TransFair-AT Research Brief #2: Exploring the characteristics of mobility and energy poor households in Austria

The target of a full decarbonisation of household energy consumption and mobility by 2040 cannot be achieved without increasing carbon prices. Households that dispose of a low income and/or have high expenses for energy and mobility are particularly affected by increasing carbon prices. The objective of the project TransFair-AT is to develop measures to compensate such particularly vulnerable groups, thus ensuring a socially fair decarbonisation of the housing and mobility sector. As a first step, we identify the criteria under which households can be considered energy poor and mobility poor (section 2) from the standpoint of affordability. In a second step, we analyse how many households in Austria can be classified according to our definition as energy poor and/or mobility poor and are therefore particularly vulnerable to price increases. The analysis presented in this research brief is based on data from a combined mobility and activity and consumer expenditure survey (section 3). In a third step, we analyse the characteristics of energy poor and mobility poor households in relation to their non-energy poor and non-mobility poor counterparts (section 4 to 7). In our analysis, households are characterised by attributes of their socio-demographic status, household location, mobility behaviour and housing situation. In section 8 we describe the commonalities and differences of energy poor and mobility poor households with respect to these characteristics. Our results are summarised in section 9.