As a driver, you can hardly escape the high fuel prices completely, but somehow you have to keep the costs manageable. How the Austrians do it has now been determined using mobile phone movement data.
According to the results of the study commissioned by the ÖAMTC, hardly any less was actually driven, albeit more slowly. The determined reduction in speed is based on a calculation model. According to this, the average speed in early summer 2022 decreased by 7.1 percent compared to November 2019. But: The system does not recognize whether the mobile phone owner is sitting in a public bus, riding a bicycle, riding a horse or driving a private car. Anonymized mobile phone data from Telekom Austria was evaluated. In April, May and June 2022 in particular, the deceleration was disproportionately high. And Monday and Friday are therefore strong home office days. Public transport is used more than in the pre-Corona year 2019. Michael Cik from the data analysis company Invenium attributes the slight decrease in kilometers driven primarily to the corona quarantine and working from home, and less to the high fuel prices. This emerges from the analysis of the data material available to him. Depending on the car For the ÖAMTC, the study shows that people continue to drive their cars despite high fuel prices because they depend on it. The club is demanding a reduction in mineral oil tax, an increase in the kilometer allowance to 60 cents per kilometer and a reform of the commuter allowance by switching to kilometer-based billing. In addition, the club is against a reduction in the permitted maximum speeds, he wants to rely on it being voluntary instead of the threat of punishment. According to Cik, his data analysis shows that the introduction of the climate ticket in October 2021 will have the first positive effects in 2022 with regard to the use of public transport – especially in the area of business trips on weekdays and leisure activities on weekends. If the increased fuel prices had contributed to a significant change, i.e. led to a shift from motorized private transport to public transport, according to Cik, increased use of public transport would have been visible much earlier in the time series earlier, is in good company. That’s how most people do it.
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