Assessing the Effectiveness of Alternative Policies in Conjunction with Energy Efficiency Improvement Policy in India.

Energy efficiency improvement is often advocated for fuel conservation and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in Indian personal transport sector. However, in the long run, this policy is found to induce direct rebound effects as it leads to more car trips and hence longer travels. Attempts have been made in this paper to test the effectiveness of alternative energy policies in conjunction with energy efficiency improvements in personal transport sector of India with the help of a system dynamics model. Four alternative energy policies considered in conjunction with the energy efficiency improvement policy are carbon tax imposition, car sharing, car scrappage, and a combination of all of these. Simulation results show that while the combined policy gave the best scenario in terms of fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, the car sharing policy gave the best scenario in terms of direct rebound effect values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]