Rebound effects caused by the improvement of vehicle energy efficiency: An analysis based on a SP-off-RP survey Biying Yu ⇑ , Junyi Zhang, Akimasa Fujiwara Transportation Engineering Laboratory, Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University, Higashi Hiroshima, Japan article info Keywords: Rebound effects Vehicle energy efficiency SP-off-RP survey Residential sector Transport sector abstract This study provide a straightforward way of examining the rebound effects of switching to more fuel efficient technologies, as well as determining the distribution of the effects in the household sector, including both the residential and transport sectors. A SP-off-RP survey conducted in Japan in 2012 asked people to state their preference for the reallocation behaviors after informing them of their annual operating cost saving resulting from the vehicle efficiency improvement. Coupled who save money from relocation are more likely to spend this either on housing features or transport; supporting the idea of rebound effects, although not only limited to within the transport sector. Regarding the distribution of rebound effects, domestic appliances are more likely to be affected than vehicles. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Promoting more energy-efficient vehicles, such as electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrids (PHV), has become a signif- icant component of environmental policy. There are concerns, however, that improvements in energy efficiency can lead to rebound effects with more miles being driven, offsetting much or all of any energy savings associated with enhanced vehicle performance. While this ‘‘direct rebound effect’’ has been widely discussed, less attention has been paid to indirect effects that may arise if the money saved on motor fuel is spent on other goods, services, and production that also require energy; the sum of the direct and indirect effects being the ‘‘economy-wide rebound effect’’. Most studies of rebound effects are based on experimental or econometric approaches, in part due to limited data avail- ability, and focus only on transportation, and especially on changes in gasoline consumption and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) with respect to relevant elasticities – see, Greening et al. (2000) and Sorrell et al. (2009). The results not only ignore potentially wider effects but also produce a diversity of results. To gain a better understanding of the occurrence and distri- bution of rebound effects, we make use of a Web-based SP-off-RP survey of households in Japan. The existing evidence on rebound effects is far from conclusive. Some studies, including Dargay (2007)Small and Van Dender (2007) find no evidence of a large effect, while others, including Frondel et al. (2008) and Sorrell and Dimitroupoulos (2007) find rebound effects that can greatly offset fuel efficiency improvements. Others studies find mixed effects across populations (Matiaske et al., 2012) or effects that vary with vehicle miles traveled (Frondel et al., 2012; Su, 2012). In targeting household energy use, domestic energy consumption and personal transport fuel consumption have been generally separated, but because ownership and use of appliances at home and of vehicles affect disposable household in- come, when the fuel efficiency of vehicles improves households may then spend the savings on additional domestic appli- ances (Yu et al., 2011). Evidence of such indirect rebound and economy-wide effects is limited. Kratena and Wüger (2010) do find it may have been as high as 71% for gasoline consumption in the US between 1972 and 2005, and Yu et al. (2013) found 1361-9209/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2013.06.001 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +81 82 424 6919. E-mail address: yubiyingjapan@yahoo.co.jp (B. Yu). Transportation Research Part D 24 (2013) 62–68 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Transportation Research Part D journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trd