Yuki Kudoh

Environmental Evauation of Introducing Electric Trolley Buses

Publisher Summary Transportation is the basis of economic and social activities, which are indispensable for our human life. On the other hand, a large amount of energy is consumed through transportation, such as motor cars. This results in an increase in environmental emissions such as CO 2 , which contributes towards global warming. It is necessary to establish transportation systems with low environmental burdens, properly according to the growth in traffic demands and the needs of users. There are many countermeasures to reduce CO 2 emissions in the transportation sector. Among them, modal shift has not taken effect widely, although its necessity has beenrecognized in the past. While encouraging modal shift, it is the characteristics and transportability of substitutes for conventional means of transport that count. Under these circumstances, taking encouragement of modal shift in the passenger transportation sector into account, the authors have focused upon electric trolley buses (ETBs) as one of the substitutes for motor cars. This chapter aims to make an environmental evaluation of the ETB system. Initially, CO 2 emissions from ETBs, when driven under urban traffic conditions, were estimated and subsequently estimated from the viewpoint of life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare with those from other public transportation systems. Finally, an environmental evaluation in urban motor traffic system was carried out on the condition that ETBs be introduced as substitutes for diesel route buses. Results conclude that ETBs is one of the promising public transportation systems for establishing a transportation system with low environmental burdens, by encouraging modal shift in the passenger transportation sector.