How can we achieve fuel efficiency?

by Tharuka Dissanaike

The world is in a crisis over oil. Amid fears that a barrel of oil may climb to as much as US $ 75 (when only a year ago it was less than half this price) Sri Lanka is bracing herself for a possible fuel crisis here at home. The country's transport sector and power generation relies heavily on imported oil and fuel. Any price escalation is bound to affect these key sectors adversely.

Speaking to last Sunday's newspapers, Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, Dr. D.S. Jayaweera commented that while anticipating a huge fuel bill in the coming months, vehicles will be encouraged to be more efficient. Explaining further, Dr. Jayaweera said that vehicle fuel efficiency would soon be addressed by the government and that they are even looking at giving incentives to increase efficiency. Setting a kind of benchmark for this 'efficiency' Dr. Jayaweera is quoted saying that ideal rate of fuel consumption would be in the range of 16 to 20 kilometers per litre of petrol/diesel.

Now anyone traveling to Colombo on a daily basis for work or otherwise would know that this figure is impossible- unless one is driving a three-wheeler or a motorcycle. One would be lucky if a normal 1300 cc car performs at 8-10 kilometers per litre. Smaller cars would possibly clock in a bit more but the above figures are almost too difficult to achieve.

The fault lies directly in the state of the road infrastructure, the traffic congestion that is only getting worse and worse and the poor condition of many of the vehicles that are plying the roads today.

Hardly anyone needs a description of the state of roads. We experience it everyday- whether we travel by bus, van, motorcycle or car. The lack of maintenance and the general poor standards of road building in the country lead to huge problems in road movement. Puddles and broken roads only add to the general congestion.

Narrow roads and too much traffic is the bane of our transport system and there appear to be no easy or quick solutions to this. To increase vehicle efficiency however, we have to deal with this issue. There is little point in importing cars with new, high technology which can perform very efficiently unless we have the kind of road network that allows vehicles to move properly. A car stuck in a traffic jam will burn fuel- and huge amounts of fuel are being wasted on jammed urban roads everyday.

The second factor is the importing of reconditioned vehicles. The vehicle taxation system prefers used cars from Japan to new cars from anywhere else. Naturally this bars a majority of buyers from enjoying modern car technology. Instead the average car buyer has to contend with buying an older, used model which has become outdated in Japan. If the Ministry is going to hand out incentives for efficiency, they must also make it affordable for the public to purchase new cars that come with efficient engines. In other words- rethink the taxes on car imports.

Thirdly, and this was also pointed out by Dr. Jayaweera, the public transport system has to be improved. Again there are no quick fixes. But it has to be done. If you look at rush hour traffic, you would notice that a large number of vehicles are plying with a single passenger- at best with two. This situation can be avoided if there was a good city to suburbs transport system.

Electrifying the railway has been a contentious topic for many years but little progress has been made. When even large South Indian cities like New Delhi has managed to set up subways and underground transport, Sri Lanka lags far behind. A lot of fuel and foreign exchange could be saved if there is a conscious and serious effort to improve public transport with a very long term vision.