Announcement of Pre-Licentiate Final Seminar, "Peak Car in Sweden?"

Title: "Peak Car in Sweden?"
Time: Wednesday, 18th of March, 2015, 13.00 - 15.00
Location: Nash-Wardrop Seminar Room, Ground Floor, Teknikringen 10A, KTH

Respondent: Anne Bastian, PhD Student at KTH
Opponent: Lars-Göran Mattsson, Researcher at KTH
Supervisors: Maria Börjesson and Jonas Eliasson, KTH

Abstracts

Paper 1: Peak Car? - Drivers of  the recent decline in Swedish car use

It has long been well-known that economic variables such as GDP and fuel price as well as socio-demographic characteristics and spatial distribution are key factors explaining car use trends. However, due to the recently observed plateau of total car travel in many high income countries, it has been argued that other factors, such as changes in preferences, attitudes and life-styles, have become more important drivers of car use.  This paper shows that the two variables GDP per capita and fuel price explain most of the VKT (vehicle kilometers traveled) trends: as much as 80% over the years 2002 to 2012. The estimated elasticities are well in line with previous literature and can reasonably well reproduce the VKT trend per adult back to 1980. We find, however, a substantial variation between municipalities in terms of elasticity of VKT per adult with respect to fuel price and GDP per capita, depending on public transport supply, population density, share of foreign-born inhabitants and the average income level.

Paper 2: Peak Car in Sweden?  Urban men reduce their high driving levels because they can

We study long term trends in regional car travel demand within and across socio-demographic groups in Sweden, using cross-sectional data from National Travel Surveys, spanning the period from 1978 to 2011. The 2006 versus 2011 data are analyzed in the context of strong increases in fuel prices, economic crisis and fast immigration to urban areas that occurred simultaneously during this period. We find that the recent reduction in per adult driving is mainly occurring among urban men. Urban men of all age and all except the lowest income groups reduced their driving for both commuting and non-commuting trips in conjunction with rising gasoline prices. Rising gasoline prices may have contributed to this development. We find that driving among those socio-demographic groups, who have better opportunities to reduce their driving, and driving for discretionary rather than commute purposes is being reduced over time. Sweden is ranked among the most gender equal countries in the world, yet we find a substantial remaining gender gap in driving demand, in particular in urban areas, even when controlling for other socio-demographic differences, which could indicate underlying gender differences in preferences towards driving.

Welcome,

Maria Börjeson

Maria Börjesson

Associate Professor Transport Systems Analysis

Director Centre for Transport Studies, Royal Institute of Technology

maria.borjesson@abe.kth.se; +46-70-258 32 66

mail: Teknikringen 10, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden