The interrelationships among highway supply, vehicular travel demand and vehicular fuel con¬sumption are systematically considered using empirical data from Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California. A determination is made of the degree to which fuel savings produced by more efficient vehicle operation on city streets and freeways are offset by the additional fuel consumed by either longer or new vehicular travel, developing in the process an analytical framework, step-by-step procedures and a base of empirical data that can be easily applied in other urban areas. The principal finding is that where comprehensive application of state-of-the-art techniques for improved traffic control of signalized urban arterials and freeways can be used to improve areawide travel time on the order of 10 percent, the energy savings attributable to this improved quality of flow are substantially less than offset by short-range induced increases in travel.
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