Fuel Some analysts believe this could be the first summer people use less gas in New Brunswick since the 1980s

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Driving less these days?

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Matt Staver/Bloomberg News

The gas companies won’t say so, but there are signs people are swiping their cards less and leaving their cars parked this summer because of high gas prices.

It's a question that links the daily urban-sprawl commuter, the rural resident who lacks public transit, the vacationing family, the environment, oil company balance sheets and how much tax governments in Fredericton and Ottawa reap.

Are New Brunswick drivers driving less this summer, with gas prices higher than ever?

The answer: Only oil industry insiders tracking their sales know, and they're not saying.

The telling statistics won't be available from public sources until the fall.

But it will be a marked change if New Brunswickers are actually responding to high prices by buying less gas.

In April - the latest month for which figures are available - gasoline sales volumes in New Brunswick dropped just one-third of one per cent compared to April 2007.

Yet prices for self-serve regular gas were 9.5 per cent higher in Saint John this past April than in April 2007.

In 2007, gas averaged between $1.02 and $1.04 a litre in New Brunswick, depending on the location, according to independent industry consulting firm M.J. Ervin of Calgary.

In the first four months of 2008, gas averaged between $1.17 and $1.19 a litre in New Brunswick, up 14.5 per cent over the previous year's average.

But drivers bought more gas this past January and February than they did a year earlier, and in March, they bought just 1 per cent less.

There were no signs throughout the Atlantic region that gas sales were suffering during the first four months of 2008. The volume in Atlantic Canada rose by 5 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.

But it is always July and August - summer vacation season - when Canadians have the greatest discretion over how often and how far they'll drive.

With prices hovering around $1.38 a litre in Saint John in late July, there's no shortage of incentive to cut back on driving where possible.

"I think it's very conceivable that when the peak driving season figures are in for this year, we will see a decline, which would be something we haven't seen in many, many years going back to the 1980s," said Cathy Hay, senior associate at M.J. Ervin.

Already, there are signs some people are leaving their cars at home.

Nationally in May, according to preliminary figures from Statistics Canada, gasoline sales were down 3.2 per cent from the previous May.

In Saint John, for example, the Comex commuter express service that began in 2007 to link suburban Grand Bay-Westfield, Rothesay, Quispamsis and Hampton with downtown Saint John has seen passenger numbers climb from 1,900 to roughly 2,250 (up 18 per cent) in the last few months.

The city's parking commission has counted 260 fewer cars a day needing spots downtown.

BMO Capital Markets economist Douglas Porter noted that in May, gas prices rose 8.8 per cent but service station sales rose only 2.4 per cent, suggesting drivers were trying to "park it in the face of soaring prices."

Certainly, in the U.S., where the economy is weaker, gasoline demand is down, although less than 2 per cent over the first six months of the year. Still, it was the most significant decline in 17 years, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

Irving Oil referred inquiries to the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, which did not return calls Friday. Neither Wilson Fuels nor the association representing independent gas retailers returned calls, while a manager at Co-Op Atlantic's petroleum division said he did not have sales volume data to share.

How drivers behave this summer will have an impact on government revenue.

At 10.7 cents a litre, the provincial government expects to collect nearly $200 million from gasoline and motive fuel taxes this fiscal year.

A heavy driving July and August peak of 2007 (in which 211 million litres of gas sold in New Brunswick) meant $2.6 million more revenue to the province than the lighter summer of 2006 (in which 186 million litres sold).

There may be a policy implication as well: if the statistics coming out this fall show drivers did not curtail their driving through the summer, when prices are typically five to six cents a litre higher, it will call into question whether a modest carbon tax would noticeably curb gasoline consumption.