COST 346 - Emissions and Fuel Consumption from Heavy Duty Vehicles
Overview
Background & policy context:
The greenhouse gas emission reduction targets agreed at Kyoto represent a first step to reduce emissions in the long term in order to stabilise the Earth’s climate. The European Union (EU) has made an important contribution to the Kyoto agreement and the European Commission (EC) intends to develop a strategy to reach the Union’s Kyoto target. This will require action in all sectors of the economy including the transport sector.
Of the six gases covered by the Kyoto protocol, carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important as it accounts for about 80% of the total global warming potential of all six greenhouse gases. In the EU the share of transport CO2 emissions in total increased from 19% in 1985 to 26% in 1995. Road traffic is the most important source, and largely determines the trend in the transport sector; and road freight accounts for about 35% of transport CO2 emissions.
As well as CO2, road freight transport causes considerable amounts of other pollutant emissions. With a share of approximately 75% of combustion related particulate (PM) emissions and about 60% of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions, road freight transport is the most important source of these pollutants within the total transport sector.
To forecast and monitor the development of heavy duty vehicle (HDV) emissions and the effect of emission reducing measures, calculation methods must be provided. COST 346 deals with the subject of estimation of air pollutant emissions caused by heavy duty vehicles. International research should be structured to today’s needs and a European data base of emission related information for heavy duty vehicles should be developed. Basic data for emission estimates, emission models and activity data shall be collected and mapped with the results from national research activities as well as those from the EU framework research programmes ARTEMIS and Particulates.
Objectives:
The main objective of the Action was to improve the knowledge of real world emission behaviour of the heavy duty vehicle fleet in Europe. This includes the enlargement of the emission data base, the activity figures and the development of an improved methodology for estimating pollutant emissions and fuel consumption. The methods should make it possible to estimate the emissions [g/km] from single vehicles as well as from vehicle fleets.
The activities are concentrated on improving the amount and quality of basic data on emissions and transport activity, as well as validating and improving existing models.
The main benefit of COST 346 will be the improvement of emission estimates for HDV’s. As a consequence the modelling of HDV emissions and the differentiation of vehicle types and driving conditions provides an effective tool for political decisions within the EU, as well as for traffic and transport engineering purposes. Furthermore, the database gives a comprehensive view of emissions under various driving conditions for HDV´s of different emission standards. The close co-operation between laboratories in different countries improves the harmonisation of European scientific knowledge and testing facilities. The focus is on the quality and extension of HDV emission and activity data.
Methodology:
To achieve the project's objectives, the following actions were set:
- Establishment of a protocol for HDV emission and fuel consumption testing. The protocol includes provisions for ensuring comparability between measurements made in different laboratories (quality assurance procedures, etc.).
- Production of engine maps for calculating emissions and fuel consumption from HDV’s. This covers both static and dynamic operating conditions and a representative range of engines.
- Because of the lack of existing data on particulate matter (PM) emissions and their important impact on health, the Action includes measurements of PM size and number distributions.
- Development of vehicle simulation models in order to calculate emissions for single vehicles. For this task existing, improved or totally new models are used and validated.
- The use of aggregated emission models, aimed at the assessment of the overall emissions from a HDV fleet, requires detailed information on vehicles and vehicle operation (e.g. driving statistics) and more general traffic statistics (e.g. loading factors, fleet composition, mileage). COST 346 considers this aspect and makes recommendation on sources of information and methods of data acquisition.
Share this page