Krammer, Philip;
Schäfer, Andreas W;
(2025)
Energy and economic benefits from economies of scale in intercity freight transportation.
npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport
, 2
(1)
, Article 13. 10.1038/s44333-025-00028-6.
Preview |
Text
Krammer_et_al-2025-npj_Sustainable_Mobility_and_Transport.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Since the beginning of motorization, intercity freight transportation modes have carried an ever-increasing load and experienced a nearly continuous decline in average unit costs and energy intensity. Using a unique dataset, we demonstrate the tight, inverse relationships between the average load carried with average transport unit costs and energy intensity, which are invariant across mode, space, and time, for the countries and time periods considered. Our subsequent statistical analysis concludes that—over the last 30–35 years—economies of scale have contributed to 65–85% of the decline in energy intensity, depending on the transport mode, with only the remaining share being due to technological progress. Significant further reductions in average unit costs and energy intensity due to increasing economies of scale seem possible for particularly surface transport modes. Instead of technological advances, their realization could require legal and infrastructure adjustments.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Energy and economic benefits from economies of scale in intercity freight transportation |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s44333-025-00028-6 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s44333-025-00028-6 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Energy and society, Energy economics, Energy efficiency |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10206729 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
