Creating Per Capita Transportation CO2 Indicator for European Cities Through GIS

The transportation sector represents roughly 20% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the European Union (EU) and is the only sector that has continued to increase emissions. As most people live and work in cities in the EU, it is important to identify the leaders and laggards with regard to efforts to decrease CO2 emissions from transportation. Without an indicator of a city’s transportation CO2 emissions performance, it is not possible to evaluate the current status, assess progress, or make comparisons. Cities make important decisions affecting transportation for the majority of citizens and thus influence transportation CO2 emissions. Yet, until recently, figures for city-level emissions across the EU were not available. Now, the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) inventory of diffuse sources allows for analysis of a range of atmospheric emissions at a 5 km resolution. However, the data must first be validated before being applied. The United Kingdom (UK) government maintains a higher (1 km) resolution emissions inventory based on a ‘bottom-up’ methodology. The UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) data has been used to assess the reliability of the new E-PRTR data. This paper describes how an estimate of city-level transportation CO2 emissions can be developed through available geographic information system (GIS) data and at what geographic level it could be reasonably applied.

  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC70(2) Climate Change.
  • Corporate Authors:

    Transportation Research Board

    500 Fifth Street, NW
    Washington, DC  United States  20001
  • Authors:
    • Waygood, E O D
    • Chatterton, Tim
    • Avineri, Erel
  • Conference:
  • Date: 2013

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 19p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01473964
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 13-3906
  • Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
  • Created Date: Feb 27 2013 9:22AM