*3.2. Public Transport Energy Use per Person*

The use of energy in public transport systems is important to understand and to compare with its private passenger transport equivalent. As already indicated, public-transport energy-use data were obtained from each of the public transport operators by mode (Figure 2). Public transport here considers every mode that exists in the city, whether it is just buses or whether it includes multiple modes (buses, trams, trams and light rail (LRT), metro, suburban rail and ferries). Even cable cars and small funiculars are included if they exist. Taxis are considered private transport. All public transport modes and operators must be included to properly and accurately represent the public transport system.

The data reported here are the average for all modes in each city. Swedish cities are identical to the other European cities in their per capita energy use by public transport, but significantly more than in the three auto-oriented groups of cities, with their lesser public transport systems. Freiburg consumes a modest 1081 MJ/person. The larger Swedish cities on average consume 1787 MJ/person, while the smaller cities consume a significantly lower 1281 MJ. Göteborg is the biggest per capita energy consumer in public transport (2680 MJ), which is surprisingly almost the same as the Asian cities. This is followed quite a bit behind by Jönköping and Stockholm, both of which are, however, still relatively high. The range of public transport energy use per person in Swedish cities is large (2680 MJ in Göteborg and 862 MJ in Örebro—Göteborg provides a vastly higher magnitude of public transport service, including a large LRT system, compared to Örebro—see Section 4).

**Figure 2.** Annual public transport energy use per person in ten Swedish cities (2015); Freiburg (2015); and American, Australian, Canadian, European and Asian cities (2005–2006).

Figures 1 and 2 highlight the huge difference between the energy consumption by public transport systems, compared to private transport. In the case of the Swedish cities (and European cities generally), private transport consumes over ten times more per capita than that used by public transport. In the case of US cities, it is over 55 times more, while Australian and Canadian cities show less dramatic differences (35 and 26 times more, respectively). It is only in the Asian cities, with their very heavy dependence on public transport and their low levels of car use, that private and public transport energy use per capita are more equitable (private transport is a little more than twice as high). The data also suggest that there is considerable untapped energy conservation potential in public transport systems, particularly given the frequent similarity in energy use per capita in public transport in different cities, but the vast differences in levels of usage (see Section 4).
