Constant travel budgets and kilometres: The impact of deviations on energy use and climate policy

Regular travel patterns across countries, cities and cultures have been attributed to stable travel time budgets and travel money budgets. With such consistency in travel patterns, these characteristics can be modelled and results or assumptions are transferable across cases. Preliminary reviews of the United Kingdom National Travel Survey reveals that at an aggregate level, average travel trends do not oscillate widely. Initial results using the WITCH model show that changes in the kilometres driven per year using light duty vehicles can have a notable effect on the optimal vehicle fleet composition due to underlying fuel use dynamics and/or carbon costs