Household Transportation Energy Affordability by Region and Socioeconomic Factors

Abstract

Transportation fuel is an important component of household budgets, as 3.3% of total household expenditures are for vehicle fuel nationwide and over 50% of annual household expenditures on energy are for transportation. These average values vary geographically, and higher energy cost burdens are faced by households with lower incomes. Defining transportation energy affordability burden as the percentage of annual household income spent on vehicle fuel, this study aims to quantify affordability as a function of household characteristics and geography. Through analysis at the census tract level, this study (i) projects annual household vehicle miles traveled (VMT) based on demographic factors using machine-learning techniques, (ii) estimates local differences in vehicle fuel economy and fuel price, and (iii) quantifies resulting transportation energy affordability by census tract. This study found that the average burden by tract varies from 0.15% to 8%. The variation in affordability can be largely explained by income level and vehicle fuel efficiency. Suburban and rural households spend more on transportation energy compared with urban households because of the usage of less fuel-efficient vehicle technologies and higher annual VMT. Lower-income groups have a wide distribution of the percentage of income spent on transportation energy, 1.2% to 8%, whereas the range for the highest income group ($125,000+) is from 0.15% to 3.9%. This detailed transportation energy affordability analysis provides a better understanding of regional variations in household travel behavior, helps to determine where fuel-efficient vehicle technologies are more likely to be used, and improves estimates of vehicle ownership costs.

Highly Resolved Projections of Passenger Electric Vehicle Charging Loads for the Contiguous United States: Results From and Methods Behind Bottom-Up Simulations of County-Specific Household Electric Vehicle Charging Load (Hourly 8760) Profiles Projected Through 2050 for Differentiated Household and Vehicle Types

“…• Research to compare simulated results against results from other models-e.g., NREL's EVI-Pro (NREL 2016); Miller, Arbabzadeh, and Gençer (2020). • Validation via comparison of intermediate results such as heterogeneous VMT and fuel economy (mpg)-e.g., BTS (2021), Zhou et al (2021).…”

“…Most studies have focused on the heterogeneity of emissions and costs associated with EV energy use, because they are also heavily spatially and temporally dependent with when, where, and how the energy is procured and consumed. Many studies have also focused on heterogeneity in both EV and non-EV energy use, affordability, and vulnerability(Zhou, Aeschliman, and Gohlke 2021;Liu and Kontou 2022). Here, we focus on spatially, demographically, and temporally differentiated EV energy consumption and charging loads, and defer to other modeling tools for detailed emissions and cost modeling.…”

Built environment and travel behavior in rural areas: A scientometric literature review

“…Nowadays, the energy consumption of rural transportation is extremely high and rising (Zhou et al, 2021). Thus, it needs to pay attention to the sustainable development of rural transportation planning and rural residents' travel.…”

Electric and gasoline vehicle total cost of ownership across US cities

“…Previous research has established that BEVs have higher upfront costs; however, it is less expensive to operate a BEV because of lower costs for maintenance, repair, and refueling. Currently, wealthier households generally purchase more fuel‐efficient vehicles, while lower income households, with less fuel‐efficient vehicles, spend a higher proportion of their income on transportation energy costs (Zhou et al., 2021).…”