Reducing Vehicular Travel Need through Increasing Travel Efficiency

In Australia, all measures of vehicular travel, both passenger and freight, show large increases on a per capita basis over recent decades, with the growth almost entirely due to road travel. But because vehicular travel inevitably generates external costs these too have risen greatly. Decreases in both primary energy and materials consumption per capita in the advanced industrial countries suggest that the need for vehicular travel could decline if travel efficiency was increased. A definition of travel efficiency is developed, and means are explored by which travel efficiency might be increased.