The effect of changes in fuel prices on the amount of motorised traffic has been estimated by analysing the monthly national traffic counts categorised into cars, vans (less than or equal to 1.5 tons unladen), other goods vehicles, and all vehicles combined. The period covered (1972 to 1978) includes the time of the large fuel price increases which followed the oil crisis of 1974. Consistent and significant elasticities of vehicle-kilometres travelled per licensed vehicle relative to petrol price were obtained in the range -0.10 to -0.17 for cars and for all traffic combined. This means that if real fuel prices increase by 1 per cent there is a decrease in vehicle kilometres per licensed vehicle of between 0.10 and 0.17 per cent. For vans the results were not so consistent, with one method of analysis giving a similar petrol elasticity to that of cars and all vehicles, while a second method produced non-significant results. The price of diesel fuel rather than petrol was used for analysis of heavy goods vehicles; the elasticity was not significantly different from zero at +0.05 plus or minus 0.10. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting