Peak Car

Is our love affair with the car waning?

Peak car (also peak car use or peak travel) is a hypothesis that motor vehicle distance traveled per capita (expressed as VKT vehicle kilometres traveled per person), predominantly by car, has peaked in at least eight major developed countries.

There are two variants of the hypothesis, one (sometimes called 'saturation' or 'plateau') that having reached a peak, car use per head will continue at about the same level indefinitely into the future, the other that after peaking car use may in future show a prolonged declining trend.

Places where it is suggested that car use has peaked include Australia, France, Germany, Iceland, Japan (early 1990s), Sweden, the United Kingdom (many cities from about 1994) and the United States.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_car

And in New Zealand, according to MoT figures.

peak car 1
Source: http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/Documents/The-NZ-Vehicle-Fleet-201...

 

Light ownership per 1000

Light travel per capita

Light travel per vehicle

Total travel (billions of km)

2001

640.2

8564.9

13379

35.7

2002

648.6

8689.7

13397

36.7

2003

662.4

8806.0

13293

37.9

2004

678.4

8939.3

13177

39.1

2005

695.0

8935.2

12856

39.5

2006

692.4

8724.5

12600

39.5

2007

698.2

8767.3

12557

40.2

2008

693.8

8558.6

12335

39.7

2009

683.8

8492.9

12420

39.7

2010

681.9

8407.2

12329

39.8

2011

678.7

8308.6

12242

39.8

2012

682.4




Change from peak

-2.7%

-7.1%

-8.6%

-1%

Peak years in bold
Source: http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/Documents/NZ-Vehicle-Fleet-Graphs-2012.xls


# of 15-24yr olds

# of 15-24yr olds w licences

% of 15-24yr olds w driver licence

2006

610090

470650

77.1%

2010

641520

480004

74.8%

More young people are choosing not to drive.

Sources: MOT driver licence statistics http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/Documents/Licence-2006.pdf http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/Documents/Motor-Vehicle-Crashes-2010-Driver-licence-and-vehicle-fleet-statistics.pdf  and Statistics New Zealand population data

New Zealand has an ageing population.
Projections used in future planning of our transport network should take this factor into account, given the lower travel propensity of older people.

A failure to do so is likely to produce excessively high travel projections, overstating the increase in household travel on New Zealand roads between 2006 and 2056 by around 40%
Source: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/nzta-research/docs/nzta-supp-6.pdf