Calculating Vehicle Travel Reduction Benefits

The Rocky Mountain Institute's (RMI) new Smarter MODES Calculator is a spreadsheet model that quantifies economic, social and environmental benefits provided by shifts automobile to more resource-efficient modes. It estimates, for example, the benefits provided by a 20 percent reduction in VMT for a specific U.S. state, and can be adjusted to test various perspectives, conditions and assumptions. I was a consultant on this project.



The analysis includes consumer savings and affordability (savings to lower-income households), reduce congestion, health benefits from active transportation, avoided crash fatalities, plus emission reductions. 



This can help practitioners, policy makers and the general public better understand the full benefits of multimodal planning, transportation demand management, and Smart Growth policies that create more multimodal communities where people can drive less and rely more on non-auto modes. Many jurisdictions have VMT reduction targets; these policies are often presented primarily as emission reduction strategies but they can also be justified on fairness grounds (so non-drivers receive their share of infrastructure investments), and for affordability, cost efficiency, health, safety and community livability sake.