ICT for Transport
ICT-EMISSIONS
Development of a methodology and tool to evaluate the impact of ICT measures on road transport emissions
Objectives
The scientific and technical objectives of the project are:
- Develop a comprehensive methodology to assess the impacts of road transport ICT measures on CO2 by taking into account the real-world driving and traffic behaviour in urban agglomerations.
- Develop vehicle simulators to calculate the energy and CO2 emissions of vehicles when operating in ICT regimes, also taking into account advanced vehicle technologies (hybrids, plug-in hybrids, electric, start-stop, etc.).
- Simulate the impact of various ICT measures by implementing commercial traffic models at the micro and macro scales, and link them to vehicle simulators, following the methodology developed.
- Validate the methodology on existing real-world ICT applications in three cities.
- Summarize the impact of ICT measures on traffic, energy, and emissions in a database library.
- Exploit the results of the project by issuing recommendations and implementation guidelines for use of best-practice ICT measures that can lead to significant energy and CO2 reductions from road transport.
Description of Work
The methodology
The main concept of ICT-EMISSIONS is to develop, test and apply an integrated methodology to quantify the impact of ICT solutions on road transport on CO2 emissions. The methodology is developed at two inter-linked levels. A micro-level where the impact of ICT measures is modelled at single vehicle level. The micro-level is specifically developed for passenger cars and takes into account the effect of ICT measures on driving pattern and driver behaviour. This is combined with an instantaneous emission model, taking into account the effect of different vehicle technologies including new ones such as various hybrid concepts. The emission model is specifically designed to be coupled with the micro traffic model. Hence CO2 emissions from passenger cars are calculated on the micro level. Then, results of this micro simulation are extrapolated to the macro level, including all road transport modes. Total CO2 emissions from road transport are then calculated by all vehicles using traffic situation and/or average speed specific emission factors for other road transport vehicles to come up with the big picture. This methodology will allow translation of a local ICT measure (e.g. street level) on CO2 emissions of a wider area (e.g. urban level).
ICT-Emissions does not aim to develop complete new traffic and emission models but will build on commercial tools to put stakeholders (city authorities, road operators) in the position to apply the methodology. Nevertheless, the project will develop some new modules and interfaces to link traffic and emission models. These methods will be documented in a way that they can be implemented in commercial software.
ICT solutions to be considered
Based on existing work in the field (EC-METI (2009) taskforce of the EU and Japan government; Impact of Information and Communication Technologies en Energy Efficiency in Road Transport (Klunder et. Al., 2009) ICT-EMISSIONS will take measures into account that fall into the following ICT categories:
1. Traffic management and control systems
2. Access management systems
3. Navigation and travel information systems
4. Eco-driving
5. Advanced driver assistance systems
6. Accident avoidance
This list, that will be broken down into a multitude of specific applications, will be sufficient to describe the situation in European urban agglomerations.
ValidAtion
The methodology will be applied and validated in several larger European cities such as Turin, Madrid and Rome. Furthermore, the project will collect data from other sites in Europe to demonstrate the validity of the results.
Dissemination & Exploitation
In addition to disseminating the interim and final results of the project through papers, presentations, newsletters and events the project is addressing the stakeholders by the establishment of an exploitation group gathering potential users, comprising transport planners in urban authorities and in private practice. Furthermore, close cooperation with the related projects AMITRAN and ECOSTAND will be maintained.
Expected results
The methodology will allow a full assessment of the impacts of ICT measures to answer questions such as:
- How does the ICT measure affect driving pattern of single vehicles?
- How is the average driver’s behaviour affected by the measures?
- How does the technology of different vehicles respond to the modified driving pattern?
- What kind of modal shifts, at fleet level, does the measure introduce.
The approach developed in the frame of the ICT-EMISSIONS project is expected to enable the modelling of ICT solutions at the micro level and assess their impact on the macro level in terms of CO2 emissions.