GHG Accounting for Pubilc Transport in Xiamen City, China
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For reprint orders, please contact [email protected] RESEARCH ARTICLE SPECIAL FOCUS: PATHWAYS TOWARD LOW-CARBON CITIES GHG accounting for pubilc transport in Xiamen city, China Carbon Management (2011) 2(4), 383–395 Shenghui Cui†1,2 , Fanxin Meng1,2, Wei Wang1,2 & Jianyi Lin1,2 How to account for GHG emissions for public transport is now a key issue for low-carbon city development. This study provides a method to evaluate carbon footprinting for public transport systems in Xiamen city, China across the life cycle. This method, which was based on the life cycle assessment approach including three components – infrastructure, fuels and vehicles – was presented to account the GHG emissions of public transport. The GHG emissions of the two kinds of public transport systems (bus rapid transit [BRT] and normal bus transit [NRT]) in Xiamen City were compared. Results showed that the average carbon emissions of the BRT system was 638.44 gCO2e per person, and that of the NBT system was 2,088.38 gCO2e. If we only took the direct carbon emissions of fuel consumption in the vehicle operation into consideration, the average carbon emissions were, respectively, approximately 149.08 gCO2e per person and 260.84 gCO2e per person by BRT and NBT system. The results indicated that the effects of energy saving from the BRT system are better than NBT system, which is related to the features of the BRT system such as large volume, energy- saving and environment-friendly vehicle type and exclusive right-of way. Carbon emission reduction and ‘low carbon economy’ trends under different policy scenarios [4–7]. These stud- development have become the mainstream of the inter- ies only considered the direct emissions (vehicle opera- national community for addressing climate change. tion) and ignored the upstream emissions (road con- Transport has played an especially important role in struction and vehicle manufacture) and the downstream responding to the challenge of averting dangerous cli- emissions (decommissioning and recycling). However, mate change [1]. Transportation is one of the most impor- the upstream and downstream emissions were proven to tant sources of energy consumption and GHG emis- have significant impact on the whole GHG emissions [8]. sions and its proportion in carbon emission is rapidly It is therefore of critical importance to fully account for increasing year by year. In 2050, as much as 30–50% of the GHG emissions of the transportation and to assess the total CO2 emissions are projected to come from the the possible and effective reduction measures. To date, transport sector, compared with today’s 20–25% [2]. A new research interests are to use the life cycle assessment series of studies have accounted for GHG emissions on (LCA) to analyze and evaluate the energy consumption road building, vehicles production, fuel consumption and environmental emissions of transportation. These and other aspects. Huang et al. built a model for pave- studies assessed energy use, GHG emissions and criteria ment construction and maintenance based on life cycle pollutant emissions associated with the full life cycle of assessment method, and calculated the energy consump- various transportation activities. There are two lead- tion and GHG emissions of pavement rehabilitation the ing transportation life cycle models that deserve to be A34 road in the UK [3]. Other studies have estimated the mentioned: the life cycle emissions model (LEM) [9] historical trends of energy demand and the associated and the GHGs, regulated emissions, and energy use in GHG emissions in the road transport sector and future transportation (GREET) model [10]. 1Key Lab of Urban Environment & Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China 2Xiamen Key Lab of Urban Metabolism, Xiamen 361021, China †Author for correspondence: Tel.: +86 592 619 0957; E-mail: [email protected] future science group 10.4155/CMT.11.32 © 2011 Future Science Ltd ISSN 1758-3004 383 Research Article Cui , Meng, Wang & Lin Key terms ‘Carbon footprint’ has become a Xiamen has experienced a rapid development. From Life cycle assessment (LCA): Analyze widely used term and model in the 1981 to 2009, urban built-up area has been enlarged the environmental influences including public argument about responsibil- into 212 km2 from the inner cities of 12 km2 and the energy use, resource consumption and ity and abatement action against the GDP has increased to 161.9 billion from 700 million. pollutant emissions across the full life threat of global climate change. It With the population growth and urban expansion, cycle of a product for production, use, disposal, recycling and other phases. had a great increase in public appear- the total passenger traffic volume of Xiamen City has ance over the last few months and increased gradually. Buses serve as the main form of Carbon footprint: Amount of carbon emitted over the life stages of a product years, and is now a buzzword widely public transportation in the city, with taxis and ferries including goods and services or a used across the media, the govern- used to a lesser extent. In 2008, there was a total of measure of the exclusive total amount ment and in the business world [11]. approximately 816 million passengers per year from of carbon emission that is directly and indirectly caused by an activity The carbon footprint model has Xiamen City public passenger transport, of which bus including individuals, organizations, been applied in many scales, such played a dominant role; the passenger capacity was sectors and so on, expressed in as product, household, industry, 588 million people per year, accounting for 72.05% CO equivalents. 2 transport, construction, water sup- of the total passengers, and the passenger capacity of Carbon footprint assessment: Method ply and medical treatment [12–21]. taxis was approximately 228.13 million, 27% of the of accounting GHG emission, which has However, GHG accounting stud- total (Table 1). three different approaches: life cycle assessment (LCA), input-output ies focusing on public transport By the end of 2008, a more comprehensive public assessment (IOA) and hybrid life cycle mainly concentrated on certain transportation network was formed. There were 3,011 assessment (hybrid LCA). aspect of transport activities, such buses in use and a total of 218 bus lines including 3 as construction of infrastructure as BRT lines, 18 BRT connecting lines and 197 NBT lines roads, vehicle production, vehicle fuels and a compre- (containing 30 CMB routes and 42 peasants-passen- hensive ana lysis of the traffic pressure on the environ- gers lines). With a total of 10 taxi companies and 4,209 men. Yet, there is still a lack of GHG accounting on vehicles in Xiamen, the service capacity and quality of the entire transport system, including the full life cycle urban public transportation has improved significantly. carbon footprint of road construction, use, destruc- The BRT system (Project I) in Xiamen City went into tion and recycling disposal as well as vehicle produc- operation at the beginning of September 2008, which tion, operation, scrap and recycling process [22]. Bus is one of principal arterial routes in Xiamen. The BRT rapid transit (BRT) systems have been identified as an system has a total length of 54 km with three trunk inexpensive and efficient public transportation option routes (BRT Line 1, 2 and 3) and 20 tie lines to match. [23–25]. Several studies have evaluated the efficiency and In addition, 120 trunk route buses (with a capacity of environmental effect of the BRT system through cost– approximately 95 passengers each), which travel on benefit ana lyses or analysis of different scenarios [25–28]. separate bus lanes and 100 feeder line buses (capacity In addition, the previous article has concretely analyzed of 53 passengers) are used in the BRT system, to satisfy and assessed the life cycle emissions of the BRT system a demand of 240,000 passenger trips per day [101]. in Xiamen City [29]. In this study, an evaluation model of GHG account- Methods ing for urban public transport was proposed based on System boundary the theory of carbon footprint assessment. Then, a The system boundary determines the scope for carbon comparative ana lysis of two kinds of public transport footprint, for example. which life cycle stages should be systems in Xiamen City (BRT and normal bus tran- included in the GHG accounting [30]. Clearly the defini- sit [NBT]) was presented. The results showed that BRT tion of system boundary plays a significant role on the had more advantages in carbon emission reduction in calculating the results of carbon footprint. In this study, comparison with NBT. the carbon footprint transport system can be measured by the carbon footprint of industrial products across the Background of Xiamen public transport system full life cycle, just because the public transport system Xiamen is a coastal city in South eastern China, can be viewed as a special industrial product. Generally which looks out to the Taiwan Strait and borders speaking, public transport systems are composed of three Quanzhou to the north and Zhangzhou to the south. components, namely infrastructure (road and bus sta- It has direct jurisdiction over 6 districts as Siming, tion), fuels and vehicles [31]. The life cycle phases of the Huli, Jimei, Haicang, Tong’an and Xiang’an with an public transport system are illustrated in Figure 1. The area of approximately 1,573 km2. Its registered popu- boundary for public transport infrastructure includes the lation is approximately 1.77 million, and the resident following processes: raw material production, transporta- population is approximately 2.52 million. Being one of tion and construction, operation and maintenance and China’s earliest special economic zones in the 1980s, decommissioning and recycling [32,33]. The boundary for 384 Carbon Management (2011) 2(4) future science group GHG accounting for pubilc transport in Xiamen City, China Research Article vehicle includes the following phases: Table 1.