Prospects for Transport Energy Consumption: Methodological Approaches and Results of Forecasting

The direction and effectiveness of the using mineral resources, as well as the development trend of the mineral markets, especially energy markets – is one of the central topics of the development of relevant industries. The article discusses the consumption of mineral energy resources in transport with the differentiation by the countries of the world. It proposed to improve the methods of forecasting of energy consumption in the transport sector in the medium and long term. Relevance of the work associated with the leading role of the transport sector in the formation of oil demand in the world. In most developed and developing countries vehicle transport accounts for 60-70% of the total domestic oil consumption. Forecasting of energy demand is particular important to ensure energy security of the countries in the transport sector in the medium and long term. Predicting energy consumption by road vehicles includes two main areas: the forecast of specific energy consumption vehicle and the forecast of the number of cars. The authors examined historical data of specific energy consumption of road vehicle with the differentiation by the countries of Europe and Russia. The analysis revealed a steady decline in energy intensity in most advanced countries. However, this process is different in intensity decrease specific energy consumption and the time of occurrence of the trend. An analysis of the specific energy consumption in the past 25 years has shown that the dynamics of the index most accurately described by an exponential function: the initial stage of reduction of energy consumption is more intensive than in subsequent periods. As a result, the general pattern was derived convergence of energy consumption and the parameters depending on the speed of lowering the energy intensity of its initial value. On basis of trend models and identified reducing energy consumption depending on the speed of its entry-level may carry out the forecast of specific energy consumption for both developed and developing countries for which there is a limited number of historical data. In order to improve the quality of forecasting specific number of vehicles, the authors of this article proposed to introduce additional parameters into the model, which would take into account differences in the countries of climatic, socio-economic, institutional conditions. As a result, it was identified five of the most significant factors affecting theratio of vehicles to population on basis of econometric analysis. The proposed methodological approach to determining the specific energy consumption of vehicle road transport and proposals for improving the methods of forecasting the number of vehicles it possible to predict energy demand of the transport sector in the long term.