With oil prices again above $100 or even $110 per barrel, this is a $4.5 billion / day question. Road transportation does represent around 45% of global oil consumption (Source : BNEF) and is thus a major issue. Governments and people alike are looking for ways to slash their reliance on private cars and other vehicles with internal combustion engines. As we will see there are quite a few ways to do so.
Subsidizing oil prices to prevent social unrest might be the simplest and also worst solution at the same time. This doesn’t help people getting off their gas powered car, which should be and should have been the goal all this time (unless you are an oil company, of course).
As electric vehicles are now more and more competitive – whether cars, buses or trucks – they are fast becoming a no-brainer. Much more efficient, they consume much less energy and thus pollute much less. However, there are many other solutions that also need to be pushed massively to get ground transportation to use much less oil globally. This requires some serious systems thinking :
First of all, before even thinking of having a car to commute to work we have to wonder if we really need to actually get to the office to work ? In many cases, working from home allows people to carry out their task from the comfort of their houses. This worked during the various COVID-19 lockdowns and for millions of people ever since.
Then, regular and electric bikes are a wonderful way to go around for a few miles every day. (whether to go to school, to work, to get groceries, to visit friends and family…) Having biked extensively during the rainy “long dark” in Seattle, WA, I can say that every season can be biking season with the right equipment.
As we have seen time and again here, cycling has the potential become a major transportation mean again with the right incentives and public support (protected bike lanes but also safe parking and so on)
Thirdly, public transportation needs to come back to answer the demand within cities and megalopolis. Whether its electric buses, light rail or trams for inner city mobility and trains or bus rapid transit (BRT) for larger areas and between cities, there are many a way to slash demands for cars. Electrification also plays a key role to decrease energy consumption, lower air pollution and slash noise.
Last but not least, retrofitting existing internal combustion vehicles with electric motors and batteries. Whether they are buses, trucks or cars, this should become mainstream to accelerate significantly the electrification of transport. It is to be hoped that a genuine political and industrial drive (pun totally intended) emerges towards this particular solution.
Implementing all these solutions will have many ripple effects on our cities and communities. With less people relying on cars everyday, less vehicles will be used to go around and much less space will be necessary to park cars. This will mean more space for trees and people alike. More parks will mean lower temperature within urban areas…
You could say that not having to rely daily on cars will transform our communities… Private car ownership is a major costs for most people, from over 11,500 USD for the United States to around 5,000 € in France… If only more citizens realized this and demanded change from their local and national authorities.
To conclude, if this article focused on oil used in the ground transportation sector, one has to know that both ships and planes represent another 19 percent of global oil consumption. If there are ways to ditch oil for other means for maritime shipping and ferries, it’s to be expected that oil will still power airplanes for the foreseeable future.
Image credits : Aleksandr Popov on Unsplash
