22: Energy Consumption Estimation with a Shipper and Transport Chain Survey

Over one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in France comes from the transport sector and this share is growing: there is no sign of saturation of transport energy use. Therefore, climate change mitigation requires profound changes in world transport, either in the form of energy efficiency improvements or by changing transport demand. We are beginning to understand the determinants of demand, as expressed in vehicle-kilometres, for passenger travel (vehicle ownership, age, location) and the consequence these determinants have on energy consumption, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. These determinants are much less well known for freight, while effective intervention with a view to reducing the impact of road and air freight requires in-depth knowledge about the factors that influence firms in their logistical choices. This lack of knowledge is due to several factors: the theoretical complexity of the problem, the insufficiencies of resources that have been made available for freight compared with passenger transport, and the inadequacy of the existing data. With regard to data, the shipper surveys that INRETS has developed seem to us to have considerable, as yet unexploited, potential.