Yukon drivers buy the most gasoline at the pumps in Canada per week according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data.

In 2013, drivers in Yukon purchased approximately 40.2 litres of gas each week, almost 1½ times the Canadian average. This is part of a larger national trend of increased fuel consumption.

But according to Roydon Fraser, a researcher at the Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research, this shouldn’t be surprising.

He said factors affecting the fuel efficiency of an engine – how much gas it burns per kilometre – include cold weather and poor road conditions.

Both of which are common in the territories.

“Engines consume more gasoline in cold weather and it’s not uncommon for people to run the engine for a couple minutes to get the block heater running,” he said.

Another effect on engine efficiency is the driving distance. In Ontario, many drivers live closer to cities, and the commute is not particularly difficult.

In the North, drivers often need to drive further and through icy conditions, Fraser said.

Ontario and Quebec drivers, while together purchasing 60 per cent of the nation’s gas, were near the median when it came to gasoline used per week. Ontario drivers consumed 27.8 litres and Quebec drivers 22.8 litres each week.

It is also more likely that Yukon drivers will be driving a truck rather than a small car. According to Statistics Canada, trucks outsold passenger cars by a 60-40 per cent margin in British Columbia and the Territories in 2013.

Fraser said this doesn’t mean drivers do not care about the environment. In fact it means the opposite.

“It’s called the energy paradox,” he said. “If we make more efficient engines, people will upgrade to bigger vehicles with a better fuel economy.”

A study published by researchers at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) supports this. It found that the average engine efficiency has been steadily rising – from 11.7 l per 100 km in Oct. 2007 to 9.1 l per 100 km in August 2014.

But despite this, Canadians are still using more fuel. In 2013, Canadians purchased 41.5 million litres of gasoline at the pump. In 2010 that number was 39.7 million litres. “

The absolute consumption is going up, because of the increasing population. However, the consumption per driver is going down,” Michael Sivak, the director of UMTRI, wrote in an email.

In a study published in April 2014, Sivak found that the fuel consumption per driver is noticeably dropping. In the United States, between 2004 and 2012 each driver has cut down their yearly fuel consumption by 433 litres – about seven fill-ups per year.

While the report states there are “fundamental, non-economic changes in society” being driven by public transportation and increased urbanization, Sivak said there is still a lot of work to do in creating a sustainable future for transportation.

He said even though these numbers show support for sustainable transportation is increasing, drivers should still be conscious about the amount of fuel they consume.