This was my presentation at RGS-IBG annual conference, 2013.

1. English cars vs Dutch bikes: an
international comparison of the
energy costs of commuting
RGS-IBG
28th August 2013
Robin Lovelace

2. Background
• Peak oil, obesity, climate change, recession
• Energy: 'master resource', affects all

3. Energy use transport: fundamentals
• It's "nature's money"
• Various ways of measuring it
• Direct (fuel) and indirect: fuel, vehicle and road
construction (Lovelace, 2011)
• Average per unit distance - refine after 1 estimate

4. Data and methods
• Dutch data taken from Statistics
Netherlands and English data from
Casweb: official data
• Method uses estimates of vehicle
energy use per km (Fels, 1975)
• All analysis + visualisation in R
• E = distance * efficiency * number
• 'Best estimates' (MacKay, 2009)
• Result reproducible: RPubs
documents + uploaded .zip folder
• RMarkdown runs code 'live'

5. England vs the Netherlands
Attribute England Netherlands Units
Population density 407 406 ppl/km2
GDP 50,000 46,000 $/capita
Income inequality 34 (UK) 31 Gini Index
Wellbeing 0.875 (UK) 0.921 UN HDI
Sources: UN
Economic
Commission
for Europe,
CIA Factbook,
World Bank

6. National-level comparisons
Average energy costs per one way trip to work in English regions (2001) and
Dutch provinces (2010)

7. Headline figures
• The average commute is more energy
intensive in NL
• By 10%: 34 MJ/trip in England vs 38
MJ/trip in the Netherlands
• Southern English regions (except London) have
higher populations and energy use
• Populous and urbanised NL provinces: lower
energy use

8. Explanation I - mode

9. Explanation II - Distance
• Average distance in UK: 14.8 km
• Netherlands average: 17.7 km
• NL distance: 27% further

10. Explanation III - Infrastructure
~2600 km of motorways in NL, ~3700 km EN
(Eurostat, 2013): around 150 km vs 70 km per
million people: more than double!
Credit:
pricetags
blog
Credit:
Michelin

11. Data inconsistencies and caveats
• 2001 vs 2010 data
• NL data highly aggregated, percentages and
averages
• EN data provides actual counts, high spatial
resolution available, but distance not yet
available in 2011 Census
• Euclidean vs route distances are an issue
• Assume same car fleet efficiencies
• Best approximation (MacKay 2009), not 'final
answer'

12. Scales of
analysis
Regional scale
misses complexity
of pattern
NL data not
available on this:
no census
Same spatial
patterns across
countries?

13. Distance changes over time (EN)
Shifted very little since 2001 (DfT, 2011).

14. Conclusions
• Higher energy use in Netherlands for
commuting is unexpected
• 'Good' transport policies do not
automatically prevent 'bad' outcomes
• Links with 'green bling' effect of
renewables
• Are bicycles a diversion?
• Sustainable transport policy should be
'joined up'

15. Key references
• Defra (2012). 2012 Guidelines to Defra / DECC’s GHG Conversion
Factors for Company Reporting: Methodology Paper
• DfT. (2011). Commuting and business travel factsheet tables.
• Dropbox .zip folder with all code + data for reproducible results and
feedback
• Fels, M. F. (1975). Comparative energy costs of urban
transportation systems. Transportation Research, 9(5), 297–308.
• Lovelace, R. et al. (2011). Assessing the energy implications of
replacing car trips with bicycle trips in Sheffield, UK. Energy Policy,
39(4)
• MacKay, D. (2009) Sustainable energy without the hot air. UIT
Press. (Entirely free online).
• robinlovelace on RPubs: reproducible code and output for EN, NL
and compared
Contact me: rob00x-at-gmail.com,
youtube.com/robinlovelace, robinlovelace.wordpress.com

16. Input energy use data: "Something
we prepared earlier"
Direct and indirect
costs of different
transport modes.
Direct energy
costs from Defra
(2012). Indirect
energy costs
calculated from a
variety of sources.

17. Mode shifts in short term (EN) (DfT 2011)
Habitual behaviour linked to housing, high intertia
to change (Understanding Society dataset)