Sustainability

Local habitability is coming under increasing pressure from harmful traffic emissions. This
emission is strongly correlated to the characteristics and dynamics of traffic: type of vehicle,
speed, acceleration and deceleration. This paper investigates the use of integrated road-vehicle
systems for environmental objectives. It defines a new simulation framework to assess the
impacts of the system on the environment and proposes a number of applications of integrated
road-vehicle systems for environmental objectives.

University of Twente – Centre for Transport Studies

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

In recent years, many drivers have been increasingly concerned with rising fuel
costs and vehicle emissions (both greenhouse gases and pollutants). There are several
measures a driver can take to reduce their travel costs and emissions. This paper describes one
such measure generally referred to as Environmental-Friendly Navigation (EFNav), whose
key innovation is the integration of current navigation technology with sophisticated vehicle
energy and emission models. EFNav provides the ability for a driver to not only have a choice
of selecting a shortest-distance or shortest-duration route, but also a route that minimizes the
fuel consumed and/or pollutant emissions for a particular trip. So far, EFNav has been
successfully developed and tested on a freeway-only network. As part of a new research
initiative, EFNav is being enhanced by expanding to include surface streets and migrating to
an on-board prototype system. This system is currently being tested in the San Francisco Bay
area, shown below.

Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. Electronics Research Laboratory

University of California Riverside

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

Traditionally the speed limit in urban areas has been 50 km/h, but recently in many cities and
towns it has been reduced even down to 30 km/h. This has been motivated especially by the
traffic safety, but sometimes we have also heard claims that it would reduce fuel consumption
and pollutant emissions, too. Driving slowly in a steady state means driving at low gears, and 
then the engine does not operate efficiently. On the other hand driving in urban conditions is
not only driving in a steady state, but the transient state dominates remarkably. Especially the
acceleration phase is fatal from the viewpoint of emissions and fuel consumption, and the
lower the speed limit is the less is the share of the acceleration phase in the vehicle motion.  

FinnRA

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

To provide a sound transportation environment in terms of less congestion, safer traffic, less travel time, and cleaner air, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) play important roles in achieving those goals. ITS are the systems that apply information, telecommunication, and remote control devices on the operations of the existing transportation systems. Most of the current researches contend that the estimated social benefits (specifically for energy saving and pollution reduction purpose) to develop ITS are significant. However, these results need to be further verified since they focus only on the transportation sector itself. In the meantime, benefits on energy saving and pollution reduction may be partially estimated. One of the important characteristics of ITS development is that it generates direct / indirect effects on the related industry sectors. Therefore, the energy consumed and pollution generated by all industry sectors that support ITS development should be taken into considerations. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework by applying a general equilibrium input-output (I/O) model. Our proposed model intends to estimate the direct and indirect energy saving and pollution abatement impacts on various industry sectors for the development of ITS. The preliminary test results indicate that the development / deployment of ITS in Taiwan will generate net energy saving by –0.16% ~ 0.54%, and the reduction of vehicle emissions by –0.15% ~ 1.17%, under the assumption of 10~20% energy saving and pollution reduction on transportation service sectors. Our research results will be able to provide both the public and private sectors with valuable information in allocating their limited resources for the development and deployment of ITS.

Department of Transportation Management: Tamkang University

Department of Economics: National Dong Hwa University

Presented at the 11th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, June 4-7, 2001 Miami Beach, Florida

The goal of the paper is to show how intelligent electronic road user charging systems can
contribute to reduce negative environmental effects of the transport sector. By applying state
of the art electronic road user charging technologies and establishing a system where toll
tariffs are dependent on vehicle classes, route and length of the trip, situations on the roads
and environmental data, real traffic management can be achieved, congestion can be reduced
and the choice of vehicle, driving behavior and buying behavior when acquiring vehicles can
also be influenced.  

Kapsch TrafficCom

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York