The role of ‘indirect’ greenhouse gas emissions in tourism: Assessing the hidden carbon impacts from a holiday package tour

Tourism is a noticeable contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Existing estimates of tourism’s carbon footprint are however incomplete as they fail to holistically assess the additional, ‘indirect’ carbon requirements. These arise from the non-use phases of a tourism product or service life cycle and can be further magnified by supply chain industries. Under-development of methods for carbon impact assessment in tourism is the primary reason for the omission of ‘indirect’ GHG emissions. This study develops a new approach for comprehensive appraisal of GHG emissions which incorporates and advances the methodological advantages of existing assessment techniques. It tests the applicability of this approach in tourism by conducting a holistic analysis of a standard holiday package to Portugal, based on the British tourism market. The new approach demonstrates the significance of the ‘indirect’ GHG emissions in the total carbon footprint from the holiday package, thus emphasising the necessity for more comprehensive future assessments.     

Commuters’ behavior towards upgraded bus services in Greater Beirut: Implications for greenhouse gas emissions,social welfare and transport policy

Climate change is one of the most critical environmental challenges faced in the world today. The transportation sector alone contributes to 22% of carbon emissions, of which 80% are contributed by road transportation. In this paper we investigate the potential private car greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and social welfare gains resulting from upgrading the bus service in the Greater Beirut Area. To this end, a stated preference (SP) survey on mode switching from private car to bus was conducted in this area and analyzed by means of a mixed logit model. We then used the model outputs to simulate aggregate switching behavior in the study area and the attendant welfare and environmental gains and private car GHG emissions reductions under various alternative scenarios of bus service upgrade. We recommend a bundle of realistic bus service improvements in the short term that will result in a reasonable shift to buses and measurable reduction in private car emissions. We argue that such improvements will need to be comprehensive in scope and include both improvements in bus level of service attributes (access/egress time, headway, in-vehicle travel time, and number of transfers) and the provision of amenities, including air-conditioning and Wi-Fi. Moreover, such a service needs to be cheaply priced to achieve reasonably high levels of switching behavior. With a comprehensively overhauled bus service, one would expect that bus ridership would increase for commuting purposes at first, and once the habit for it is formed, for travel purposes other than commuting, hence dramatically broadening the scope of private car GHG emissions reduction. This said, this study demonstrates the limits of focused sectorial policies in targeting and reducing private car GHG emissions, and highlights the need for combining behavioral interventions with other measures, most notably technological innovations, in order for the contribution of this sector to GHG emissions mitigation to be sizable.     

Influences of the driver’s bounded rationality on micro driving behavior,fuel consumption and emissions

In this paper, we propose an extended car-following model to study the influences of the driver’s bounded rationality on his/her micro driving behavior, and the fuel consumption, CO, HC and NO_X of each vehicle under two typical cases, where Case I is the starting process and Case II is the evolution process of a small perturbation. The numerical results indicate that considering the driver’s bounded rationality will reduce his/her speed during the starting process and improve the stability of the traffic flow during the evolution of the small perturbation, and reduce the total fuel consumption, CO, HC and NO_X of each vehicle under the above two cases.     

The impacts of household features on commuting carbon emissions: a case study of Xi’an,China

Transportation - This study contributes to the analysis of the household characteristics and household neighborhood ones affecting the transportation carbon dioxide emissions produced by commuters....     

Singapore’s Vehicle Quota System and its impact on motorcycles

Singapore’s Vehicle Quota System, implemented in 1990, uses uniform-price auctions to allocate Certificates of Entitlement (COE) or registration rights in five categories presently. Four of these are restricted to small and big cars, commercial vehicles and motorcycles. The fifth one is unrestricted as it allows successful bidders to register a vehicle in any restricted category of their choice. Owners are incentivised via another policy to deregister their vehicle by the tenth year expiry of the COE instead of revalidating it. Each deregistration results in a new COE. Currently, 10% of the COEs from each restricted category is channelled to the unrestricted category. However, hardly any of the expensive COEs in the unrestricted category has been used to register motorcycles. The sharp decline in the number of motorcycle COEs since 2014 has led to a surge in auction premiums at about twice the price of an entry-level motorcycle. The auction process before 2014 is shown to be exemplary with the COE premium driven by its inertia and a host of exogenous factors. After 2014 however, it appears to be unresponsive to the historically low quota levels. This undesirable auction trait needs to be remedied by a reformulation of the COE quota in order to help those most in need of a motorcycle to earn a living. Measures announced in the February 2017 Singapore Budget trudge in that direction.     

Electric vehicles’ energy consumption measurement and estimation

Use of electric vehicles (EVs) has been viewed by many as a way to significantly reduce oil dependence, operate vehicles more efficiently, and reduce carbon emissions. Due to the potential benefits of EVs, the federal and local governments have allocated considerable funding and taken a number of legislative and regulatory steps to promote EV deployment and adoption. With this momentum, it is not difficult to see that in the near future EVs could gain a significant market penetration, particularly in densely populated urban areas with systemic air quality problems. We will soon face one of the biggest challenges: how to improve efficiency for EV transportation system? This research takes the first step in tackling this challenge by addressing a fundamental issue, i.e. how to measure and estimate EVs’ energy consumption. In detail, this paper first presents a system which can collect in-use EV data and vehicle driving data. This system then has been installed in an EV conversion vehicle built in this research as a test vehicle. Approximately 5 months of EV data have been collected and these data have been used to analyze both EV performance and driver behaviors. The analysis shows that the EV is more efficient when driving on in-city routes than driving on freeway routes. Further investigation of this particular EV driver’s route choice behavior indicates that the EV user tries to balance the trade-off between travel time and energy consumption. Although more data are needed in order to generalize this finding, this observation could be important and might bring changes to the traffic assignment for future transportation system with a significant share of EVs. Additionally, this research analyzes the relationships among the EV’s power, the vehicle’s velocity, acceleration, and the roadway grade. Based on the analysis results, this paper further proposes an analytical EV power estimation model. The evaluation results using the test vehicle show that the proposed model can successfully estimate EV’s instantaneous power and trip energy consumption. Future research will focus on applying the proposed EV power estimation model to improve EVs’ energy efficiency.     

Investigating the impacts of weather variability on individual’s daily activity–travel patterns: A comparison between commuters and non-commuters in Sweden

Understanding travel behaviour change under various weather conditions can help analysts and policy makers incorporate the uniqueness of local weather and climate within their policy design, especially given the fact that future climate and weather will become more unpredictable and adverse. Using datasets from the Swedish National Travel Survey and the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute that spans a period of thirteen years, this study explores the impacts of weather variability on individual activity–travel patterns. In doing so, this study uses an alternative representation of weather from that of directly applying observed weather parameters. Furthermore, this study employs a holistic model structure. The model structure is able to analyse the simultaneous effects of weather on a wide range of interrelated travel behavioural aspects, which has not been investigated in previous weather studies. Structural equation models (SEM) are applied for this purpose. The models for commuters and non-commuters are constructed separately. The analysis results show that the effects of weather can be even more extreme when considering indirect effects from other travel behaviour indicators involved in the decision-making processes. Commuters are shown to be much less sensitive to weather changes than non-commuters. Variation of monthly average temperature is shown to play a more important role in influencing individual travel behaviour than variation of daily temperature relative to its monthly mean, whilst in the short term, individual activity–travel choices are shown to be more sensitive to the daily variation of the relative humidity and wind speed relative to the month mean. Poor visibility and heavy rain are shown to strongly discourage the intention to travel, leading to a reduction in non-work activity duration, travel time and the number of trips on the given day. These findings depict a more comprehensive picture of weather impact compared to previous studies and highlight the importance of considering interdependencies of activity travel indicators when evaluating weather impacts.     

Developing an integrated scobit-based activity participation and time allocation model to explore influence of childcare on women’s time use behaviour

Focusing on the influence of childcare on women’s time use behaviour, this paper develops an integrated model of activity participation and time allocation, where the former is represented based on a scobit model and the latter based on a multi-linear utility function under the utility-maximizing principle. The integration of the scobit model with the time allocation model is done by applying Lee’s transformation. Especially, the scobit model is adopted to relax the assumption, made in the Logit or Probit model, that individuals having indifferent preferences over participation and non-participation are most sensitive to changes in explanatory variables. Using a large-scale time use data (66,839 persons) collected in Japan, the effectiveness of the proposed integrated model is empirically confirmed. It is revealed that the probabilities of participating in compulsory-contracted activities and discretionary activities with the highest sensitivity to changes in explanatory variables are 65 and 81%, respectively. Variances of social childcare variables explain about half of the total variance of the time use for discretionary activities; however, for compulsory-contracted activities, social childcare variables explain only less than 1% of the total variance of activity participation and less than 10% of total variable of time allocation.     

Help or hindrance? The travel,energy and carbon impacts of highly automated vehicles

Experts predict that new automobiles will be capable of driving themselves under limited conditions within 5–10 years, and under most conditions within 10–20 years. Automation may affect road vehicle energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a host of ways, positive and negative, by causing changes in travel demand, vehicle design, vehicle operating profiles, and choices of fuels. In this paper, we identify specific mechanisms through which automation may affect travel and energy demand and resulting GHG emissions and bring them together using a coherent energy decomposition framework. We review the literature for estimates of the energy impacts of each mechanism and, where the literature is lacking, develop our own estimates using engineering and economic analysis. We consider how widely applicable each mechanism is, and quantify the potential impact of each mechanism on a common basis: the percentage change it is expected to cause in total GHG emissions from light-duty or heavy-duty vehicles in the U.S. Our primary focus is travel related energy consumption and emissions, since potential lifecycle impacts are generally smaller in magnitude. We explore the net effects of automation on emissions through several illustrative scenarios, finding that automation might plausibly reduce road transport GHG emissions and energy use by nearly half – or nearly double them – depending on which effects come to dominate. We also find that many potential energy-reduction benefits may be realized through partial automation, while the major energy/emission downside risks appear more likely at full automation. We close by presenting some implications for policymakers and identifying priority areas for further research.     

Urban form,commuting patterns and CO2 emissions: What differences between the municipality’s residents and its jobs?

This article investigates the links between urban form and commuting patterns, and the CO₂ emissions associated with them, in the municipalities that comprise the New Town of Marne-la-Vallée (NTMV) located in the Paris Region. The paper distinguishes between the commutes performed by residents and those generated by the jobs located in a municipality. The contribution of the paper is twofold. Firstly, it shows that the CO₂ emissions of commutes differ greatly depending on whether one considers residents or jobs: hence focusing on the travel behaviour of residents can lead to significant errors in the assessment of the CO₂ emissions generated by a municipality, and therefore its environmental sustainability. Secondly, the paper explores the relationship between commuting trips and several indicators of urban form: density, compactness, jobs-to-residents ratio, accessibility to public transport and distance from Paris. We highlight that high jobs-to-residents ratios tend to increase the proportion of jobs held by residents. Density and compactness are associated with more sustainable travel behaviour among residents, but not non-residents. Finally, the shape of the public transport system, which mainly connects the municipalities of the NTMV with Paris, tends to decrease the proportion of jobs held by residents, especially in the municipalities that are close to Paris, and does not allow non-residents, most of whom do not travel from Paris, to use public transport.     

An international study on land‐use and transport interaction

This paper underlines the important role played by the interaction between transport and land use in the way cities develop and the need to use a fully integrated land‐use/transport model to assess the longer‐term impacts of urban policies. Since most of the models of this type had never been properly tested, the Transport and Road Research Laboratory in the early 1980s set up a collaborative study to examine critically their performance and to assess the impacts of a range of commonly applied policies.

The paper briefly describes the first phase of the study in which nine models from seven countries were subjected to a rigorous set of tests covering a variety of policies. For practical reasons each model was applied to the city on which it was originally calibrated. To overcome some of the problems of comparison, a second phase of the study was conducted in which some models were applied to several cities each so that the differences due to the particular characteristics of the cities could be identified. In carrying out this phase, some cities were examined by several models and discrepancies in the results analysed. The setting up of the second phase of the study is outlined in this paper, but not the results, which are given in later papers in this and subsequent issues of Transport Reviews.     

Improvement actions for reducing transport’s impact on climate: A shipper’s perspective

The purpose of this paper is to compare improvement actions for reducing transport’s impact on climate from the shipper’s perspective. To that end, it introduces an evaluation tool for comparing improvement actions in transport systems in terms of transport costs, impact on climate, and barriers to implementation. Within the context of five international flows involving a food producer, three actions—namely, engaging intermodal transport, increasing load factors by double-stacking pallets, and using high-capacity vehicles—were evaluated. Shipment data were collected to calculate reductions in transport costs and impact on climate, whereas interviews with the food producer were conducted to identify barriers. Results showed that reductions in transport costs and impact on climate attributed to the improvement actions differed among the five flows. Engaging intermodal transport reduced the system’s impact on climate by 27–53%, double-stacking pallets by 0–23%, and using high-capacity vehicles by 7–15%, with differences primarily due to different freight densities. Concerning barriers to implementation, the improvement actions also varied by flow. Altogether, unlike other papers, which have examined improvement actions separately, this paper offers an evaluation tool for comparing several improvement actions at once, as applied to a particular empirical case. Shippers with multiple flows and several possible improvement actions can use the evaluation tool to efficiently reduce their systems’ impact on climate.     

I’ll have to drive there: How daily time constraints impact women’s car use differently than men’s

Transportation - Women, compared to men, spend more time on home-serving tasks. This might leave women with less time for other activities including daily travel, which can further limit their...     

Decouple transport CO2 emissions from China’s economic expansion: A temporal-spatial analysis

China’s transport industry is energy intensive and high-polluting. While with the surging urbanization and the development of service industry, China’s economic relies more and more on the transport sector. Therefore, exploring the relationship between transport energy-related carbon emission (TECE) and economic development is crucial to the realization of China’s “Post Paris” mitigation target. The paper carries out a decoupling research between TECE and Gross domestic product (GDP) at both national level and province level based on Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition analysis with the extended Kaya identity and Tapio decoupling model. The model quantifies eight factors’ effects on the relationship with focusing on external macro socio-economic related factors (i.e., spatial pattern, urbanization, per capita service industry output value, reciprocal of the service industry’s share of GDP, and demographic variable) successfully. The key conclusions are indicated as follows: (1) the national decoupling status was extensive coupling during 2004–2010 and then weak decoupling during 2010–2016. The progress can be attributed to the decline of energy intensity. (2) Per capita service output was always the prominent factor to promote carbon emissions growth in different time periods and provinces with inhibiting the advancement of decoupling process, followed by urbanization. (3) Scenario analysis shows that with the continuous growth of traffic demand and the promotion of urbanization, improving energy efficiency has become the key link to realize the decoupling between China’s TECE and its economy.     

The role of children’s independent mobility and social media use for face-to-face social interaction with friends

Transportation - Social interaction with friends is an important contributor to children’s well-being, but how transport affects this is rarely studied. For two or more children (not of the...     

Does urbanization lead to less energy use on road transport? Evidence from municipalities in Norway

The relationship between urbanization, energy use, and CO₂ emissions has been extensively studied in recent years, however little attention paid to the differences in urban forms. Previous studies implicitly assume that the urban form is homogenous across different urban areas. Such an assumption is questionable as urban form can have many different facets. This paper investigates the effects of urbanization on the road transport energy use by considering different urban forms from a dataset of 386 Norwegian municipalities from 2006 to 2009. Using the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model with an energy use identity equation, the main findings (1) confirm the well-established result that urban density has a negative and significant influence on road transport energy use, and (2) demonstrate that the effect of urbanization partly depends on the level of urban density. These results imply that additional increases in urbanization in dense areas yield greater decreases in road transport energy use per capita. Additional findings posit that (3) there is a non-linear (quadratic) relationship between road energy use per capita and urban population. This implies that an increase in total municipality population over a specific turning point can result in a decrease in road energy use per capita. However, (4) the ratio of urban residential buildings with private gardens has a negative and significant influence on road transport energy use. This implies that there may be a trade-off between compact and sprawl city development strategies, highlighting that sustainable energy use requires further investigation.     

Customers’ selections between premium electric taxis and liquefied petroleum gas taxis

Reducing roadside emissions is a common challenge in metropolitan cities. In Hong Kong, conventional liquefied petroleum gas taxis are one of the main contributors to roadside emissions as they operate on the streets 24 h a day with a long daily driving mileage. Moreover, these taxis suffer from a severely poor service reputation. To enhance the environmental friendliness and service quality of the taxi industry, this study explores the market potential of operating premium electric taxis in the dispatching mode. A stated preference survey was conducted to 1410 taxi customers about their taxi-riding choices between premium electric taxis and conventional liquefied petroleum gas taxis. In total, 5640 observations were obtained and used to develop a series of binary logistic regression models with different model formulations for the determination of the significant factors influencing customers’ selections. The findings indicate that walk time to and wait time for taxis were the most critical concerns to the customers, and they were more willing to take premium taxis if their journey distance was longer and their desired improvement on taxi service quality was greater. The socio-demographic status of taxi customers also influences their choices. The associated policy implications are discussed for promoting taxis with better service quality and fewer roadside emissions. The findings provide some policy insights to other international cities that have a similar taxi market to Hong Kong.     

Parents’ perspectives on using autonomous vehicles to enhance children’s mobility

Prior research has estimated the impact of an autonomous vehicle (AV) environment on the mobility of underserved populations such as adult non-drivers. What is currently unknown is the impact of AVs on enhancing the mobility of children who are also mobility disadvantaged, as child passengers are likely part of AV ridership scenarios in the perceivable future. To address this question, our study collected perceived benefits and concerns of AVs from a US convenience sample of parents whose children relied on them for mobility. We found that parents’ intentions to travel in AV and their technology readiness as well as parent (sex, residence area) and child (age, restraint system) demographic profiles were important determinants of potential AV acceptance and impact. In addition, two groups of potential AV users emerged from the data: the curious and the practical. This study addresses a gap in the literature by assessing parents’ perspectives on using AVs to transport children. The results have great potentials to guide the design of mobility features, safety evaluations, and implementation policies, as a decline in public interest in AVs has been recently documented.     

Well-to-wheel assessment of natural gas vehicles and their fuel supply infrastructures – Perspectives on gas in transport in Denmark

In this paper, potential natural gas and renewable natural gas supply pathways and natural gas vehicles (NGVs) have been selected and evaluated with regards to well-to-wheel energy expended, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and regulated (air pollutant) emissions. The vehicles included in the evaluation are passenger cars, light-duty vehicles (LDVs), and heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) for road-transport applications, and a short-range passenger vessel for maritime transport applications. The results show that, compared to conventional fuels, in both transport applications and for all vehicle classes, the use of compressed and liquefied natural gas has a 15–27% GHG emissions reduction effect per km travel. The effect becomes large, 81–211%, when compressed and liquefied renewable natural gas are used instead. The results are sensitive to the type and source of feedstock used, the type of vehicle engine, assumed methane leakage and methane slip, and the allocated energy and environmental digestate credits, in each pathway. In maritime applications, the use of liquefied natural gas and renewable natural gas instead of low sulfur marine fuels results in a 60–100% SOx and 90–96% PM emissions reduction. A 1% methane slip from a dedicated LNG passenger vessel results, on average, in 8.5% increase in net GHG emissions.