Energy 36 (2011) 1916e1923

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Energy
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Energy efciency in transport and mobility from an eco-efciency viewpoint

Alfonso Aranda Usn*, Antonio Valero Capilla, Ignacio Zabalza Bribin, Sabina Scarpellini,
Eva Llera Sastresa
CIRCE, Centre of Research for Energy Resources and Consumption, Polytechnic Centre, University of Zaragoza, Mara de Luna, 3, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 10 September 2009
Received in revised form
28 April 2010
Accepted 3 May 2010
Available online 8 June 2010

European Union countries current energy policies for the transport sector promote, amongst other
initiatives; urban mobility plans, the renewal of eets of cars and industrial vehicles and the introduction
of biofuel. From the point of view of eco-efciency and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), energy policies must
go further. The objective of this paper is to analyse the current transport model and the policies on
energy efciency being promoted in the EU from a LCA point of view. Special attention has been paid to
private vehicles, in assessing the environmental impact of the various stages of manufacture, their use
and disposal, and the consequences of plans to renew eets. How old should a vehicle ideally be so that
when it is changed, the embodied energy in the materials of the vehicle is less than the gain in energy
efciency due to changing the model for example? In addition the paper analyses the different means of
transport in the energy consumptionetime ratio from a LCA viewpoint. The fact that reducing transport
times leads to greater energy consumption gives rise to the question: how long does nature take to repair
the environmental damage caused?
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Energy efciency
Transport
LCA
Eco-efciency
Vehicle

1. Introduction
Final energy consumption in the transport sector is dened by two
factors: specic energy consumption (toe/Mt (Equivalent tonnes of
oil/per millions of tonnes transported) merchandise) and mobility
(MvXkm (Millions of travellers per kilometres travelled) journeyed).
Transports specic consumption for a lorry is around 15 times higher
than using a railway. According to mobility, cars are two to three times
less efcient than trains or other means of public transport [1,2].
A considerable increase in trafc is forecast for the next 10 years
as a consequence of, amongst other factors, the consolidation and
expansion of internal markets, the globalisation of economies, the
development and application of logistical techniques and,
improvements in living standards implying a higher number of
requirements in mobility. As indicated in the last European
Commission White Paper, all these factors can lead to an increase in
mobility ranging from 24% to 38% in the case of transport of
merchandise (Fig. 1). Road transport produces 85% of all CO2
emissions, 40% being attributed to urban public transport.
CO2 emissions associated with each one of these depend on the
type of fuel being used. Differences between fossil fuels in different

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 34 976761863; fax: 34976732078.

E-mail address: alaranda@unizar.es (A. Aranda Usn).
0360-5442/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.energy.2010.05.002

kinds of road transport are not relevant. Improvements will,

therefore, have to come from introducing renewable fuels [3].
Great advances in technology have been made which signal
important changes to vehicle eets within a 15e20-year horizon,
such as the development of alternative fuels, hydrogen cars and
hybrid cars [4e8]. Regarding the environmental impacts associated
with the different range of fuels used in the transport sector,
differences can reach 75% in impacts reduction from the most to the
least polluting ones [1]. There are several studies which assess the
environmental impact of biofuels from their life cycle point of view
[9e12], amongst many others. To fully analyse energy efciency, it
is necessary to study not only fuel consumption but also to take into
account the embodied energy in the materials used in the manufacture of the means of transport over its usable life. To achieve this
from the point of view of eco-efciency, the paper analyses the
justication for changing a vehicle for a more modern and less fuel
consuming one (as current policies encourage), when taking into
account the embodied energy of manufacture in both processes and
materials and recycling. That is to say, to take into account the
entire life cycle, as advocated by eco-efciency.
Sustainable mobility will be achieved when we recognise not
only that not everything should be measured using speed and
monetary cost standards in getting to our destination, but also
achieving at the same time relevant levels of the proximity and
attractiveness of transport alternatives (people and merchandise).
Time saved on journeys has consequences for the ability for nature

A. Aranda Uson et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 1916e1923

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2. Methodology
Nomenclature
Toe/Mt

Equivalent tonnes of oil/per millions of tonnes

transported
MvXkm Millions of travellers per kilometres travelled
HST
High speed train
GDP
Gross domestic product
GHG
Greenhouse gases
DfE
Design for the environment
DfR
Design for re-use

to recover itself, measured in the time it takes to replace the spent

fuel. The paper quanties an example of this.
The transport sector is related to all other economic activities;
shortening distances between production and consumption
centres, responding to the mobility demands of citizens and
ensuring good accessibility within a territory. The close correlation
between the economic development of a region or country
(measured in terms of GDP (Gross domestic product)) and transport (measured in travellers or tonnes per kilometre) is, therefore,
not surprising [13,14].
A global energy situation in which there is an absolute dependency on fossil fuels, along with the knowledge that the present
state of the sector is environmentally non-sustainable is pushing
national policies toward nding ways to reduce energy consumption. The paper analyses the current model for transport and
mobility, taking into account the environmental impact generated
(measured in the time required for the replenishment of natural
resources) by different kinds of transport, from the point of view of
environmental actions that contribute to energy efcient
consumption patterns.
Energy efciency is studied/viewed through the Life Cycle
thought process. The energy cost is be quantied taking into
account the cars operation, obtained through the technology
update, and the energy cost of manufacturing. The combination
of the results of environmental impact, sustainability and
energy efciency during life cycle constitutes the eco-efciency
vision.
This paper presents, on the one hand, the environmental costs of
the current mobility model measured in terms of the cost of
replacement to nature and, on the other hand, an analysis of the
energy pay-back of a car for another more modern and more fuel
efcient taking into account their energy consumption. Results
could be used to conduce the current transportation model toward
a more sustainable model.

The term Eco-efciency was coined by the World Business

Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in their 1992 publication Changing Course according to which an enterprise can be
considered eco-efcient when it is able to offer products and services
at a competitive price, full human needs, increase their life standard,
progressively reduce environmental impact and intensity in the use of
resources throughout its life cycle to at least the planets charge capacity
level, this is to say when it is capable of producing more with less.
The eco-efciency analysis shown, studies the environmental
impact and intensity in the use of resources throughout the life
cycle, measured in energy consumption, embodied energy incorporated in the materials and the resulting carbon footprint. The
results should serve to aid the decisions of policy makers toward
developing a more sustainable society.
Eco-efciency should stimulate creativity and innovative
production systems. There are many such examples of this in
process re-engineering, in eco-products valorisation (industrial
ecology and inverse logistics), in re-designing products (eco-design
tools and life cycle assessment) and in new approaches for markets
(products functionality, services economy, etc.). In order to achieve
environmental impact minimisation, businesses should be
managed with a global vision of an overall process, from cradle to
grave, knowing exactly how much of each resource is consumed
per product unit as well as the exact amount of waste generated.
This perspective can only be achieved through LCA (Life Cycle
Assessment) as it is an environmental management tool to achieve
eco-efciency.
Current LCA methodology needs to be adapted to different users
needs, it is, therefore, necessary to make LCA more efcient. The
principal barriers to using LCA in the analysis of energy efciency
(eco-efciency) are:
(1) The perception that it needs a great deal of information and it is
work intensive, consequently LCA is too expensive.
(2) It requires a high degree of knowledge and preparation by the
analyst.
Other barriers include its perceived complexity, arbitrariness
and issues with the interpretation of the results obtained. However,
LCA provides better decision support when aiming to achieve
a high degree of eco-efciency.
A partial LCA is subject to criticism although a simplied methodology is necessary to spread its use. UNE 150041 (EX) 1998 [15]
experimental norm establishes the main principles for the development and presentation of simplied LCA studies for a product system.

Fig. 1. EU CO2 emissions rates (19901). Source: Eurostat-2004 and FGM-AMOR 2005.

A. Aranda Uson et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 1916e1923

1918

Raw Materials
Procurement

Emissions to Air
(CO2eq)

Raw Materials
Emissions to
Water

Production

Energy

Emissions to soil
Operation & Maintenance

Final Waste Flows

Waste Management

Fig. 2. Life cycle inventory (ISO 14401, 1998).

Examples of developed approximations to simplify the current

LCA methodology and adapt it to eco-efciency studies are:
 Limiting or eliminating stages.
 Simplify calculations by focusing on only a few impact categories: this approximation consists in reducing inventory
coverage through the selection of an environmental issue and
assessing its life cycle from this viewpoint, such as studies on
energy consumptions and GHG (Greenhouse gases) emissions,
and excluding environmental issues such as loss of resources,
loss of well-being, etc., as these are not easily quantiable
 Limiting components to be assessed: eliminating those
components comprising of less than 5% in overall weight and
product or process environmental impact.
 Use of software and commercial database: SimaPro 7.1 software is used as it includes commercial databases as IDEMAT
2001, Ecoinvent v 2.0.
The inventory analysis shown (Fig. 2) involves data collection
and calculation procedures to quantify the relevant inputs and
outputs of the system analyzed. Ultimately it is about achieving
a balance of energy and materials owing in and out of the system
throughout its life. The quantied inputs of each subsystem include
the use of energy and raw materials from nature: raw materials
(water, sand, etc.), fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, etc.) and materials
from the technosphere: recycled materials (glass, cardboard, etc.),
fuels (propane, butane, etc.) and electricity. The quantied outputs
of each subsystem include emissions to air, water and soil as well as
byproducts and other wastes. In the evaluation phase, using the
results of the analysis of life cycle inventory, a set of environmental
variables is used. These are called impact categories (greenhouse
effect, acidication of land, etc.). Category indicators are used to
group and explain the results (kg CO2eq, kg SO2eq, etc.), which
reect the aggregate emissions or resources used for each impact
category. In the simplication made according to the objectives of
the study, global warming and primary energy consumption were
considered as impact categories.
The following section assesses the strategic lines used by several
EU countries to address energy reduction issues in the transport
sector from an eco-efciency perspective.

1. Renewing eets of cars and industrial vehicles with more

efcient ones.
2. From an eco-efciency viewpoint.
a. Modal change in transport.
b. Mobility in cities and surrounding areas.
c. Actions in order to improve the eco-efciency.

3. Renewing vehicles eet

3.1. Purpose and outline of analysis
Car manufacturers and public administrative bodies are taking
important measures to improve the efciency of vehicles. However,
growth in the number of running vehicles and of kilometres travelled is also increasing too; therefore, overall consumption tends to
rise. Moreover it is quite common for car buyers to include fuel
consumption considerations within their purchasing criteria [16].
When a car is evaluated from an energy point of view, it is necessary to evaluate it from its manufacture to its recycling or disposal.

Fig. 3. Evolution of fuel consumption in new vehicles. Source: ACEA.

A. Aranda Uson et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 1916e1923

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Table 1
Vehicle environmental impact according to Ecoindicator 99 H/A (kilopoints: kpts).
Database
IDEMAT 2001
IDEMAT 2001
ECOINVENT v2.0
ECOINVENT v2.0

Petrol
Diesel
Petrol
Diesel

Use

Manufacturing and
end use

Total

3.14 kpts
2.91 kpts
3.12 kpts
2.87 kpts

0.41 kpts
0.41 kpts
0.34 kpts
0.34 kpts

3.55 kpts
3.32 kpts
3.46 kpts
3.21 kpts

Energy consumption not only occurs while actually using the car,
there is also an energy cost in its manufacture, maintenance,
recycling and in the provision of required infrastructures. It is
important, therefore, to understand the impact of each of its
processes exactly [17].
In a private car mobility model, only 2% of all the energy used in
the process corresponds to passengers mobility [18]. In order to
improve efciency many manufacturers use aluminium bodywork
resulting in a 42% weight reduction when compared to the use of
steel. With this kind of initiative, average consumption ranges from
2.99 to 3.20 l per 100 km at 90 km/h. The extra energy cost for
aluminium manufacturing is recovered after 60.000 km.
There are over 160 million cars on European roads. What should
be done with these vehicles when they reach the end of their useful
life remains a major issue; they need to be disposed of in an
adequate way. Although three quarters of the raw materials used in
their manufacture (mainly metals) can be recycled or recovered,
25% (mainly plastics) cannot be used again. Not re-using them leads
to two basic consequences. Firstly, higher energy consumption and
greater environmental impact [19] and secondly degradation of
materials, as recycled items end up losing their initial qualities [20].
The European Union disposes of between 8 and 9 million cars each
year, producing 2 million tonnes of non-metallic waste in landll.
The European Commission proposed the creation of End-of-Life
Vehicles Board (2000/53/CE Directive [21] in 1997, later modied to
2005/64/CE Directive [22]). At the time the Board stipulated that
85% of the weight of a vehicle, be recycled and re-used before the
end of 2005 (the recycling percentage for metallic devices was
75%). Recovery and re-use/recycling objectives will have to reach
85% and 95%, respectively, before 2015 [23]. The main car manufacturers are already implementing initiatives in regard to design
and assembly (DfE (Design for the environment)) as well as design
and reassembly or re-use (DfR (Design for re-use)) [24]. However,
few manufacturers have put forward new initiatives in respect of
assembly and dismantling techniques. The majority of enterprises
are yet to focus their efforts on designing cars in order to facilitate
assembly, dismantling and materials separation [1].
When renewing eets of vehicles, eet managers should
consider how convenient it is to replace a vehicle so as to achieve
lower energy consumption when using the replacement. From an
energy point of view, when is it protable to replace (and recycle)
an old vehicle with a brand new one? In other words, at which
point is vehicle energy pay-back reached when its extra fuel need
(in relation to more efcient technologies coming out every year)
will have compensated for the amount of energy used in its
manufacturing and recycling?
Table 2
Energy consumption and emissions for a vehicle manufacturing and use. Energy
(toe)/emissions (tCO2eq).
Database
IDEMAT 2001
IDEMAT 2001
ECOINVENT v2.0
ECOINVENT v2.0
H. KOHLER

Petrol
Diesel
Petrol
Diesel
Diesel

Use
(toe/tCO2eq)

Manufacturing and
end use (toe/tCO2eq)

Total
(toe/tCO2eq)

15/45.7
14.37/39.8
14.82/45.3
14.21/39.5
14.9/44.1

2.73/6.3
2.73/6.3
2.07/4.1
2.07/4.1
2.84/6.4

17.73/52
17.1/46.1
16.89/49.4
16.28/43.6
17.74/50.5

Fig. 4. Evolution of CO2 emissions in new vehicles. Source: ACEA.

There are many studies which assess various components of

a vehicle from a LCA perspective in order to improve design and
minimize environmental impact such as [18,24e26]. Other studies
assess the degree of environmental impact for all the different
materials used [27]. This paper assess the whole vehicle as well as
the energy incorporated in the materials and the manufacturing
process. In order to make the presentation as self-contained as
possible, Section 1 introduces the notions of energy efciency in
transport and mobility, while Section 2 shows the aspect taken into
account for the Methodology. In Sections 3 and 4 we have presented and analyzed the results obtained from this work. Finally,
we conclude this article with some remarks in Section 5.
3.2. Assumptions
The reduction in average consumption for new vehicles was
constant between 1970 and 2007, ranging from 12 l per 100 km for
vehicles over 1500 cc in 1970 to 8.5 l per 100 km in the mid-90s and
in some cases, reaching 4.3 l per 100 km in 2007 [2,28]. Fig. 3 shows
the evolution in the reduction of fuel consumption through the
application of technological advances in vehicle engine design in
accordance with the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA).
In order to quantify the environmental impact and energy
consumption associated with manufacturing and vehicle use, IDEMAT 2001 and ECOINVENT v2.0 database information was used to
gain the following results for a 10-year-old average vehicle
weighing 1080 kg, with 14.2 years useful life and 200,000 km on
the clock (14,000 km per year1) expressed in kilopoints according
to Ecoindicator 99 H/A [28]. The inventory includes material,
energy and water use in vehicle manufacturing processes. Rail and
road transport of materials is also accounted for. Plant infrastructure is included, addressing issues such as land use, building, road
and parking construction. Material consumption reects that of
a modern vehicle. The values refer to the production of a Golf A4.
The data for vehicle production is representative for a production
site with an environmental management system.
Table 1 shows that between 10% and 12% of the overall environmental impact of a vehicle comes from its manufacture.
A comparison of the results obtained from using the information
held on both databases shows little difference between either of
them, thus validating the source of the data. Moreover, Kohlers
study [29] and other studies carried out for a class C Mercedes

1
The European Commission, Auto Oil II consider that the annual average
distance travelled by a vehicle in the EU is 15,753 km.

A. Aranda Uson et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 1916e1923

1920

4.5
4

y = 0.0062x + 0.0058x - 0.0311

3.5

to e

2.5

y = 0.0052x + 0.0026x - 0.0202

2
1.5
1
0.5

0
0

10

15

20

25

30

Years
manufacturing & end use

car diesel

car petrol

Fig. 5. Car energy pay-back.

conrm this data. Cars manufacturing and recycling imply relatively low energy consumption when compared to fuel consumption (Table 2) and the difference between different databases is
very small. This consumption tends to stabilize in time, with a slight
tendency to decrease, due to the recycling and re-use of materials
and to the higher efciency in manufacturing processes, even if
electronic devices with a high level of embodied energy (elastomeres, plastics, aluminium, and other non ferrous metals) are more
often used [30].
3.3. Calculation results and analysis
According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), the evolution in relation to the level of emissions
emitted into the atmosphere by new vehicles as a consequence of
the combustion that has taken place while in use within the
1995e2004 period is presented in Fig. 4.
As emissions tendency is known, it is possible to convert it into
the amount of fuel consumed by combustion stoichiometry: 1 l of
diesel consumed in 100 km emits 26.6 gr CO2/km while 1 l of petrol
emits 23.7 gr CO2/km. Fig. 3 demonstrates how fuel consumption
tends to progressively decrease with time. The rate at which
consumption decreases can reach 1.14% per year for petrol and
1.47% per year for diesel. Similar results can be found in other
studies [2]. Assuming this downward trend, the fuel saving achieved when replacing a vehicle is determined by the age of the
vehicle substituted and the decrease rate corresponding to whether
it uses diesel or petrol.
For this assessment it is useful to establish a comparison
between the technological life and the usable life of a vehicle [31]. A
car is supposed technologically obsolete after 7 years although it
has a longer usable life (an average of almost 14 years in the EU).
This data has been used when developing impact quantication.
From an eco-efciency viewpoint, this is solved due to modular
eco-design for several elements so when they have become obsolete they can easily be replaced with more technologically
advanced ones, in order to prolong the usable life of a vehicle and
reduce on an annual basis the amount of incorporated energy in
materials.
Fig. 5 shows when vehicle replacement is justiable in terms of
sustainability, assuming an energy cost for manufacturing and
regular recycling (2.73 toe) and including the embodied energy in
materials. This latter value has been extracted from the results

obtained in Table 2, where the data from IDEMAT 2001 and Kohler
are similar, data from IDEMAT 2001 has been chosen for the energy
needed to manufacture the vehicle (2.73 toe). Here, energy savings
are presented as the difference between the old and new vehicle
based on decreasing trends as described above (1.14% per year for
petrol and 1.47% per year for diesel) and have been modelled using
a second grade polynomial regression. The shape of these curves
along with the energy needed to manufacture a car shows us the
time needed for a new model of vehicle to make a saving in its use
equivalent to that which was needed in its manufacture. As can be
observed in this gure, vehicle replacement is in no case justiable
based on only energy and an environmental matter before it is 20
years old. According to EU data [32], only one-third of EU vehicles
are over 13 years old which means in calculation terms that
a vehicle is being replaced before its energy cost has been recouped.
As previously mentioned, it is quite evident that the energy payback of a vehicle depends on the number of kilometres travelled.
This observation has led to an awareness assessment being carried
out, the results of which are shown in Table 3. The data (based on
the average age of vehicles) shows that vehicle replacement normally takes place much earlier which leads us to conclude that from
its origin the automobile sector is not sustainable as replacing
a vehicle for technological or design reasons after 7 or 10 years
presents a non-justiable energy cost, even if up to 95% of its
components are recycled. It has to be noted that this study has been
carried out for a 75% recycling grade so even if a 95% recycling grade
is achieved in 2015, the replacement margin is still very high.
There are two main parameters to consider in order to improve
energy pay-back:
(1) To increase fuel marginal saving through the improvement of
engine technology.
Table 3
Minimum duration for a vehicle in which replacement should be protable
according to journeyed kilometres on a yearly basis.
Energy Pay-Back (years)
Km per year

Diesel

Petrol

5000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
50,000

30
20
17
15
14
10

33
22
18
17
16
11

A. Aranda Uson et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 1916e1923

Table 4
Increase in vehicle registrations over the past decade by type of vehicle. Source
ACEA.

1921

Table 6
Minimum duration for a vehicle in which replacement should be protable
according to energy consumption in manufacturing.

Type of vehicle

Percentage of sales

Pay-back (years)

Small four-wheel-drive vehicle

Big four-wheel-drive vehicle
Minivan
Large multi-purpose vehicle
Family saloon
Medium sized car
Small car

27.30%
12.65%
5.08%
6.69%
0.82%
10.07%
12.92%

Annual increase (%)

Diesel

Petrol

0.5
1.5
2.5

21
23
25

23
25
28

(2) To reduce the amount of energy needed in materials,

manufacturing and end use disposal terms.
The rst parameter has important thermodynamic limitations
and the difference in consumption between a 10 and 15-year-old
vehicle will not be signicant as technology has been evolving in
the past at the same rate as it is evolving in the present, as can be
appreciated in Fig. 4. The second parameter is lineal in relation to
the vehicle weight. Consumer markets show a rising tendency
toward bigger and heavier vehicles fullling comfort and safety
requirements as well as the more extensive use of plastic and
electronic devices.
In addition to this latter trend, the current market demands
unnecessary functionality from vehicles (Table 4). Over the last
decade, the increase in the power of vehicles has been extremely
high in order to address an increasing requirement for safety and
advances in technology. As can be observed in Table 4, sales of the
rst four types of vehicles, which are bigger and heavier, less
aerodynamic and more powerful than that the last three, are
increasing in comparison to smaller and lighter vehicles (family
saloon, medium sized car and small car). This tendency is nevertheless alleviated somewhat by the international economical crisis.
These larger and heavier vehicles have a higher fuel consumption
per kilometre (Table 5), so the analysis shown in Fig. 5 can be
applied to this type of vehicle, provided that the previous vehicle is
replaced with one of similar characteristics and not just as an
improvement in the market segment.
On the other hand, the consumer is not able to appreciate the
high level of performance that is being created in the automotive
market. For example, a simple calculation leads to the fact that
a diesel vehicle with 90 HP and 200 Nm is capable of towing a 825kg caravan on a 6% slope in 5th gear at 84 km/h or towing a 40-ton
trailer on an area of at ground at 18 km/h.
We have seen how technological advances in engines have led
to a lower fuel consumption, but these advances also mean
a change in the use of materials with which new vehicles are
manufactured. Using more plastic and electronic devices in
a vehicle requires more energy in the manufacturing process and
also complicates recycling and re-use processes. This has created
a conict between weight reduction and the increase in re-usable
materials in vehicles [33,34]. In order to illustrate the effect of this
energy increase in manufacturing and recycling processes, the
following awareness assessment has been introduced showing the

energy pay-back of a vehicle when travelling 15,000 km a year

(15,753 km as the annual average distance journeyed by a vehicle
[32]). Table 6 shows how many years are necessary to compensate
for the manufacturing energy cost of a new vehicle due to marginal
savings in consumption, whilst taking into account its
manufacturing energy increase. As can be seen, a 2% annual
increase in the amount of energy (direct or indirect) used for
manufacturing implies a 5-year-increase in the period of energy
recuperation. In other words, the more electronic devices included
and the more embodied energy incorporated in a vehicle, the
longer the period of energy recuperation will be. This period
reaching, in all cases, more than 20 years.

4. An eco-efciency viewpoint
4.1. Modal change in transport
We have compared the efciency of several means of transport
from the assessed environment life cycle viewpoint, including any
necessary infrastructures and fuel consumption. We have also
included a fundamental parameter in the mobility assessment, the
amount of time invested in travelling, and the environmental cost
implied with the reduction of travelling times. As an example of
this, we can compare a 325-km journey by car (petrol) which would
use 265,000 kcal and the same journey on foot (using for calculation purposes a consumption of 22,500 kcal over 8 days on the
road). Using the car would make the trip 190 h shorter. So in order
to make the 325 km trip an hour shorter, we need 1392 times more
energy than if we were doing it on foot. Therefore, according to
Fig. 6 we know which means of transport is less efcient from an
energy point of view: planes, private cars and high speed trains
(HST). Current society tends to minimize working time to increase
leisure time at very high price energy wise. Yet this is not ecoefciency, as dened above, it is a gain in the quality of life, but with

Table 5
Technical characteristics of various models of commercial vehicles.

Small cara
Medium sized carb
Four-wheel-drive vehiclec
a
b
c

Citren C2.
Ford focus.
Mitsubishi Pajero.

Weight
(kg)

Power
(HP)

Fuel consumption
(l/100 km)

1000
1190
2500

70
120
170

4
5.2
10.5
Fig. 6. The relation between energy and invested time in journeys according to
different means of transport.

1922

A. Aranda Uson et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 1916e1923

existing vehicles travel more kilometres each year which would

help to justify a vehicle replacement after 7 years due to its technological end of cycle. This would encourage a change toward
collective transport which is more efcient, without citizens losing
mobility.
An industrial restructuring of the vehicle sector would be
necessary in order to get added value out of maintenance and
vehicle updates (robustness and exibility) rather than from new
product manufacturing. If we could raise awareness in order to
reduce half of the vehicle eet and if we could count on stronger
and longer life cycle vehicles, in Europe we could reduce car
registrations to 7,500,000 every year, realise a saving of 20,400 ktoe
and 47,250 ktCO2eq in car manufacturing plus a saving of 7750 ktoe
and 22,600 ktCO2eq in their use. If potential users of vehicles which
have not yet been manufactured could cover their transport needs
by using public transport with an associated improvement of 80% in
efciency (Fig. 6), derived consumption would be 1550 ktoe and
4520 ktCO2eq per year.
Fig. 7. Nature recovery hours cost per each hour saved in mobility depending on
means of transport.

a signicant environmental cost in fossil fuel consumption. What is

the cost?
As the energy cost of each hour travelled (depending on the
means of transport) is known, what is the cost of natural resources
per saved hour in order to spend less time travelling? If we measure
it based on the biological material parameter shown in Table 7, and
take as a reference the journey on foot, each hour gained by travelling in a private vehicle instead of walking costs nature 217 h
more, that is 217 h to replace it. For every hour of travel time, nature
needs 9 days to recover (Fig. 7). The ecological opportunity cost is
217 times higher than the economic opportunity cost. Thus the
most commonly used modes of transport, cars, HST or planes,
despite being the quickest do not appear to be the most eco-efcient [35,36].
4.2. Actions in order to improve eco-efciency
According to the denition of eco-efciency, any measure that is
implemented using this approach has to meet human needs for
mobility, maintain the quality of life for citizens by offering
a service at a competitive price and on the other hand, reduce the
environmental burden by analysing the impacts throughout the
whole Life cycle. The analysis carried out in the preceding paragraphs shows how the current mobility model is not sustainable
and, therefore, has a low degree of eco-efciency.
In order to quantify energy savings and avoided measures with
other measures presented in this study and related to longer
durability, strength, services economy, etc, in vehicles, we are
proposing the idea of an environment in which the number of
vehicles per 1000 inhabitants will drastically reduce from 411
(Eurostat) to 250 vehicles. This is justiable when instead of
owning a vehicle people might rent it (car sharing). Most of the
time, private vehicles are not in use (96% of the time the car is
parked which means an average of 14,000 km per year and
200,000 km in its lifetime). Another achievement would be that
Table 7
Parameters used to calculate the cost of replacement in terms of biomass.
Parameters

Units

Density
Volume
Growth years required
Weight
Lower heating value (LHV)
Rate of increase of embodied energy

850 kg/m3
0.3 m3
15
255 kg
3300 kcal/kg
6.4 kcal per hour

5. Conclusions
Eco-efciency is more powerful than energy efciency in
achieving high levels of sustainability. From an eco-efciency
viewpoint, any measure favouring more sustainable transport
should include external factors such as infrastructures, safety,
acoustic and atmospheric pollution in its costs. A more ecological
future should include policies promoting a decrease in the amount
of transported merchandise and distances travelled, an increase in
railway transport (for long distances), transport management and
logistics optimisation (maximum use of return capacity), raising
awareness in consumers about the costs associated with transport
as well as promoting the consumption of local products (which will
in itself transform transport by road for long distances in distribution with lighter and more exible means of transport). Up to
now, the measures being taken to achieve a reduction in emission
levels are not reliable, as achieved energy saving is much lower
than consumption growth. We can say, therefore, that the situation
is not sustainable. An analysis of the energy pay-back of a car which
looks at the fuel savings achieved by replacing a car for one more
modern and more fuel efcient compared to the energy and
materials required to manufacture it, shows that from an energy
standpoint, an average vehicle in use in the EU does not justify its
change until it is 20 years old. This period varies depending on
vehicle use as well as how manufacturers are incorporating
components and materials with a greater embodied energy in new
models. In addition, the environmental costs of the current
mobility model measured in terms of the cost of replacement to
nature are very high. High levels of success have been achieved in
reducing journey time and increasing speed but at the cost of
a drastic reduction in efciency. Specically in relative terms,
biomass replenishment costs nature 217 times more to replenish
the resources we consume when we travel by private car than if we
were to walk. The time/opportunity cost is very high.
The results obtained in the paper should serve as a catalyst for
policy makers to redirect the current transportation model toward
a more sustainable model, analyzed from an eco-efciency
viewpoint.
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