Underinflated tires cost approximately 1 mile per gallon in fuel economy, or about 7% of fuel. More than half of the vehicles on the road at any time have underinflated tires.
Many gasoline providers no longer provide free air fills. The transition of gasoline sales from fullservice garagetype business to minimarts and other nonautomobile businesses means that regular air checks are no longer provided to most motorists, and many gasoline providers now have coinoperated air fill devices.
Two alternative strategies were considered. The first would simply provide free air compressors to all gasoline sales outlets in the state. The second is a more aggressive strategy, funding a transportation/environmental organization to not only place compressors, but also to pursue legislation mandating that tires be checked at the time gasoline is dispensed.
The benefits of adequate inflation include fuel cost savings, which under this scenario accrues to the motorist, and is not valued. The societal benefit is reduction in all motor vehicle emissions, including CO2. If all of these benefits were quantified, there is no question that the strategy is costeffective.
Looking at the costs of the program solely as a carbon mitigation strategy produces quite favorable results, even without consideration of the fuel cost savings. The first scenario, placing free compressors, assumes that a 10% reduction in vehicles with underinflated tires would result. The second strategy, a mandatory air check at the time that gasoline is dispensed, assumes that a 50% reduction would result. The CO2 savings from the first strategy are estimated at 100,000 tons/year; for the second strategy, 500,000 tons/year. The estimated cost of carbon reduction for the first strategy is $2.00/ton, and for the second, about $.40/ton.
If the value of gasoline savings to the consumer are considered in the equation, the cost of the CO2 savings are negative; the value of the gasoline saved far exceeds the cost of the program. For the free air fill option, the CO@ savings are achieved at a cost of ($114/ton), and for the mandatory alternative, the CO2 savings have a cost of ($290)/ton.
We recommend that this option be explored further.
Cars which are not properly tuned up waste gasoline, emit large amounts of unburned hydrocarbon, and have higher CO2 emissions. Modern automobiles have extended service intervals, fuel injection, long emissionsystem warranties, and other measures to reduce emissions. Lowincome individuals may not have the liquidity needed to pay for tuneups, and are more likely to drive older cars which need regular tuneups.
This option examines the value of providing free tuneups to lowincome drivers. Based on an assumption that a tuneup will save 5% of gasoline usage for a distance of 10,000 miles, we estimate that approximately 48 gallons of gasoline will be saved with one tuneup, at a cost of $50.
Ignoring the gasoline savings, the CO2 savigns are clearly not costeffective, costing $91/ton of CO2 saved. Including the gasoline savings, however, the societal cost savings from gasoline more than offset the cost of the tuneups, means that the CO2 savings have a negative social cost of about ($4.35)/ton.
We recommend consideration of this option.
Transportation/Environment advocacy groups encourage the use of alternatives to single occupancy vehicle transportation. Examples include the AutoFree Eugene campaign, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance of Portland, the Transportation Alternatives Project of the Policy Initiatives Group, Portland, and the Energy Outreach Center, Olympia.
Because these groups are engaged in advocacy, technical analysis of the costs and benefits of their programs are often absent. The Energy Outreach Center of Olympia has examined two of its recent programs in detail for energy and environmental benefits. The first is a bicycle commuter contest; the second, the OilSmart campaign. Of these, the bicycle commuter contest had the lower savings, and is selected for analysis.
A total of 344 individuals registered for the contest, held during the month of May, 1993. The project recorded 41,402 miles of bicycle commuting. Looking at these savings alone, and valuing the nonCO2 environmental benefits at the Oregon DOE "low" values, and ignoring the savings associated with gasoline or vehicle maintenance, produced a cost/ton of CO2 saved of about $90/ton, clearly not costeffective. Including just the gasoline savings, however, increased the economic savings of this project to exceed the costs, therefore producing a negative ($22)/ton for the CO2 savings.
However, the majority of the participants had never bicyclecommuted before. Many have now become fulltime bicycle commuters, using bicycles instead of automobiles one to five days a week; some commute by bicycle all year. Assuming that the average participant in the contest increases their bicycle commutation so that the lifecycle savings are equal to 12 months of contestperiod savings, the environmental benefits alone more than cover the cost of running the contest. Again, valuing the nonCO2 environmental savings at the Oregon DOE "low" values produces a net value of the project of $10,863, leaving a negative cost of ($428/ton) for the CO2 saved.
We recommend that transportation advocacy organization funding be examined as an alternative CO2 mitigation strategy.