The environmental impact caused by road access to Timanfaya Natural Park on Lanzarote Island

Full text

The environmental impact caused by road access to Timanfaya
Natural Park on Lanzarote Island
Roberto Rendeiro Martín-Cejas
⇑
Departamento de Análisis Económico Aplicado, Campus Universitario de Tafira, Edificio Departamental de CC.EE. y EE. – Módulo D., 35017 Las Palmas de
Gran Canaria, Spain
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Article history:
Keywords:
Sustainability
Transport for tourism
Ecological Footprint
Environmental management
abstract
This paper evaluates the impact of road transport usage in accessing the Timanfaya Natural
Park on Lanzarote Island, and its implications for sustainable tourism development. This
evaluation is based on projections of the trip matrix estimated for Lanzarote Island. First,
we estimate the global environmental impact, or the contribution of the road transport
required for accessing the natural park to climate change. The methodology employed is
the Ecological Footprint indicator. The study analyses how to manage the impact of road
access to tourist activities through a price intervention; i.e. fuel tax. Redesigning the public
transport supply is proposed as an alternative to the pricing policy. Finally, conclusions are
drawn.
Ó2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
A large increase in automobile ownership and usage has taken place on Lanzarote Island, and this is closely related to
tourism. In order to meet the demands of the provision of goods for tourism development activities, leisure and shopping
new daily tourism trips have been incorporated. This situation heavily impacts upon mobility needs, because such activities
were less intense before tourism became the island’s most important business. In addition, the much larger number of work-
ers also contributes to the increased number of daily trips at peak hours. Most of Lanzarote’s road network has a high level of
congestion (Sánchez, 2003). So, surface transport for tourists becomes a crucial factor in tourism services, because it affects
the perception of the service; at the same time, it could also be an important factor in its unsustainability.
A beautiful natural park cannot be enjoyed, if there is no means of transport to facilitate its access. However, the mass
usage of a specific transport route can prevent the enjoyment of this natural resource. There has been a dramatic increase
in car usage for tourist destinations, which causes a lot of environmental damage (Capineri and Spinelli, 2002). This paper
evaluates the contribution of tourism related road transport emissions to the greenhouse effect. Any environmental distur-
bance occurring at local level is not considered. The methodology used is the Ecological Footprint (EF) indicator. The analysis
was based on projections of the actual origin/destination matrix estimated for Lanzarote Island. Section ‘Measuring the envi-
ronmental impact of the road transport related to tourism’ briefly summarizes the techniques commonly used to evaluate
the changes in environmental quality. Section ‘Road transport EF estimation for accessing Timanfaya Natural Park’ describes
the ecological energy footprint per capita related to the road transport requirements for accessing the National Park, as a
proportion of the total energy associated with other tourist activities. Section ‘How to manage the environmental impact
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2015.09.027
1361-9209/Ó2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
⇑
Tel.: +34 928 45 28 08; fax: +34 928 45 81 83.
E-mail address: roberto.rendeiro@ulpgc.es
Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466
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of road access to Timanfaya Park’ proposes a pricing intervention (a fuel tax) and the redesigning of the public transport
supply as a way of managing the environmental impact. Finally, some conclusions are drawn about the existing trade-off
between these solutions and the need for tourist mobility on Lanzarote Island.
Measuring the environmental impact of the road transport related to tourism
The phenomenon of mass tourism has a high environmental impact, mostly in ecologically fragile tourist destinations,
and transport becomes a crucial factor. The use of land transport in accessing tourism activities is nowadays one of the most
serious problems to be resolved by local government. Sustainably managing the demand for tourism transportation at the
destinations requires needs a good dose of common sense, because a trade-off exists. Tourism activities promote the
development of the local economy, and at the same time impacts upon the free access to the resource. To deal with this
dichotomy, policymakers need a carefully thought out and balanced raft of policies that encourage amore sustainable usage
of road transport for tourism; this must be without compromising the economic benefit generated by these activities at a
local level. Key to guaranteeing policy implementation is to evaluate environmental damage through impact methodology.
Overall, transport contributes 94% of the tourism related energy, compared to accommodation at 4% and other activities
at 2% (Gössling, 2002). Road transport accounts for 81% of the total energy used by the transport sector (Chapman, 2007), and
the tourism road traffic segment is increasing rapidly without any sign of saturation. In addition, leisure traffic is highly
correlated to private motorized vehicles (Gronau and Kagermeier, 2007). In that sense, transport planning at tourist
destinations should be focussed on reducing private car usage for leisure purpose. One of the greatest environmental impacts
of road transport is the land that it requires. People using automobiles consume 30 times more area than those travelling by
bus (Vasconcellos, 2001). This island territory has scarce available space, and high traffic congestion is produced, which
causes delay to others, higher energy consumption and emission of pollutants.
Transport is a major source of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. This greenhouse gas produces global warming,
which is one of the most controversial external effects of the transport sector. Significant increases in the amount of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere would accelerate global warming and result in a series of environmental impacts. To give but two
effects, sea levels would rise due to oceanic thermal expansion, and the pH of oceans would lower so several beneficial
marine organisms would have to live in deeper waters. This could have a strong impact on the quality of tourism services,
especially on islands that are tourist destinations. Gössling et al. (2002) pay special attention to the energy usage associated
with air travel. They estimated that about 97.5% of the footprint left by European tourists arriving in Seychelles in 2000
resulted from air travel. Berritella et al. (2006) found that climate change will bring about substantial changes in tourists’
choices of destination, with important economic consequences for the tourism industry. They also conclude that their study
underestimated the cost of climate change on tourism, and on other effects such as rises in sea level, changes in the water
cycle, and the spread of diseases; this has to be studied in future research.
Schianetz et al. (2007) provide a useful analysis of the tools that have been used to assess the sustainability of tourism
destination. There are broad sets of available tools to make comprehensive assessments of the environmental impact of tour-
ism: Sustainability Indicators (SI), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental
Audits (EA), Ecological Footprints (EF), Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) and Adaptive Environmental Assessment (AEA).
Guidelines are need in order to select the most effective methodology in each case. However, these techniques frequently
have to be combined to allow the best possible sustainability assessment. The areas included in the matrix selection of these
different tools are: time perspective, spatial focus, focus for change and effects included in the impact study. From the spatial
point of view, these tools can be divided into those that evaluate mainly environmental impacts at global and regional level
(SI, LCA and EF) and tools that concentrate on localized impacts (EIA, AEA, MCA and EA).
Most of these assessment tools are incapable of considering dynamic impacts because they are static measures, such as
photography. More specifically, SI is used as an integral element to promote sustainable development. Usually, the perfor-
mance indicators of SI tool are used to benchmark tourism activities. However, the information generated by SI should be
complemented by more site-specific assessment tools such as EIA. The main focus of LCA is to evaluate environmental
impacts at world level, such as global warming. This technique, as with EF, does not include consideration of the social
and economic impacts. EIA is a specific technique for pre-project approval. For instance, EIA are generally used for assessing
the environmental impact of future infrastructure projects of, for example, roads and airports. The main difficulty is that this
procedure does not allow [feedback for re-evaluation. In this sense, to improve the weakness of EIA, a more dynamic proce-
dure was developed, the adaptive environmental assessment (AEA). The AEA tool is based on a simulation model to take into
account the dynamic environmental, social and market changes inherent in all natural systems. However, the use of the AEA
procedure is rare and its applicability has to be validated with more research. EA is a tool used as an integral part of the envi-
ronmental management process. The EA tool is usually combined with other tools such as SI, LCA and EIA as a site-specific
technique for the assessment of local impacts. Finally, multi-criteria analysis (MCA) allows comparison of mutually
excluding alternatives, such us ranking different projects with respect to, for instance, its financial return. It is a tool for
the judgement of the decision-making team in evaluating the contribution of each option against the established criteria
(Schianetz et al., 2007).
This study seeks to evaluate the environmental impact caused by carbon dioxide emissions derived from excessive
private car usage for accessing tourist sites on Lanzarote Island. The main objective is to give a simple and static measure
458 R.R. Martín-Cejas / Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466

that allows us to establish a common starting point for debate. In that sense, Ecological Footprint is a practical and simple
methodology capable of measuring the impact of carbon emissions at a very low data cost. Its principal advantages are that it
adopts physical variable units of land area for the comparative process, and that it provides a methodological framework to
estimate the tourism related EF. Hence, when one non-site specific impact, such as the effect of greenhouse gases, is included
in the impact study, the EF may be considered an adequate methodology. This approach is currently being used to identify
the contribution of the different components of tourism upon global climate change (Gössling, 2002). Rendeiro Martín-Cejas
and Ramírez (2010) estimated that the road transport EF related to tourism activity in Lanzarote accounted for almost 37% of
the total road transport footprint in 2005. This means that the energy used in road travel per tourist in Lanzarote represents
2.8 times the energy intensity they use in other activities. Therefore, the Ecological Footprint analysis has proven itself to be a
useful methodology when the environmental impact of different tourism components has being analyzed, and it also helps
put management policy decisions into context. For instance, a 10% increase in tourist arrivals at a particular destination
would be easier to manage if the EF projections to upgrade transport infrastructure were estimated in order to confront this
growth in tourism flow. Transport sector is an environmentally critical component of tourism and the EF methodology
enable us to make comparisons of different scenarios of tourism growth and allow us to identify the specific areas that policy
makers must address.
The Ecological Footprint (EF) method has been proposed as a standard methodology to evaluate the environmental impli-
cations of alternative development models (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). This aggregate indicator permits the estimation of
the equivalent land/sea area, or biosphere, required to support productive activities. Its unique attribute is that it accounts
for the demand upon natural resources, in terms of an equivalent land/sea area, or global hectares. This facilitates the com-
prehension of environmental impact; see Hunter and Shaw (2007) and the IPCC reports. The authors classify productive
space into six major categories: arable land, pasture, forest, sea, built-up land and fossil energy land. When it comes to esti-
mating the footprint in terms of the equivalent land area all except the last of these categories are self-explanatory. Fossil
energy land represents the equivalent planted forest area needed to absorb the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere
by human activities. This area could be estimated by applying the land/sea area conversion factor (0.00035 hectares/l of fuel)
to the fuel consumption per kilometre (Chi and Stone, 2005).
Rees (2000) points out that the major strength of EF analysis is that it incorporates a human carrying capacity concept,
and that it reconnects people to the land. It recognizes that humans are biological beings, and that the economy is a depen-
dent sub-system of the non-growing ecosphere. By contrast, some of the main criticisms of the EF indicators are that the
concept does not capture the full range of ecologically significant impacts on the ecosphere (e.g. ozone depletion), and that
it over-simplifies nature and society. The author concludes that no tool for sustainability is complete and there isn’t one that
will satisfy everybody.
The widespread accepted use of the EF as a key environmental indicator of sustainable tourism can also be seen in Hunter
and Shaw (2007). They argue that the parochialism of most studies, by monitoring the impact at the destination level, may
ignore the global environmental impact generated in the ‘‘transit region”. They point out that the EF does take into account
the pressure on the global biosphere, and therefore they include a travel related impact component. Hunter and Shaw also
demonstrate that the unique attribute of the EF indicator is its capacity to express the demands upon natural resources, in
terms of a hypothetical equivalent land/sea area. Thus, it is possible to understand the environmental impact, and it is a pow-
erful educational tool. In order to validate the utility of EF in assessing the sustainability of tourism, these two authors argue
that the different modes of transport should be integrated into the analysis.
The environmental impact of road transport related to tourism has been a neglected area of tourism transport research.
Becken et al. (2003) estimated that the contribution of private cars to tourism transport energy use at a West Coast tourist
resort in New Zealand was about 79%. Dickinson et al. (2009) found in Purbeck’s study that the car dominates (82%) the
modal choice in most European destinations; and that the bus was seen as the main alternative to the car, if improvements
in the services have taken place in order to promote the use. The substantial contribution of the tourism road transport to the
global greenhouse effect can be readdressed using EF analysis. Next, the EF for road access to the National Timanfaya Park on
Lanzarote Island, and a comparison in terms of energy uses by tourists, will be estimated. Two ways of managing the
environmental impact of road access to Timanfaya Park will be analysed; they are fuel tax and redesigning the public
transport services.
Road transport EF estimation for accessing Timanfaya Natural Park
Timanfaya Natural Park characteristics and tourism flow
Lanzarote Island is the most easterly of the Canary Islands’ archipelago, situated a little over 130 km west of the African
coast, and has a total surface area of nearly 862 km
2
. Its orography is flat, with moderately elevated areas, and the highest
point has an altitude of 670 m. Timanfaya Natural Park forms part of a broad area that was affected by the volcanic eruptions
that struck Lanzarote between 1730 and 1736. This eruptive process drastically changed the island’s morphology. The vol-
canic landscape produced by such activity has a perimeter of 174 km; however, the protected area, termed as the Timanfaya
National Park, only covers an area of 51.07 km
2
.
R.R. Martín-Cejas / Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466 459

Throughout Timanfaya there are what vulcanologists call ‘‘geothermic anomalies.” This means there are unusual temper-
atures in the earth’s surface that come from the subsoil, actually from a residual chamber of magma close to the surface.
These effects can be seen by visitors in the form of the famous geysers, the combustion of gorse and by cooking food using
the earth’s natural heat. Within the Natural Park, there is a 14.5 km visitors’ route. The trail, which fits perfectly into its
surroundings, runs along the main centre of the eruptions, where there is a concentration of unusual elements that are of
great geological and geomorphic interest.
Around 42% of the island’s surface is considered a protected area. It is paradoxical that the local government makes real
efforts to conserve the environment, but at the same time allows continual tourism development in coastal areas. In the last
ten years, concrete consumption has almost doubled, and the supply of beds has increased nearly 43%. Today, Lanzarote’s
economy depends almost exclusively on tourism. About 78% of the jobs are directly related to this sector. The average tourist
stays on the island for around 10 days and spends about €40.40 per day. The main source countries are Great Britain (45%),
Germany (20.7%) and Ireland (10.3%). Around two million tourists visited the island in 2005 (Anuario Estadístico de
Lanzarote, 2006), and this figure is about fifteen times larger than Lanzarote’s population. This constant flow of tourists
exerts a great pressure on the need for mobility, and must substantially impact upon the environment.
The relationship between tourism and transport goes beyond the mere objective of travelling from the departure point to
the destination, as it also continues throughout all the tourism experience. Surface transport becomes crucial in tourism
services, and at the same time is an important factor in its unsustainability. The rapid growth in tourism and collateral
services, such as surface transport, make it crucial to evaluate the impact that Lanzarote’s transport network imposes on
its environment; this is needed in order to formulate alternative integrated tourism and transport planning, in accordance
with principles of sustainability.
EF estimations
Traffic volumes were estimated from an origin/destination matrix
1
survey performed for Lanzarote’s road network
(Sánchez, 2003). The total annual vehicle-kilometre figure estimated for accessing Timanfaya National Park was obtained by
considering a modal split between a tour bus and hire car, whereby 22.5% of tourists go to Timanfaya Park by tour bus, and
the rest rent a car. On average, the standard tour bus has 50 seats and car occupancy was considered to be two. The average
return trip was estimated by considering three possible origins, Playa Blanca, Puerto del Carmen and Costa Teguise, which
account for about 95.4% of the total tourist beds available on the island. As it is apparent from the map of Lanzarote, two main
routes were considered from these three starting points or origins for accessing the Timanfaya Park (Fig. 1: black dot-line).
The first ways are Yaiza-Timanfaya Park route and the Tinajo-Timanfaya Park route, which have two starting points, Playa
del Carmen and Playa Blanca, respectively. From those two starting points tourists can get to Timanfaya Park by going two
ways. First, there is Playa Blanca-Yaiza-Timanfaya, with a return distance of 40.6 km; and second, there is Playa del Carmen-
Tias-Yaiza-Timanfaya, with a return distance of 47.6 km. The second route has only Costa Teguise as its starting point. Here,
the way to get to Timanfaya is Costa Teguise-Arrecife-San Bartolomé-Tinajo-Timanfaya Park, with a return distance of
76.88 km. An internal tour route, the volcano route inside Timanfaya Park, of 14.5 km was also included. Table 1 shows
the estimation of the vehicles-km on the roads by route and mode; i.e. car and bus.
Table 2 shows the estimated EF for tourists accessing Timanfaya Park. The total road network footprint is the sum of the
physical footprint of the road network, which is estimated in terms of the paved road surface; and the EF calculation is based
on the hypothetical equivalent land/sea area required to sequester the carbon dioxide emitted by motor vehicles on this
network during one year.
2
The land/sea area conversion factor for the EF was estimated by considering that, on average,
one litre of fuel produces about 0.035 GJ/l: [1(L) 0.035 GJ/L]/[100 GJ/Ha/year] = 0.00035 ha/l. The EF of the road transport
can be estimated using the expression (Chi and Stone, 2005):
EF ¼½width ðkmÞlength ðkmÞ þ ½ðvehicle-km=yearÞðl=kmÞð0:00035 ha=lÞ
With the two routes considered, and the modal split assumption included, the EF for road access to Timanfaya Park was
estimated for 2005, and projections for 2015 were also obtained. As is apparent from Table 3, the ecological impact of leisure
travel to Timanfaya Park increases slightly (4.5%) throughout the period considered. In 2005, the estimated footprint was
about 23 km
2
, in terms of hypothetical equivalent land/sea (biosphere) area. This represents about 45% of the protected park
area (5107 ha), and 2.7% of the total area of Lanzarote Island (846 km
2
). Table 3 also shows the per tourist contribution to the
total footprint.
In per capita terms, tourists that use cars for accessing Timanfaya Park generate an EF almost three times higher than bus
users, and this can be seen in terms of energy use. Gössling (2002) assumed that, at their destination, an average tourist uses
250 MJ of energy for activities, excluding transport to/from the activity. In 2005, the total road transport energy EF related to
accessing Timanfaya Park was estimated in this study as being 23,01.7 ha (see Table 2). By applying an inverse conversion
factor to this figure, and by knowing that one litre of petrol is equivalent to 34.5 MJ (Becken et al., 2003), enables us to esti-
mate the energy use per tourist for road transport to/from activities; and this value was about 121 MJ per capita. This means
1
The transport road network may be represented numerically in the form of matrix. Usually, the rows and columns represent the starting point and
destination, respectively. The numeric value in a matrix cell shows the traffic flow between a given starting point and the destination in the network.
2
These calculations exclude road building and maintenance.
460 R.R. Martín-Cejas / Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466

that the energy used in road travel per tourist to access Timanfaya represents about 48% of the total energy-intensity they
use for other activities. In other words, enjoying a tourist activity in an out-of-resort area on Lanzarote Island can be assumed
to increase energy use per tourist by 48%.
As it is apparent from Table 3, the energy EF for private cars accessing Timanfaya Park is nine times higher than for a bus;
thus, restricting the use of private cars should be one of the main conclusions of this study. Policy makers have a wide range
of measures to intervene in the transport market to stimulate a more sustainable pattern of transport use; i.e. the weak
sustainability principle. For instance, the government could introduce subsidies for cleaner modes of transport and tax more
Fig. 1. Lanzarote island map. Note: The black dot-line represents the two routes analyzed. First, Yaiza-Timanfaya Park route with two starting point, Playa
Blanca (return distance of 40.6 km s) and Puerto del Carmen (return distance of 47.6 km s). Second, Tinajo-Timanfaya Park route with one starting point,
Costa Teguise (return distance of 76.88 km s).
Table 1
Vehicle-km estimation for accessing Timanfaya Park (2005).
Number of visiting in year 2005: 1778882
Traffic flow by mode and route
a
: Traffic flow
Yaiza route Private car: 568,489
Tour bus: 24,808
Tinajo route Private car: 35,1455
Tour bus: 7934
Volcano route
b
Tour bus: 16,468
Vehicle-km by mode and route: Vehicles-km
Yaiza route (return distance: 47.6 km) Car-km: 27,060,076
Bus-km: 1,180,861
Tinajo route (return distance: 76.9 km) Car-km: 27,026,889
Bus-km: 610,124
Volcano route (distance: 14.5 km) Bus-km: 238,786
a
The traffic flow date was obtained from the origin/destination matrix
(Sánchez, 2003).
b
Internal tour made using a bus with 54 seats (with a frequency of one bus
each 16 min): 889,277 (n °visits)/54 = 16,468.
R.R. Martín-Cejas / Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466 461

polluting forms. By considering the existing tradeoff between economical gains and environmental impacts, the government
may, at least in theory, be able to reach the social optimum. The main issues in integrating transport planning into tourism
policy are to maintain the objective of making the transport sector more sustainable, and to simultaneously allow growth in
tourism.
Where there is the aim of creating a sustainability strategy, an educational tool, such as the EF indicator, becomes crucial
in establishing the environmental correspondence among tourists, the transport sector and governments. The correspon-
dence criteria have to be interpreted as the ‘‘willingness to pay” for carbon offsetting schemes (Boon et al., 2006), and
estimating this willingness requires a deeper understanding of the environmental concerns. This physical indicator could
help to change road traffic management, in that it improves the understanding of the associated environmental cost. The
EF indicator contributes, since it gives us the possibility of making future projections of the footprint. According to our
calculations, the difference between both periods (2005 and 2015) is negligible, and because of this is not represented here.
We have to bear in mind that our calculations only take into account the access to one tourism activity, and the variations are
enough to make a contrast in the representation of the footprint.
How to manage the environmental impact of road access to Timanfaya Park
Leisure travel accounts for about 48% of the total transport performance in Germany and 52% of the total is by private car,
whereas only 6% of the population uses public transport (Schiefelbusch et al., 2007). In the United Kingdom, leisure travel
Table 2
Road transport EF in accessing Timanfaya Park.
Transport type Vehicle-km/year
a
Average fuel
efficiency (l/km)
Conversion factor
(hectares forest /l)
Energy
footprint (ha)
Physical
footprint (ha)
Total footprint (ha)
Year 2005 2301.7
Yaiza route:
Private car 27,060,076 0.1022 0.00035 967.9
Tour bus 1,180,861 0.3428 0.00035 141.7
Total 1109.6 42.8 1152.4
Tinajo route:
Private car 27,026,889 0.1022 0.00035 966.7
Tour bus 610,124 0.3428 0.00035 73.2
Total 1039.9 69.2 1109.1
Volcano route:
Tour bus 238,786 0.3428 0.00035 28.6 11.6 40.2
Year 2015 2404.3
Yaiza route:
Private car 28,331,899 0.1022 0.00035 1013.4
Tour bus 1,236,361 0.3428 0.00035 148.3
Total 1161.7 42.8 1204.5
Tinajo route:
Private car 28,297,153 0.1022 0.00035 1012.2
Tour bus 638,800 0.3428 0.00035 76.6
Total 1089 69.2 1158.2
Volcano route:
Tour bus 250,009 0.3428 0.00035 30 11.6 41.6
a
Vehicle-km of private car and tour bus accessing Timanfaya Park (see Table 1).
Table 3
Road transport energy EF per capita.
2005 2015 (% increase)
Total road transport EF 2301.7 2404.3(4.4%)
Total required forest land by transport mode Car 1934.6 ha Car 2025.6 ha
Bus 215 ha Bus 224.9 ha
Bus
a
28.6 ha Bus
a
29.8 ha
Required forest land per tourist and transport Mode (average car
occupancy: 2; average tour bus occupancy: 54)
Car user 0.0014 ha Car user 0.0014 ha
Bus user 0.00054 ha Bus user 0.00053 ha
Bus user
a
0.00003 ha Bus user
a
0.00003 ha
a
Internal tour bus.
462 R.R. Martín-Cejas / Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466

accounts for 30% of all trips, and most are made by private car. Those figures confirm the need to establish effective guidance
to manage tourism traffic demand (Dickinson and Robbins, 2007). Chapman (2007) argues that fuel tax is a useful policy to
curb road transport emissions. A fuel tax could be a more accurate approach, because a direct incentive on fuel efficiency
arises that could encourage a modal shift. Next, two ways of managing the environmental impact of road access to Timanfaya
Park will be analysed: fuel tax and the redesigning of the public transport services.
Fuel tax simulation
Storchmann (2001) estimated the prices elasticities for each mode of transport, and by motive for the trip. He found a
high fuel price elasticity for leisure car travel (0.120) compared to other reasons for travelling. He pointed out that trav-
ellers perceive car use as essential for work and business trips, but unessential in the leisure segment. This means that if
gasoline prices increase, using cars for leisure purpose tends to decrease. However, the fuel price elasticity for bus travel
was estimated as 0.045. This means that the bus leisure alternative has little chance of capturing the avoided car trips, should
the fuel tax be increased; the point is that these car trips are avoided, rather than shifted to other modes of transport. At first
sight, the relatively high elasticities for car leisure travel show that the fuel tax impact on the modal split is high in the
leisure segment. There is now a margin for strategies aimed at incentives for modes of leisure transport other than the car.
Incremental elasticity analysis (Ortúzar and Willumsen, 1990) is an approach that has been put forward for performing
quick analyses on the modal split of fare changes, levels of service and other attributes of a particular mode. The aim, in this
kind of analysis, is to estimate small changes in mode choice due to small changes in one of the attributes at a given point in
time. In general terms, we consider an initial situation where the level of demand for a mode is T
0
, the change in service level
of any attribute is given by the ratio (S–S
0
)/S
0,
and E
s
is the elasticity of demand with respect to any attribute; for example,
fuel price. The incremental elasticity is estimated by the formula:
TT
0
¼E
s
T
0
ðSS
0
Þ=S
0
where E
s
can be considered as the fuel price elasticity of the car for leisure purposes, T
0
is the number of leisure trips in terms
of vehicle-km. and the ratio (S–S
0
)/S
0
represents the change in fuel tax. Finally, TT
0
is the change in demand for the mode,
due to a relative change in the attribute. This formula is an approximation, which assumes that E
s
is a constant that has been
estimated beforehand, and that everything else remains the same.
The analysis considered an increase in fuel tax of about 40%. This level of taxation allows for maintaining the CO
2
emis-
sions in 2015 at approximately the same quantity as in 2005. The estimated variation in demand for leisure car and bus trips
was estimated following an incremental elasticity analysis. With fuel price elasticity for leisure car and bus travel equal to
0.120 and 0.045, respectively (Storchmann, 2001), a variation in the leisure traffic flow using the transport mode was
estimated for both routes. Those values, multiplied by the distance travelled via the Yaiza routes (47.6 km) and the Tinajo
route (76.9 km), give us the variation in vehicles-km by transport mode. By applying conversion factors to the vehicle-km
variation, the CO
2
emission variation was estimated. Table 4 summarizes these calculations.
The carbon emission reductions caused by a 40% increase in fuel tax for 2005 account for only 4.5% of the total emissions
for the road access to Timanfaya Park which is a very small change. Although the number of car trips that have shifted
elsewhere is high (88,315 tourists), the possibility of the bus alternative in catching users from the car mode is low
(29,465 tourists). Thus, 58,850 tourists are crowded out from the market.
3
The increase in fuel prices brings about the real importance of this input for all worldwide economies. The government
has found many problems in readdressing its economics policies, in order to adapt their economies to this new scenario. The
implementation of a fuel tax for environmental purposes can be a hard task. According to the fuel price elasticity for leisure
travel, there is a margin to try and shift from leisure car travel to a more sustainable mode of transport. Despite this, there are
Table 4
CO
2
emission variations caused by a 40% increases in fuel tax.
Route and transport mode Variation in leisure
traffic flow by mode
a
Variation in vehicles-km
by transport mode
Conversion factors
(tonnes CO
2
/Veh-km)
Emission reduction
(tonnes CO
2
)
b
Yaiza route
Car 27,287.5 1,298,885 0.00017 220.8
Bus +446.5 +21,253.4 0.0002 +4.25
Tinajo route
Car 16,870 1,297,303 0.00017 220.5
Bus +142.8 +10,981.3 0.0002 +2.2
Net both routes 434.85
a
For instance, the variation in leisure car travel through the Yaiza route: TT
0
=(0.120) (568,489) (0.40) = 27,287.5 cars.
b
The emission reduction estimated for the fuel price elasticity of leisure road journeys by car is equal to (0.120) and by bus (0.045); this is for an
increase in fuel tax of about 40% and a distance travelled equal to 47.6 km and 76.9 km for the Yaiza and Tinajo routes, respectively (see Table 1).
3
The calculations were made by assuming that, on average, the standard tour bus has 50 seats and the average car occupancy is two.
R.R. Martín-Cejas / Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466 463

insurmountable social difficulties. The social and economic repercussions of this kind of policy can be relevant to Lanzarote
economy, 80% of which depends on tourism.
On the other hand, there are technical obstacles to implementing a leisure related fuel tax. One is the fuel tax discrimi-
nation for the tourism segment. This means that a fuel tax applied to road usage tourism related activities would probably be
impossible to apply, or it would incur high administrative costs. Alternatively, the use of private cars to access tourism activ-
ities can be rationed by increasing passenger load factors (car sharing) or decreasing travel distance (Becken et al., 2003).
Forbidding the access of private cars with less than four travellers to Timanfaya Park could be a more reliable policy.
Dickinson et al. (2009) found there is some support for car restrictions and some willingness by visitors to use alternatives
modes in rural tourist destinations. Thus, the focus is on minimizing the use of one particular mode of transport mode in
favour of a more friendly environmentally one (Verbeek and Mommaas, 2008). However, before car use is managed, the level
of service of the alternative modes of transport must be improved.
Redesigning public transport supply
The results of this study provide arguments for implementing new and attractive public transport supplies related to the
leisure travel segment on Lanzarote Island. Guiver et al. (2007) suggest that the rural tourism bus network needs to be reap-
praised by taking into account several attributes, such as social inclusion, traffic and mileage reduction. The authors also point
out that there are clear economic benefits associated with the development of an attractive bus network, which facilitates
access opportunities for residents and visitors without cars. Moreover, there is evidence that identifies barriers to a modal
shift from the private car to public transport alternatives. For instance, local residents do not want their car use restricted,
and policies to achieve this modal shift have not succeeded (Robbins and Dickinson, 2007). Nevertheless, efforts must be made
to allow for a more balanced use of the private car and public transport in Lanzarote. The current use of private car rental for
tourism in the island is excessive, and is expected to grow in the forthcoming decades if no policy to reduce private vehicle
usage is implemented. It should be stressed that if either Lanzarote’s public transport or collective tourism transport supply
improves in the near future, then road transport EF will probably represent a higher proportion of the total tourist EF.
10 bus stops
8 bus stops
Balcón del Mar
(Puerto del Carmen)
Biosfera Cultural Centre
(Playa del Carmen)
Bus Station Arrecife
Salinas Hotel
(Costa Teguise)
Bus Line: 3 Bus Line: 6
Biosfera Cultural Centre
(Puerto del Carmen)
Yaiza
Playa Blanca
7 bus stops
5 bus stops
+
Salinas Hotel
(Costa Teguise)
New Conventional
Bus Line
Bus Station
Arrecife
Biosfera Cultural
Centre
(Puerto del Carmen)
Yaiza
Playa Blanca
Timanfaya Park
Salinas Hotel
(Costa Teguise)
Bus Station
(Arrecife)
Yaiza
Playa Blanca
Timanfaya Par
k
New Tourist
Bus Line
Fig. 2. Conventional configuration of Bus lines 3 and 6 and new tourist bus line.
464 R.R. Martín-Cejas / Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466

When a transport system has to be improved, there are two important properties to be taken into account; i.e. reliability
and frequency. These depend on the cost restrictions of the bus company, and the characteristics of the road network
configuration it serves. For instance, the average speed mainly depends on the road to volume-capacity ratio and the number
of signals and bus stops per kilometre. Those aspects become crucial if the bus public service has to attract private car users.
From this perspective, the public transport supply on Lanzarote Island is very deficient.
The first thing to be pointed out is that Timanfaya Park is not included in the public bus network, as there is no bus line to
connect Timanfaya Park with the three aforementioned resorts. The Lanzarote bus network provides approximately one bus
per 400 people, including public and tourist transport, which is clearly insufficient to satisfy tourist travel demands on the
island. Other representative examples illustrate the deficient level of public transport on Lanzarote Island. The route from
the island’s capital, Arrecife, to Puerto del Carmen, one of the most important tourist destinations, is just 16 km. However,
there are only two buses an hour for this route at peak demand; and there are 12 bus stops along the way, which is almost
one stop per kilometre. Furthermore, the bus operating this interurban route also provides urban services. Under these
conditions, the reliability and efficiency of public transport on Lanzarote Island can be severely damaged or even absent.
The main problem with the public transport provision on the island is that there is only one private operator, whose
monopoly imposes institutional and political barriers to pursuing service efficiency.
Lumsdon (2006) pointed out that the provision of public transport in rural destinations is not usually sufficiently attrac-
tive to encourage any significant level of modal shift. The author emphases that it is necessary to find a new social construc-
tion for the bus travel model, where a multifaceted bus network plays an important role in encouraging people to enjoy their
destination without a car. The case here is to choose between two design approaches. The former places the emphasis on the
need to design a bus network to include tourism activities. The latter is a conventional approach that meets the needs of all
users, but may be modified to accommodate the desires of tourists. In the case of Lanzarote, the conventional approach is the
most appropriate, because there are several rural destinations without bus access. A public transport service that provides a
multifaceted service for residents without private cars and tourists, based on social inclusion, may improve social welfare;
however, this approach is also a tradeoff between the need to serve a wide range of users and the reliability of services.
Timanfaya Park is the most visited tourist attraction on Lanzarote Island, with an average of 4874 visiting per day, which
would require about 97 standard 50-seat buses daily. However, as was mentioned, 77.5% of this tourist flow is by car. There is,
therefore, an opportunity to improve the public transport supply. As was previously explained, there are three resorts that act
as starting points: Costa Teguise, Playa del Carmen and Playa Blanca. Two alternative routes are required for accessing Timan-
faya Park. For the Costa Teguise resort: the Tinajo-route (Costa Teguise-Arrecife-San Bartolomé-Tinajo-Timanfaya Park,
76.88 km return distance), and for the Playa del Carmen and Playa Blanca resorts, the Yaiza-route (Puerto del Carmen-
Yaiza-Timanfaya Park, 47.6 km return distance). For this second route, we have to add the road segment between Playa Blanca
and Yaiza (28.74 km return distance) for tourists from the Playa Blanca resorts. Those routes can be seen in Fig. 1.
With these route characteristics, a mixed model of bus services is required; and a multifaceted service that considers the
needs of residents and tourists simultaneously could be optimal. The Lanzarote bus network provides services from Costa
Teguise to Puerto del Carmen (Bus Line 3), and from Puerto del Carmen to Playa Blanca via Yaiza (Bus Line 6) (see Fig. 2).
Restructuring those two bus lines is but one possible design for a tourist bus service using the Yaiza route. Fig. 2 shows a
new conventional bus line designed using a conventional approach. Also, a new tourist bus line, in which the tourism
transport experience is included.
It is apparent from Fig. 2 that the difference between the conventional and tourist bus lines is that the latter has a minimal
numbers of stops. The conventional design is too hard to implement. The time spent to get from Costa Teguise to Playa
Blanca is too high, since the bus has to stop 33 times. With an average constant speed of 80 km/h, three minutes per stop,
and a distance of 43.2 km, the total time spent by the tourists travelling from Costa Teguise resort to Timanfaya Park would
be approximately two hours and ten minutes. This penalization is too hard to be accepted by tourists. The reason for
reproducing this conventional approach design is to point out the need to implement a more tourist orientated bus line;
however, both designs can be used simultaneously. The conventional one could run at peak hours, and the rest of the time
a new tourist bus line could be implemented. This mixed approach could encourage a modal shift from the car to the bus, and
improve the proportion of the people using public transport, should any restrictions to private car use be introduced on
Lanzarote Island. Moreover, aversion to car restrictions is high, as other studies have shown. Despite the unpopularity of
these measures, many areas would benefit from a car free environment (Dickinson and Robbins, 2007).
Finally, we have to point out that this mixed approach has to be customer orientated, and one major element to take into
account is the supply side. For successful public transport service use in leisure mobility, new ways of marketing are vital.
The target groups must be identified at their destination, as must the transmission of the information to those groups via the
different channels. These means of communication include web pages, telephone information, and the co-operations of
institutions involved in tourism market. All this could be crucial in improving the position of public transport in the leisure
market segment (Gronau and Kagermeier, 2007).
Conclusion
The constant flow of tourists exerts great pressure on the need for mobility; therefore, it may have a substantial environ-
mental impact. The relationship between tourism and transport goes beyond the mere objective of travelling from a
departure point to a destination, as it also continues throughout all tourism experiences. In this sense, surface transport
R.R. Martín-Cejas / Transportation Research Part D 41 (2015) 457–466 465

becomes crucial for tourists to enjoy tourism activities at their destination; however, at the same time, this could be an
important factor for the unsustainability, if excessive private car usage is allowed. Thus, the aim is to control the growth
of private car usage, in order to make tourism transport environmentally sustainable, without reducing people’s opportuni-
ties to satisfy their mobility needs.
This study emphases two areas of government intervention to manage the environmental impact caused by excessive
private car usage related to tourism on Lanzarote Island. The first is the use of educational tools to try to change behavioural
patterns related to the use of the private car. EF can be a strong educational tool to help people easily understand the
environmental impact of their choice of travel mode. The second refers to a more direct intervention, via taxation in the price
of the transport service and/or the redesigning of public bus services, whenever there is a margin for public transport
improvements.
Fuel taxation has been proved to be a suitable way of promoting either a shift to less polluting modes of transport or a
reduction in emissions in the road transport sector. However, as is apparent from this study, a 40% increase in fuel tax could
crowd out a high number of tourists from enjoying destination tourist activities on Lanzarote Island, and the gain, in terms of
CO
2
emissions reductions, would not be substantial. Furthermore, an important limitation of price intervention is that there
would probably be serious technical consequences related to the application of a fuel tax in the leisure segment, because
there is no way to implement fuel price discrimination by transport market segment.
Therefore, alternative transport strategies become necessary to conciliate sustainable tourism development with the need
of leisure mobility. Since the provision of public transport on Lanzarote Island is far from ideal, our study found that a more
appropriate policy would be to try and change the current leisure travel patterns on Lanzarote Island. This can be done by
promoting a more attractive public transport supply, in conjunction with policies to restrict excessive car usage. At a local
level, the efforts to reduce car use in the leisure segment can be made without major changes in the level of transport
provision. For instance, the regulation of a minimal level of car occupancy for cars travelling to Timanfaya Park probably
would perform better than price intervention. Public transport improvements, such as transferring leisure trips from private
car to public bus service may be a suitable ‘‘soft measure” (Guiver et al., 2008). The advantage of promoting a modal shift
to public transport, without reducing the numbers of tourists, is that it can be implemented at local government level. In
addition, it will bring benefits to residents, visitors and the local ecosystem by reducing congestion, pollution, energy use
and CO
2
emissions.
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