Urban form and transportation energy consumption

• Published in: Energy policy Vol. 136; p. 111049
• Main Author: Kaza, Nikhil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2020; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Alternative fuels; Cities; data collection; Demographics; Demography; Densification; Efficacy; energy; Energy consumption; Energy policy; energy use and consumption; Fuel technology; issues and policy; Land use; Landscape metrics; landscapes; Sales; Service stations; Transportation; Transportation energy; transportation industry; United States; Urban areas; Urban form; variance; United States > US; United States; Urban form; Cities; Landscape metrics; Transportation
• ISSN: 0301-4215; 1873-6777
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2019.111049

Transportation energy is a significant portion of the energy consumption of the US economy. While various policies such as changing the fuel mix and alternative fuels are proposed to make the system more efficient, the efficacy of land use policies such as changing the urban form and densification have been subject to considerable debate. In this paper, I use a rich dataset compiled from different sources to test the effectiveness of urban form on energy consumption in the transportation sector. I proxy the consumption with retail sales from gas stations for most of the conterminous United States at a county level. Using demographic, economic and landscape characteristics, I tease out the effect of different dimensions of urban form on energy consumption. I find that compact and contiguous urban form is modestly associated with lower energy consumption and is more important than demographic concentration in explaining the variance. •Per capita transportation energy use is lowest in large metropolitan counties.•Fragmentary urban form is associated with higher consumption.•Compact urban form is associated with lower use.•Policies promoting compact development will have modest impact on fuel use.