Energy consumption and intensity of toll highway transport in Spain

•The energy consumption of tolled highways in Spain is modeled.•Mean energy consumption and CO2 emissions are 1895 MJ/h/lane-km and 0.15 tCO2 eq./h/lane-km.•Energy intensity is determined and set against passenger-kilometres and ton-kilometres.•Spain’s toll highway sections consume 2.6 MJ/transport unit-km: 0.6 for infrastructure and 2.0 for traffic.

We estimate the energy consumption of toll highway transport on a number of Spanish roads. Regression parameters are balanced according to coefficients from an empirical analysis based on survey data by vehicle type. The mean energy consumption and subsequent CO2 emissions on the toll highway sections are estimated as 1895 MJ/h/lane-km and 0.15 tCO2 eq./h/lane-km, values that increase to 2644 and 0.22 when energy and carbon emissions of transport infrastructure are considered based on the life cycle energy consumption for toll highway construction and use. If the energy intensity of infrastructure construction is allocated to the users according to traffic, it is much higher for motorcycles than for cars, and is significantly lower for articulated trucks than for vans.