Lambros Mitropoulos

Assessment of Sustainability for Transportation Vehicles

Traditional urban planning ignores vehicle technology, including the large differences between conventional-, hybrid-, and alternative-fuel vehicles and buses. This study develops an assessment framework that has its foundations in the overarching principle of sustainability. The framework is composed of five sustainability dimensions: environment, technology, energy, economy, and users. From these dimensions, a set of indicators was developed for assessing the sustainability performance of five urban transportation vehicles. The indicators are based on vehicle life-cycle impacts and measure individual vehicle features that contribute to maximizing sustainability. The assessment reveals that the hybrid diesel–electric bus and the hybrid electric vehicle have the highest scores. Performance indices by vehicle type provide the basis for a sustainability tool. The tool was applied to a corridor in Honolulu, Hawaii, to assess the sustainability performance of three scenarios for mode share. Results show that modern propulsion systems can improve the overall sustainability performance relative to the technologies of the internal combustion engine. The sustainability performance of some new technologies currently suffers from limitations in engine and battery performance, comfort and convenience, and availability of charging stations.

Multicriterion Sustainability Assessment in Transportation: Private Cars, Carsharing, and Transit Buses

The increase in the number of hybrid electric vehicles and carshare users in the United States in the past decade urges transportation officials to incorporate vehicle characteristics into traditional transportation planning and sustainability assessments. This study updates the state of the art in three main ways: (a) employs a life-cycle approach instead of focusing only on the operation of modes, (b) disaggregates vehicles by type instead of assuming a uniform light-duty vehicle fleet, and (c) assesses conventional and hybrid technologies explicitly for travel mode combinations instead of assuming only fossil fuel–powered vehicles and private cars. The sustainability framework used in this study sets the direction for a multicriterion assessment of urban transportation. Six highway vehicles and modes are analyzed: an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV), a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), a carsharing program with ICEVs, a carsharing program with HEVs, a diesel bus, and a hybrid diesel–electric bus. The three travel combinations are developed into three case studies: (a) passenger vehicle only, (b) passenger vehicle and public bus, and (c) carsharing and public bus. The results show that the inclusion of carsharing in the travel mix is the best option. The most sustainable mode, relative to the other five, is found to be carsharing with HEVs. The superior performance of carsharing over transit buses reveals opportunities for new policies in sustainable transportation.

Building on European scientific excellence to develop an educational program on intermodal connections for Latvia and the region

Economic and social factors, including existing trends in urban population and employment growth combined with urbanization, have led to enhanced consumption and thus, increasing freight flows in the cities. Mitigation of transport impacts has led to plans towards a more sustainable urban environment. However, managerial and regulatory barriers restrict the incorporation of technological instruments and solutions to the sustainable dimension of decision-making and planning. This paper has sought to bridge this gap by organizing an educational and training program, which involves the participation of todays and tomorrow’s researchers, decision-makers and practitioners. Towards this direction, a methodology is developed that identifies existing gaps between the transport industry and the existing research, education and training programs and converts identified requirements and gaps into training courses. The paper addresses the context of intermodal interconnections for the case of Latvia and the region for stimulating and strengthening its scientific and technological capacity by providing knowledge in the field of smart interconnecting sustainable transport networks. The 2-level gap analysis that was developed and implemented with respect to the thematic areas of (1) ‘Governance and policy development’, (2) ‘Smart solutions’, and (3) ‘Decision-making’, and the validation process that followed, has revealed several requirements that exist currently for passenger and freight interchanges and educational programs for Latvia and the region. Based on the identified educational requirements for Latvia and the region, 20 educational areas were created that resulted in 12 courses for passenger and freight transport interchanges that are going to be used for training and education in Latvia.

Sustainability Framework for the Life Cycle Assessment of Light-Duty Vehicles

Increasing environmental concerns as well as economic and social impacts of transportation in communities have made essential the incorporation of sustainability into the planning process. This paper describes a long-term sustainability-based comprehensive framework for the life cycle assessment of any urban transportation mode. The sustainability framework, which is composed of four layers and three controllers, acts as a filter that decomposes the components and attributes of a transportation mode to reveal its sustainability dimensions. The four proposed sustainability layers, environment, technology, energy and economy, are used in a case study to assess light-duty vehicles. The assessment includes the quantification of a set of sustainability indicators for six light-duty vehicles to compare their performance. The results provide an overall sustainability comparison for an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV), a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), a fuel cell vehicle (FCV), an electric vehicle (EV), a plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV), and a gasoline pickup truck (GPT).

Incorporating sustainability assessment in transportation planning: an urban transportation vehicle-based approach

ABSTRACT Environmental assessments are on the critical path for the development of land, infrastructure and transportation systems. These assessments are based on planning methods which, in turn, are subject to continuous enhancement. The substantial impacts of transportation on environment, society and economy strongly urge the incorporation of sustainability into transportation planning. Two major developments that enhance transportation sustainability are new fuels and vehicle power systems. Traditional planning ignores technology including the large differences among conventional, hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles and buses. The introduction of alternative fuel vehicles is likely to change the traditional transportation planning process because different characteristics need to be taken into account. In this study a sustainability framework is developed that enables assessment of transportation vehicle characteristics. Identified indicators are grouped in five sustainability dimensions (Environment, Technology, Energy, Economy and Users). Our methodology joins life cycle impacts and a set of quantified indicators to assess the sustainability performance of seven popular light-duty vehicles and two types of transit buses. Bus Rapid Transit receives the highest sustainability index and the pickup truck the lowest. Hybrid electric vehicles are found to have the highest sustainability index among all other passenger vehicles. A sensitivity analysis shows the proposed sustainability dimensions produce robust sustainability assessment for several weighting scenarios. The results are both technology and policy sensitive, thus useful for both short- and long-term planning.

Evaluation of Freight Measures by Integrating Simulation Tools: The Case of Volos Port, Greece

Abstract Simulation modelling tools have been widely adopted for the evaluation of alternatives in transport planning, management and logistics. The complexity that underlies in transport systems and logistics necessitate the integration of different models that are capable of overcoming limitations that may exist individually to each model. Towards this direction, this paper aims to integrate two simulation software and use the integrated model for the evaluation of traffic and logistics measures in the wider area of Volos Port, Greece. The built model is able to simulate the traffic conditions on a transport network along with port’s intra-logistics processes and is used to evaluate a set of measures in the year 2030, by comparing it with the situation in the year 2030 without having implemented any new measure. For the evaluation, a set of indicators is used to gauge the environmental and transport impacts. The analysis is completed by using a multi-criteria decision making tool to generate the Logistics Sustainability Index (LSI) to summarize the information that is provided by the indicators. The results show that the use of integrated simulation models can provide a holistic impact evaluation of complex decisions with a high level of accuracy.

Conventional, Battery-Powered, and Other Alternative Fuel Vehicles: Sustainability Assessment

The substantial impacts of transportation on environment, society, and economy strongly urge the incorporation of sustainability into transportation planning. Major developments that enhance transportation sustainability include alternative fuels, electric drive and other novel technologies for vehicle propulsion. This chapter presents a sustainability framework that enables the assessment of transportation vehicle characteristics. Identified indicators are grouped into five sustainability dimensions (environment, technology, energy, economy, and users). The method joins life cycle impacts and a set of quantified indicators to assess the sustainability performance of seven popular light-duty vehicles and two types of transit buses. The hybrid diesel electric bus received the highest sustainability index and the internal combustion engine vehicle the lowest. Fuel cell and hybrid electric vehicles were found to have the highest sustainability index among all passenger vehicles. The sustainability performance of some new technologies currently suffers from limitations in engine and battery performance, comfort and convenience, and availability of charging stations.

Evaluating Smart Urban Freight Solutions Using Microsimulation

Last mile distribution remains a difficult-to-solve variable in urban congestion’s equation, especially in Europe, due to increased population, economic growth and limited space. Over the last decades, several European projects have contributed significantly into that direction, by developing innovative concepts (e.g., electric solutions, ITS adoption, effective policy-based strategies). A great number of measures has been deployed and considered as possible solutions to the last mile distribution problem of European cities, however, only a few of them have actually been implemented and tested over a long period of time and their impacts have been quantified.