Energy consumption and truck freight transport demand : is Denmark a special case?: Work in progress

Considering the externalities of freight transport activity (energy use, accidents, congestion, its related GHG emissions, and lost oil revenues) this article reviews trends from 1990-2005 in truck freight fuel intensity (energy use (Megajoules) per tonne-km moved), on road truck fuel economy (L/ 100 km driven). We review changes in decoupling truck freight activity from GDP. We examine separately five manufacturing sectors using data from Statistics Denmark on vehicle performance for 1980-2006. Our four major findings are: (1) truck freight energy intensity (Megajoules/tonne-km) continues to grow as well as CO2 emissions; (2) decoupling has not been large enough to reduce overall energy use of truck; (3) because of the absence of fuel economy regulations, a low average vehicle load, increased hauling distance, overall energy use of truck freight will continue to expand; (4) results show that standard freight econometric models make use of a deterministic trend to explain fuel intensity and cannot accommodate long-run effects such as asymmetric diesel price effects and relationship between the variables in the freight demand. Our results do not confirm that decoupling truck freight has accelerated in recent years. Long run elasticity (price and income) are also estimated.This paper has also been published as a part of University of Oxford Transport Studies Unit working papers series; no. 1039