Planning for energy-efficient transport in a small town: Influence from different urban configurations of destination points and housing establishments

Abstract

Urban and transport planning can strongly affect energy usage induced by travel in cities. However, most studies investigate large cities with crude measurements of induced travel without consideration of the urban configuration of residences and their trip destinations, and little attention has been paid to smaller cities. We investigate energy usage (CO₂-emissions) from car travel in a small Swedish city using a novel approach based on detailed GPS-tracking data of actual car mobility to calculate CO₂-emissions on street segments and to identify major destinations. We also construct configuration scenarios, applied to the case city. These scenarios’ induced CO₂ emission from transports is evaluated in relation to the current configuration of the city. We find that changes in the urban configuration can impact on energy usage from intra-urban car travel by some 40% compared to the current situation and that the configurations display large relative differences in transport-efficiency, polycentric and public transport-based configurations being more efficient than monocentric development. We conclude that housing allocation is less important for car transport efficiency than re-location of existing destination points. Urban planning needs to be critical to over-simplified densification strategies and analyze the urban configuration to find optimal solutions.