Perspectives on urban transportation energy contingency planning in the United States

Abstract

The typical urban transportation energy contingency plan for the USA is based on one or more scenarios of sudden fuel shortages ranging from five percent to 30 percent. For comparison, the 1973-74 oil embargo and the 1979 shortage both were reported to have caused shortages in the range 8-13 percent, varying among different parts of the country. The most systematic of the contingency plans produce two or three different action plans for two or three levels of shortage, say, 5 percent, 15 percent and 25 percent. The package of measures to be implemented increases in severity accordingly. To simplify the presentation, the approximately 60 contingency measures to be discussed are collected in five groups, depending upon purpose. It seems that all measures encountered in the literature can be categorized as attempting to accomplish one of the following: (1) managing fuel supplies; (2) improving road system operating efficiency; (3) encouraging ridesharing; (4) altering travel demand and other behavior; (5) increasing public transportation capacity and efficiency. The measures in the five groups are summarized in tables and are discussed briefly. (TRRL)