Exhaust emission calculation for road transportation

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Environmental Management Systems (EMS)

An Environmental Management System is defined as ”a procedural tool for structured and effective management of environmental issues in organizations” (Ahlroth et al., 2011, p.150). Organizations use EMSs in order to consequently get certified by the International Standards Organization (ISO) (Morrow & Rondinelli, 2002). This means that firms, which work according to the ISO standards, evaluate their activities, products or services based on their environmental impacts (Ahlroth et al., 2011). Firms that implement EMSs, improve their regulatory compliance, which in turn upgrades their corporate image and increase profits (Darnall, Jolley & Handfield, 2008). After the prioritizing of possible impacts, firms perform a weighting of them. (Ahlroth et al., 2011). Zobel and Burman (2004) state that a broad variety of methods for weighting environmental aspects exist (cited in Ahlroth et al., 2011).
Strength of this method is that the use of EMS supports organizations to quantify and report their environmental performances in a standardized way (Claudio & Serena, 2012). Moreover, this concept covers different sectors and types of organizations and includes a great variability of factors (Claudio & Serena, 2012). Overall, this analysis combines several methods (e.g. LCA, CBA, …) (Ahlroth et al., 2011). Because of the high degree of standardization, an application for road transportation is difficult.

Exhaust emission analysis for road transportation

Another approach of analyzing environmental impacts is the calculation of exhaust emissions. Exhaust emissions from road transportation arise from the combustion of fuel (e.g. gasoline, diesel, natural gas, …) in internal combustion engines. Such analyses are dependent on the cargo transported, fuel used, engine size and on the weight or technological level of the vehicle (Gan, 2003). Furthermore, factors like infrastructure (e.g. highway, rural or urban areas) influence the level of emissions as well.
As main products of the combustion process CO2 and H2O are generated. Further byproducts, which are caused during an incomplete fuel oxidation are for instance CO, particular matters (PM), NOx or SOx. Non-exhaust emissions like fuel evaporation from vehicles, tire wear or brake wear are not taken into account for this assessment. In general, the most important pollutants by road vehicles are:
Greenhouse gases (CO2, N2O)
Ozone precursors (CO, NOX, NMVOCs)
Acidifying substances (NH3, NOX, SO2)
Toxic substances (dioxins and furans) (Ntziachristos and Samaras, 2009)
According to the European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change, road transportation contributes to 42% of total NOx emissions, 47% of total CO emissions and 18.4% of total PM emissions on the EU-15 level (ETC/ACC, 2012). Hence, calculating these gases is crucial for an exhaust emission analysis of road transportation.
Since the 1970s, emissions from road vehicles have been controlled and limited by the European legislation. In order to meet these requirements the automotive industry is continuously encouraged to improve their technologies. The Euro classification categorizes road vehicles according to their production of emissions. After 1992 these standards became mandatory in all European member states. The categorization is based on the model year, fuel type and weight or size of a vehicle. Depending on these factors average exhaust emission values for each category are provided (Ntziachristos & Samaras, 2009). A detailed description of the Euro standards are illustrated in chapter 4, as this classification was used as fundament for the assessment developed in the frame of this thesis.
The next paragraphs present an approach to calculate exhaust emissions by taking various categories of road vehicles (based on the Euro standards) into consideration. Three different measurement methods (Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3) are provided, which are reliant on how much and what information (e.g. distance, speed, vehicle technology) about road transportation is available. The decision tree in figure 2-3 allows an easy allocation of the different approaches, depending on the input data.

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1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem description & Research questions
1.3 Main purpose and objective
1.4 Limitations
1.5 Company case description
2 Literature review
2.1 Definitions of terms related to environmental impacts
2.2 Definitions of Environmental Impact Assessments
2.3 Environmental Impact Analyses identified in the literature
2.4 Summary of described analyses
3 Research design and methodology used
3.1 Basic research concepts applied
3.2 Approach for the literature review
3.3 Case company selection
3.4 Measurement instrument for the validation test
3.5 Evaluation of the selected research methods
3.6 Summary and overview of the methodology used
4 Exhaust emission calculation for road transportation
4.1 Assessment design
4.2 Data collection file
4.3 Data analysis file
5 Validation test
5.1.1 Quality evaluation based on academic literature
5.1.2 Results of test analysis
5.1.3 Results of the interviews
6 Discussion of the presented analysis
6.1 Identified advantages
6.2 Identified limitations
6.3 Improvement possibilities and future approach
7 Conclusion
List of references