Glimpse into a fuel free future

With the prospect of substantial urban sprawl in New Zealand cities and increasing car usage, Dr Andre Dantas (Civil Engineering), Dr Susan Krumdieck (Mechanical Engineering) and mechanical engineering PhD student Shannon Page have developed a software system to measure the impact of potential fuel shortages for a variety of future scenarios.

RECATS, the software model, was an outcome from their report ‘Energy Risk to Activity Systems as a Function of Urban Form’. The report, commissioned by Land Transport New Zealand, investigated the impact of little or no fuel availability

…The prospect of running out of petroleum is a worrying thought. The impact would be far reaching, Dr Dantas said.