MAJOR ESSAY

Automobile industry

Introduction

Since the second half of the 20th century, the major cities in Australia including the households have started developing a strong reliance on automobiles for transportation. This situation has placed them as being the most dependent cities on automobiles in the world. Having a car has been necessitated by many reasons. Of these the most important ones are that there has been a significant decline in transportation since the end of the Second World War and Australia has witnessed a rapid rise in the ownership of automobiles. As the oil resources are diminishing and there is growing awareness about pollution, climate change, environmental concerns along with growing cities, the need to lessen this dependence has risen in the past few years. This paper will attempt to examine the reasons why the households in Australia have become so dependent on automobiles and the negative impact that this dependence is causing on the environment. It will end with providing steps that can be taken to alleviate this problem.

Discussion

A lot of debate has occurred within the government and the society as to what can be done to ensure that this dependence is decreased. Most of this debate has also centred on the environmental problems being caused due to the use of automobiles and why this dependence rose in the first place.

Factors that have contributed to dependency on automobiles

The post-world war period also termed as the “long boom” witnessed a sharp increase in the use of automobiles by the households in Australia. The works of the car manufacturer Henry Ford in the car manufacturing industry enabled car ownership that was formerly a dream and luxury to be affordable by many. This period also saw a booming economy that enabled the unemployed to be employed and improved their financial position. The wartime petrol rationing was removed. This caused a rise in automobile ownership. In 1945, there were 100 cars owned out of a population of 1000. This figure increased to almost 500 cars per 1000 people in the 1970s. This meant that one out of two people owned a car. This increase has been seen throughout the coming decades. The situation has reached to the extent that the Australian cities remain one of the highest automobile users in the world with many cities being only second to some of the cities in America. The use of automobiles by the Australian households is 31 % higher than Europe and 77 percent higher than the Asian countries (www.travelsmart.gov.au).

As automobiles became more and more affordable, the households in Australian enjoyed relying on cars rather than railway transport for travel. This time also saw a fall in the popularity of the railroad system as the importance of truck transportation rose and the inter-state roads were considerably improved. This meant that manufacturers no longer relied on the rails. All of this caused many changes to occur within the urban area as road systems were now efficiently built.

Soon automobiles became the preferred method of transport for households during the ...