Assessing the impact of bus technology on greenhouse gas emissions along a major corridor: A lifecycle analysis

Authors

Sabrina Chan
Luis F. Miranda-Moreno
Ahsan Alam
Marianne Hatzopoulou

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2013

Subject Area

mode - bus, technology - alternative fuels, technology - emissions

Keywords

Transit emissions, Alternative fuels, Emission modeling, Lifecycle analysis

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impact of alternative bus transit technologies including compressed natural gas, biodiesel, and diesel-electric hybrid on greenhouse gas emissions along a busy transit corridor using a lifecycle analysis approach. In addition, we compare the operational emissions of buses running on these technologies using an instantaneous speed and an average speed model. Our results indicate that operational emissions make-up the largest portion of lifecycle emissions. When comparing instantaneous and average speed emissions we find that both methods produce consistent results for diesel, however, the average speed method underestimates biodiesel emissions by 21% and overestimates compressed natural gas emissions by 16%. Bus technologies ranked in increasing order of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions are: hybrid, compressed natural gas, biodiesel, and conventional diesel.

Rights

Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.

Comments

Transportation Research Part D Home Page:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13619209

Recommended Citation

Chan, S., Miranda-Moreno, L.F., Alam, A., & Hatzopoulou, M. (2013). Assessing the impact of bus technology on greenhouse gas emissions along a major corridor: A lifecycle analysis, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, Volume 20, May 2013, Pages 7-11, ISSN 1361-9209, 10.1016/j.trd.2013.01.004.