Assessment of energy efficiency and sustainability scenarios in the transport system

Background Energy Policy is one of the main drivers of Transport Policy. A number of strategies to reduce current energy consumption trends in the transport sector have been designed over the last decades. They include fuel taxes, more efficient technologies and changing travel behavior through demand regulation. But energy market has a high degree of uncertainty and the effectiveness of those policy options should be assessed. Methods A scenario based assessment methodology has been developed in the frame of the EU project STEPS. It provides an integrated view of Energy efficiency, environment, social and competitiveness impacts of the different strategies. It has been applied at European level and to five specific Regions. Concluding remarks The results are quite site specific dependent. However they show that regulation measures appear to be more effective than new technology investments. Higher energy prices could produce on their turn a deterioration of competitiveness and a threat for social goals

LUISA: A Land-Use Interaction with Social Accounting Model; Presentation and Enhanced Calibration Method

Random utility modelling has been established as one of the main paradigms for the implementation of land-use spatial interaction (LUSI) models. We present a detailed formal description of a LUSI model that adheres to the random utility paradigm through the explicit distinction between utility and cost across all processes that represent the behaviour of agents. The model is rooted in a social accounting matrix, with the workforce and households accounts being disaggregated by socioeconomic type. Similarly, the land account is broken down by domestic and nondomestic land-use types. The model is developed around two processes. Firstly, the generation of demand for inputs required by established production; when appropriate the implicit production functions are assumed to depend on costs of inputs, which give rise to price-elastic demands. And, secondly, the spatial assignment of demanded inputs to locations of their production; here sequences of decisions are used to distribute demand both spatially and aspatially, and to propagate costs and utilities of production and consumption that emerge from imbalances between supply and demand. The implementation of this generic model is discussed in relation to the case of the UK. The model has been developed for testing the sustainability of integrated economic, spatial development policies, and output information for estimating urban form and the potential for decentralised technologies. The inputs include area-wide socioeconomic forecasts and the allocation policy of urban land. The outputs include the spatial allocation of activities and prices of labour, goods and services, land, and floorspace. They are combined with the land inputs to estimate the changes in the density of urban form and activities. These outputs can then be used to estimate the demands for infrastructure services and the potential for decentralised infrastructure supply. We focus primarily on the calibration process and its methodological implications, including a method of refining the calibration and demonstrate how this improves the spatial representation of the utility of land. </jats:p