Trends in Transport Activity, Energy Use, and Carbon Footprint in Mexico City, Mexico

The transport sector is an increasing contributor to Mexico's carbon footprint. Related to this trend are several other externalities such as congestion and increasing energy supply costs. In this paper the authors examined and cross-verified the publicly available transport activity, energy use, and emissions data to identify trends specifically at the Mexico City level. The results revealed a significant rise in several of these variables over time, yet the rise was accompanied by encouraging trends in fuel economy and mass transit ridership. With the most recent origin–destination survey data for Mexico City, the authors developed scenarios of future emissions that were based on several other scenarios of the modal share of mass transport versus private transport and of transport activity levels that could likely be reached given the observed past trend. These scenarios showed that, at current fuel economy levels, if transport activity were to rise by 50%, a mass transit ridership share of at least 70% would be required to keep the current Mexico City passenger transport emissions at 2007 levels. If the activity rise were accompanied by a shift to greater private vehicle use, however, passenger transport emissions could as much as double. The paper provides several recommendations to address the factors most contributing to rising transport emissions: a need for further measures to promote a shift toward nonmotorized and mass transport and an improved data collection system for monitoring the progress of transport activity, energy use, and emissions over time. Complementary policies to fuel economy standards will also be needed to reinforce the slight turnaround in Mexico City toward modes of high capacity and lower energy intensity.