Methods of estimating energy demand and CO2 emissions for inter-regional road transport

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) from the transport sector is by far considered as the major contributor of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission into the atmosphere. Many transport engineers and planners nowadays have shifted focus on the development of new approaches or tools that provide fast and reliable means of assessing different transportation strategies to achieve low-carbon transportation system. In this study, a new mathematical Origin-Destination (O-D) approach of estimating energy demand and CO2 emissions is presented using inter-regional passenger and freight flow data. The lengths of three major road segments were used as independent variables to model fuel consumption for buses and trucks. The estimated energy demand under business as usual (BAU) scenario was compared to five different low-carbon policy scenarios. Study shows that the energy demand from inter-regional public buses and freight road transport under BAU scenario substantially increased from 6,358.86ktoe in 2015 to 36,410.43ktoe in 2050. These findings equate to 19.71 and 112.93 Megatons of CO2 emissions in 2015 and 2050, respectively. Results also show that shifting to low-carbon alternative fuel such as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for buses and trucks provide the highest reduction in the overall inter-regional CO2 emissions as compared other policy measures. Simultaneous implementation of the three selected policy measures would substantially reduce the CO2 emissions by almost two-third (74.24%) in 2050.