An Analysis of the Driving Factors Related to Energy Consumption in the Road Transport Sector of the City of Douala, Cameroon

The city of Douala in Cameroon is facing great challenges in terms of its demographic growth, economic development and urbanization, especially in relation to environmental and economic factors. However, there has been significant growth in its road transport sector, which has led to an excessive demand for the consumption of fossil fuels and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions in recent decades within this sector. However, no concrete policy has yet been put in place to improve the energy efficiency of the transport sector. This work aims to identify the driving factors and determine their contributions to the variation in energy consumption. In this study, a decomposition analysis via the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method is used for the period of 2010-2019 to quantify the respective effects of the driving factors on the variation in energy consumption. Based on the study of the literature, we classified four main driving factors in the road transport sector that contributes to the total variation in energy consumption, such as vehicle energy intensity, vehicle intensity, gross domestic product (GDP) by capita, and population scale, with each contributing 13.06%, 31.30%, 12.85%, and 42.76%, respectively. In particular, we note that the energy intensity coefficient of the vehicles from 2013 to 2016 and that of the intensity of the vehicles coefficient from 2010 to 2011 and 2012 to 2013 are the two factors that have, nevertheless, led to a slight decrease in the variation in energy consumption. This implies that an improvement in these two factors would contribute to enhancing the energy efficiency of the road transport sector of the city of Douala. It will therefore be necessary to put in place several energy-saving strategies that would lead to a rationalization of energy consumption in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by road transports. Policymakers should take this study into account to achieve a balance between energy consumption and economic growth to better integrate the notion of sustainable road transport.