Interdependence between Accessibility of Transport Infrastructures and Location Choice and Its Effects on Energy Consumption

The use of energy for personal transport has been acknowledged as the main contributor in the urban energy consumption. Urban form and transport infrastructures are factors that govern the use of energy in urban area. The level of energy consumption can be used as measure whether or not transport policies are in the right direction. While the relation between energy consumption and urban structure as well as transport infrastructure has been very evident, the theoretical background for this interdependence has been rarely discussed. Current approach ignores the existence of a constant travel budget. Moreover, conventional transport model usually assumes a fixed matrix which are not allowing the dynamic of urban location. Although descriptive analyses are very important to identify transport variables and behavior as well as mobility indices, they are not sufficient to express the interdependence between accessibility of transport infrastructures and urban location choice. A macroscopic mathematical model was developed to demonstrate the dynamic of urban location, to apply a constant travel budget principle and to use energy consumption as the main system indicator. The model was calibrated against available statistics for Vienna as well as previous transportation survey data. The calibrated model was then used to test several transport policies. The result shows that (1) self-balancing mechanism in urban area plays a very important role in determining the level of energy consumption, (2) availability of public transport service is the main factor that determines the city attractiveness as a workplace and subsequently, a residential area, (3) car traffic is the main constituent that governs the level of personal energy consumption and (4) current demographical trends have virtually no effects on the personal energy consumption level. Further research should be guided to a better approach in the evaluation procedure, which currently based upon time savings.