Bushnell, J.B., Hughes, J.E. The role of modal substitution in rebound effects within US freight transportation. Nat Energy/index.html

Objective:

• Study the substitution rebound effect in US freight transportation sector

Case:

• US

Methodology:

• Multinomial logit model
• Cost function

Data Source

• US CFS-PUF
• Monthly average price
• Fuel price

Findings:

• Domestic freight and goods movement contributes to around 4% to US GDP; Trunk shipments represent around 47% of total ton-miles, with the total value of 74%
• Rail shipment is around 500 ton-miles per gallon of fuel compared with around 100 ton-miles per gallon for heavy-duty trunks and 0.1 ton-miles per gallon for air freight

• Trunk fuel economy regulations shift freight shipments from rail to trunk, increasing trunk output by over 15 billion ton miles per year or around 1.4%

• This shift reduces fuel savings from more efficient trunks from 674 billion gallons per year to 497 million gallons per year, indicating a rebound effect of around 26%

• This equates to an agggregate rebound effect from modal substitution across all freight shipments of around 20%; for some types of goods this effect is substantially large at 40-50%

Coding Reference:

• Stata