productivity in the United States," Transportation Planning and Technology 15 (Winter 1991), pp. 115-124.
4. Charles Lave, "Rail Rapid Transit and Energy: The Adverse Effects," Tronsportation Research Record 648 (1978), pp. 14-29.
5. Charles Lave, "Cars and Demographics," Access (Fall 1992), pp. 4-11.
6. Glenn Blomquist, "The 55 raph Speed Limit and Gasoline Consumption," Resources and Energy 6 (March 1984), pp. 21-39.
7. For a review of the history of CAFE and controversies surrounding it, see David Greene, Transportation and Energy. Lansdowne, VA: Eno Transportation Foundation, Inc., 1996.
8. There are separate CAFE standards for cars and for light trucks such as vans, pickups, and sport utility vehicles. The light truck CAFE standard is only 20.6 mpg. and light trucks have become an increasingly large share of the total market. As of 1995, the total fleet - new and old - of cars and personal light trucks (those used as car replacements) had an energy efficiency of 4,046 Btu/passenger-miles. This compares to 3.467 Btu/passenger miles for new cars, 4,650 Btu/passenger miles for the average transit bus, and 3,818 Btu/passenger miles for the average rail transit system. For detailed information on this, see Davis, Transportation Energy Data Book, Table 2.13.
9. This is not an argument to discard public transportation. Transit is vitally necessary for high-density cities, and for many segments of the population in all cities. But the energy goal is not a relevant justification for the needed subsidies.
10. Albert O. Hirschman, The Strategy of Economic Development. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958.