Getting to work in a post carbon world

Commuting after peak oil (or effective climate change legislation)

E-Futures Annual ConferenceRobin Lovelace, Sheffield, September 2013

Evil birds and magic stones• Peak oil, obesity, climate change, recession• Energy: 'master resource', affects all

E.g. see Hopkins (2013),Berners-Lee and Clarke (2013)and your local MacDonalds

Energy use transport: fundamentals

• It's "nature's money"• Various ways of measuring it• Direct (fuel) and indirect: fuel, vehicle and road

construction (Lovelace, 2011)• Average per unit distance - refine after 1 estimate

Where are we now?

Here

Here!

Where we're at: regional variability

Individual-level variability

Inequalities within areas

Going Dutch

• Scenario of high cycling uptake

• Aggregate and individual-level implementations

• Realistic based on Dutch data

• 'What if' not 'it will' approach

source: London Cycling Campaign

Going Dutch: aggregate-level results (Yorkshire and the Humber)

National-level comparisons

Average energy costs per one way trip to work in English regions (2001) and Dutch provinces (2010)

Going Finnish

Going Finnish: assumptions

Based on work by Finlanders Helminen, Ristimäki, M. (2007)

Going Finnish results

'Eco-localisation'

• It's the localisation of economic activity (North 2010; Greer 2009)

• Extent of process depends on your perspective

• Tried to model it...

• But some things are best not quantified (and so says Vaclav Smil)

Going home

• Some interesting and policy-relevant results– Bicycles and 'active travel' only part of

solution– Focus attention on largest energy users first

• Reproducible methods• Final draft of thesis

• E-Futures has been amazing

Going Forward

• New job in Leeds - part of national project: Geospatial Data Analysis and Simulation (Geotalisman) - developing methods

• But want to continue energy research• Collaborations with Dutch colleagues• Modelling policies in Bogota, Colombia

with Ana Moreno• Algorithm for optimal bike path location?• Engage policy makers + more.

Go references + questionsBerners-Lee, M., & Clark, D. (2013). The Burning Question: We can’t burn half

the world's oil, coal and gas. So how do we quit? Profile BooksGreer, J. M. (2009). The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World.

Aztext Press.Helminen, V., & Ristimäki, M. (2007). Relationships between commuting

distance, frequency and telework in Finland. Journal of Transport Geography

Hopkins, R. (2013). The Power of Just Doing Stuff: How Local Action Can Change the World (p. 160). Green Books

Lovelace, R., Ballas, D., & Watson, M. (2013). A spatial microsimulation approach for the analysis of commuter patterns: from individual to regional levels. Journal of Transport Geography

Lovelace, R., Beck, S. B. M. B. M., Watson, M., & Wild, A. (2011). Assessing the energy implications of replacing car trips with bicycle trips in Sheffield, UK. Energy Policy

North, P. (2010). Eco-localisation as a progressive response to peak oil and climate change - A sympathetic critique. Geoforum

Rietveld, P. (2004). Determinants of bicycle use: do municipal policies matter? Transportation Research Part

New email address: R . Lovelace @ Leeds . ac . ukContact me if you fancy a ride to Leeds, Sat. 28th!

Going Dutch: individual-level results (South Yorkshire)

Going apocalypticCredit: Ian Philips, ITS