The modern model of mobility

Sustainable mobility provides for the safe freedom of movement for people and goods in a way that uses renewable sources of energy while creating no adverse impacts on the earth and its environment.

Only relatively recently have concerns over climate change begun to raise everlasting questions about the mobile lifestyle of modern developed nations and the implications of the global spread of the motor car.

Mechanized mobility has become essential for our modern way of life. Economic prosperity grows on the back of goods transport modes. The more goods we can move faster to market, the greater the wealth resulting from the value created by those goods.

Every person with access to modern communications sees the freedom and extent of mobility available to people in the developed nations. Every one in emerging and developing nations aspires to similar levels of mobility

Questioning the forecast for the overall fleet size

Globally at the moment, there are an estimated 800 million 4+ wheeled vehicles in-use today. Many estimates of the future growth of this fleet expect this number to double by 2050, with the associated consequences in terms of air quality, fuel consumption and climate change.

Economic forecasts expect increased prosperity in all regions of the world. Changes in purchasing power of the various currencies present a somewhat different view than might be first apparent from the overall wealth of nations . As a consequence, there is much more purchasing power in the hands of the Japanese, Europeans and Americans as well as the Chinese than the relative growth in GDP would at first suggest

This model projects that the global in-use vehicle fleet will be in the order of 3 billion vehicles by 2035. This is an in-use fleet that is 3.75 times the size of the current fleet. That is, almost three to four times the demand for physical space, raw materials and fuel that exists today, and 3 to 4 times the input to the atmosphere of toxic and climate-changing emissions (assuming no change in vehicle characteristics and similar annual distances travelled).

The numbers are staggering and the consequences onerous

The significant increases in vehicle population would occur in regions where the roadway and parking infrastructure is least capable of accommodating large numbers of vehicles. The demand for fuel and natural resources is enormous. Still, if demand for mobility follows current patterns, the economic potential is headed in this direction, and the consequences are clear, present and onerous. No other forecaster has publicly entertained such a massive in-use fleet. The sheer numbers are staggering, and the consequences boggle the mind. The danger comes in not recognizing the plausibility of this scenario, and in not taking the necessary steps to ensure that it does not occur. Clearly, applying our contemporary model of mobility to the rest of the world is not sustainable, yet most of the world clamours for just that

Solutions to mitigate the impact of a massive fleet growth

There are tremendous technical advances available to us today to get us part of the way towards minimizing the impact of the future in-use-fleet.

• Powertrain technology alone can reduce CO₂ and fuel consumption by about 40 and 50% respectively (see graph below) compared to conventional gasoline engines.
• Alternative fuels can displace more of the conventional fuels, but many are alternative forms of fossil fuels which are ultimately in limited supply and add carbon sequestered naturally from previous generations into our biosphere.
• Fuels made from vegetable stock are more benign, and once the transition disruptions are addressed, represent a viable alternative to replace at least 15% of our transportation energy demand before we run into a food-fuel conflict.
• A significant shift towards smaller vehicles that require less energy will also help. But even an apparently substantial change in the resulting market mix actually results in only a modest change in net transportation energy demand.

The net benefit, then, of deploying technical changes combined with plausible CO₂- or fuel-conscious changes in the market mix of otherwise conventional vehicles is a net reduction on the order of 40% on average per vehicle in Western Europe (given that a little more than half of the new vehicles are already Diesel) and about 60% elsewhere. With the forecast quadrupling of the vehicle in-use fleet and a 3 to 4 fold increase in net transportation energy demand, these gains, as significant as they may be, are nonetheless insufficient to achieve even a net status quo in terms of CO₂ and fossil fuel demand.

If the current mobility model remains in place, we will still see an approximate doubling of land transport-related energy demand and fossil-related CO₂ emissions even with full deployment of our most advanced powertrain technologies and a downsizing of the fleet.

Evolving the global model of mobility to minimize its energy intensity

Instead, the global model of mobility will change to embrace all these solutions and more. A holistic approach must adopt political, market, regulatory and fiscal measures to evolve our current model towards one that minimizes the fundamental energy intensity of personal and goods transport.

What we must do is view the current regulatory standards for the next decade as the first steps, not the final objective. These are the foundations upon which we will build a new era of mobility.

The challenge before us is to recognize on a global scale that these are the necessary choices, and act soon enough such that the transition to this holistic approach is managed as an opportunity rather than reacted to as a crisis. Left unabated, the natural economic demand for mobility will overwhelm the ability to sustain it, and we will enter into an era of profoundly disruptive change: a crisis of resources, of pollution, of mobility, with all the resultant political and economic consequences.

Read also:
- What is mobility?
- What is sustainability?
- Mobility challenged by unsustainable trends

Categories: Biofuels - Emissions - Energy - Sustainable mobility

Keywords: CO2 - greenhouse gas - Transportation