This paper begins with a review of the Mexican energy system, and illustrates its concepts of energy demand management by presenting a case study for the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City (MAMC), that can be relevant to other large conurbations. About 75-80% of the MAMC's non-organic air pollution has transport sources. The MAMC has about 17M inhabitants, with a transport demand of about 37M trip-persons per day, of which about 32.5M uses modes burning fossil fuels. The paper discusses a proposal to reduce the number of individual journeys to work per day, thus considerably reducing fuel consumption and resulting vehicle emissions. Studies supported by the Mexico University Energy Programme have shown that Programme have shown that about 82% of daily travel in Mexico City arises from journeys to and from work or school. The proposal would increase each working day from eight to ten hours, but have one fewer working day per week. The extra 'free day' would be different for different individuals, thus spread over the working week. If even half of the potential 20% reduction of journeys to work could be achieved, Mexico City's fuel consumption would be reduced by 730M litres per year. Detailed studies are being made of several aspects of the proposal.
Abstract