Overview
Earlier studies indicate possible CO2 reductions of up to 25% with certain ICT measures. AMITRAN provides the methodology and tools to assess such reductions on European level in a systematic and realistic way. This will support developers, public authorities and investors in ICT solutions to make sound decisions based on reliable impact estimates, covering the complete transport chain. The top of EU transport R&D institutes have bundled forces to cooperate in AMITRAN. There will be cooperation with recent and ongoing EU projects where ICT applications and tools are developed which potentially contribute to CO2 reduction. As active participants in those projects, the AMITRAN project partners will ensure direct liaison with these projects.
The AMITRAN project will develop a framework for the evaluation of the effects of ICT measures in traffic and transport on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions. By doing so, it will contribute to the development of ICT solutions that allow more efficient multimodal goods transport and passenger mobility.
Methodological steps:
- Develop a CO2 assessment methodology for ICT measures that includes multimodal passenger and freight transport and takes into account the whole chain of effects (from user behaviour to CO2 production);
- Design open interfaces for models and simulation tools implementing the project’s methodology;
- Establish a generic scaling up methodology and publicly available database with statistics to translate local effects into the European level;
- Validate the proposed methodology and its implementation using data available from other projects or studies;
- Produce an online checklist and a handbook that can be used as a reference by future projects.
Funding
Results
The study does not demonstrate any final results yet as it is still ongoing. In the first year the needs of potential users have been identified in order to make Amitran a useful and successful methodology.
The following topics of importance to Amitran are tackled:
- Stakeholders:
- Three categories of stakeholders are identified:
- Stakeholders requiring the use of Amitran (e.g. public authorities).
- Stakeholders influenced by the output of Amitran (e.g. ITS End Users).
- The actual users of the methodology (mainly research and consulting).
- Importance of CO2 impacts:
CO2 is not the only concern of the stakeholders, but one of growing importance. Traffic quality (efficiency) and safety will continue, though, to play a major role in decisions on system development and deployment. Hence, Amitran should not focus on CO2 only, but also, make the methodology open for extensions and highlight potential synergies to issues like traffic quality and economic appraisal. - Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS):
All geographical scales (from local to European) and all categories of Intelligent Transport Systems are of potential are of particular relevance for the CO2 assessment and have to be addressed by Amitran. Cooperative systems and intermodal systems will gain importance. - Role of models:
Models will become more sophisticated in the future to allow for a reliable CO2 emission assessment. The increasing complexity has to be taken into account by Amitran. Amitran can contribute to the harmonisation of methods, models and other assessment resources by generating a methodology with a systematic approach applicable from different points of view of use. The achievable accuracy of Amitran has to be underlined, and future improvements of models should blend into the methodology. - Relevance of the methodology:
All stakeholders confirm the need for a uniform methodology of CO2 assessment of ITS. Such an assessment methodology is seen as a key tool in decision making processes of the development of ITS services and systems, and the subsequent deployment of these services and systems.
Other results
Knowledge Base wiki site, accessible via this page: www.amitran.eu/knowledge-base/
Strategy targets
Innovating for the future: technology and behaviour: Promoting more sustainable development