A Comparative Study on the Relationship between Residential Density and Vehicular Energy Use in Florida

High population, vehicles, and employment and high energy use could generate congestion that has been considered as a result from diseconomies of agglomeration. However, congestion and energy use problem could be mitigated in a compact city due to shorter commuting distance, efficient vehicular operation, etc. US government and local state governments have been trying to redirect its energy use to address congestion and vehicular energy use. Household vehicle use, and fuel consumption, and VMT have primarily have been considered as main factors of vehicular emission. This paper analyzes NHTS 2001 combined with EIA augmentation data and Census data and to identify relationship between energy use by car and greenhouse gas emission, in particular, related to residential density. Major factors and variables are considered: VMT, vehicular energy use, urban density factor, household’s socioeconomic factor, household’s demographic factor. Two MSAs in Florida such as Miami, and Orlando are compared based upon the factors. This paper uses econometric methodology such as SEM (Structural Equation Model) to see complicated and causal relationship among variables. The results show that Miami is more energy efficient than Orlando because of less VMT and energy use per household unit. Furthermore, more vehicles, more drivers, more incomes, and more workers means high VMT and high energy use, which implies that they are more sprawl. To deal with this problem, impact fee might be one of the solutions.