English Abstract In this study various aspects of ownership and use of
private cars by households are studied. The private car has been at the
centre of discussions about environmental problems for many years. The
study starts with a discussion of the effectiveness of environmental policy
with respect to the private car and concludes that price and tax instruments
still appear to be valuable instruments, despite some prima facie evidence
against them. Technical aspects of automobile engines are discussed
subsequently and it is noticed that potential environmental benefits caused
by technical developments are not always realized because of changes in
behaviour. A brief summary of the development of the prices of automobile
fuel shows that the variable cost of automobile use for gasoline drivers has
certainly not increased during the past thirty years. By focusing attention
on years in which there were relatively large changes in these prices it
was, nevertheless, possible to estimate behavioural reactions to price
changes. Increases in the gasoline price lead to lower fuel use per
kilometre, decreases in the price to higher fuel use. The number of
kilometres driven could also be shown to be influenced by changes in the
fuel price. There appear to be interesting differences between the
reactions to the price decrease in early 1986 caused by the fall in crude
oil prices and the tax increase of 1991. In the next part of the study
choice of fuel type is explained by a trade off between disadvantages
associated with the use of diesel and LPG and a monetary benefit for drivers
of large numbers of kilometres caused by the lower variable cost of these
fuels. These lower cost appear to induce additional demand for kilometres.
Finally the choice of commuting distance was analysed by means of a search
model. Although workers do not appear to be footloose, the monetary
evaluation of the resistance against additional commuting kilometres appears
to fall short of the generalized travel cost involved.
