A Study on the Trend of the Gasoline Consumption in Road Transportation Sector by Improvement of Income Level

Worldwide, the cars have spread due to the economic development and the progress of technology. Increase of car-use has raised convenience of our daily life. On the other hand, it caused serious environmental problems such as the greenhouse-effect. In such a situation, the national transport policy and strategy suited to the sustainable development is searched for. In developed countries the car-use restrain measures tend to be taken. Thus, it is thought that improvement of income level diminishes car use per capita in these countries. On the other hand, in developing countries, the economical efficiency tends to be given a priority, the intensive investments into road infrastructure are made. Consequently, car use advances rapidly. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp the characteristics and the trends of income level and social environmental level of the world countries. The objectives of this paper are : (1) to classify countries into several cluster and to clarify the characteristics of each cluster, (2) to formulate with income level, social environmental level, and gasoline consumption as variables and clarify the characteristics of time series change of gasoline consumption for every cluster, (3) to consider the factor of decline of gasoline consumption.