| Purpose |
Global climatic change calls for effective programs for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from all countries worldwide. For effective and efficient implementation, environmental considerations should be incorporated at the planning stage. The Institute of Transportation (IOT) has made considerable efforts in building travel demand forecasting models for evaluating transportation projects in economic terms. Incorporating environmental factors for evaluating effects of transportation policies on fuel consumption and air pollution, however, requires more research efforts.
This study continues the efforts of the project entitled, ‘A Study on the relation Analysis between Energy Consumption, Emissions and Transportation Planning’ and ‘A Study of On-board Measurements of Fuel Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Large Buses ‘, which established relationships between fuel consumption/green house gas emission rates and traffic operations factors of small automobiles , large buses and motorcycles. In 2015, the IOT also initiated a study entitled “A Study of On-board Measurements of Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions of Heavy Trucks “to collect energy / CO2 emission parameters for heavy trucks. The objectives are to expand existing databases, as well as to review and strengthen estimation model to enhance the ability for evaluation of policies in carbon reduction. With complex influencing factors as truck weight to horsepower ratio, commodity, body configuration, as well as highway gradients, more detailed study is needed to establish a reasonable estimation model for trucks.
For Year 2016, the research will be focused on the collection of energy/CO2 emission parameters for container trucks or combination trucks for further refining truck parameters and model established from the 2015 study. In-road measurements will be made for the selected truck type for testing parameters in real-life operation. The results of the analysis will be applied to analyze truck operations at large ports to establish policies for truck traffic control and port operations for reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions at ports. |
