Exploring Energy-Efficient and Sustainable Urban Mobility Strategies: An Initial Framework to Curate Data/Models, Measure Performance, and Diffuse Innovation
8/12/2019
Many cities across the United States seek to understand the maturity of data and models that are available to help manage challenges, opportunities, and uncertainties associated with the shifts in technologies, human behaviors and sustainable urban mobility strategies. One key question identified for smart city action planning includes how to best shape continuous improvements for urban populations at the intersection of mobility, energy, and quality of life? With the emerging megatrends of urbanization (more than 70% of world population in cities by 2050), on-demand shared mobility, vehicle electrification, and automated vehicles, initial 'urban science' studies to date have demonstrated the potential and need for maturing the related data and model ecosystems and on-going performance measurement across multiple urban system goals: e.g., from more mobility, clean and efficient energy use, accessibility and safety to less air pollution, traffic, and resource-intensive urban sprawl. To build on emerging literature and understand city responses to disruptive change, this initial study engages researchers and practitioners across four smart city finalists (Columbus, Denver, Austin and Portland) that competed in the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Smart City Challenge. The initial results emphasize the need for a suite of datasets and diverse analytical approaches that support U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) relevant research with cities. Considering desirable energy and mobility outcomes as a first step to advancing smart city solutions strategies, we systematically review approaches of and shortcomings in four U.S. cities, and suggest improvements in three areas: measurement, modeling effectiveness of new mobility technologies, and data-driven governance.
Authors: Sperling, J,; Young, S.; Beck, J,; Garikapati, V.; Hou, Y.; Duval, A.
Telematics and Data Science: Informing Energy-Efficient Mobility
8/6/2019
Fleets exploring the possibility of adding plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) seek an efficient, data-driven means to estimate both expenditures for vehicle and charging infrastructure and the appropriate placement of them to help ensure the cost-effective adoption of these technologies. Exploring data collection and analytic methodologies across different telematics providers offers the opportunity to better understand the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities for employing different methods of data collection, including smartphone-based telematics and more traditional telematics with hardware installed on a vehicle’s onboard diagnostics port. This report presents results of five pilot programs that collected data from the operation of conventional light-duty fleet vehicles to generate estimates for transitioning these fleet vehicles to PEVs, implementing charging infrastructure, and establishing management practices to maximize the benefits of these new fleet technologies.
Authors: Daley, R.; Helm, M.
Interoperability of Public EV Charging Infrastructure
8/1/2019
The electric vehicle (EV) market is rapidly accelerating, as is investment in the charging infrastructure needed to support this growing market. While the vast majority of EV charging now takes place at home and at work, widespread, open-access public charging infrastructure is essential to support EV drivers beyond early adopters. This paper identifies challenges, creates awareness, and provides perspective to achieve greater interoperability and open standards in the U.S. EV charging market.
Federal Vehicle Fleets: Agencies Have Continued to Incorporate AFVs into Fleets, but Challenges Remain
7/25/2019
Since 1988, a series of laws have been enacted and executive orders issued related to federal goals of reducing federal fleets’ petroleum use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For fiscal year 2017, federal agencies were required to: acquire certain types of vehicles, use more alternative fuel, and meet targets for reducing petroleum and per-mile GHG emissions. Federal agencies were also under a directive to increase acquisitions of zero emission (electric) vehicles. This report reviews federal agencies’ efforts related to these fiscal year 2017 requirements. It addresses how agencies reported meeting fleet energy requirements and how agencies efforts changed their fleets as well as challenges agencies face related to further meeting fleet energy goals.
Propane Autogas Repair & Maintenance Facility Requirements
7/23/2019
This guide discusses specific facility requirements for propane, beyond those required for gasoline and diesel vehicle repair and maintenance. It explains the general design, safety, and code guidelines for constructing or modifying repair and maintenance garages for propane-powered vehicles including passenger cars, vans, buses, and trucks.
Notes:
This copyrighted publication can be accessed on the Propane Education and Research Council's Propane website.
An Automated Vehicle Fuel Economy Benefits Evaluation Framework Using Real-World Travel and Traffic Data
7/22/2019
Increasing automation is a consistent development trend in the automobile industry. However, real-world evaluation of the operational and energy consumption differences between automated vehicles and comparable manually driven vehicles has been limited. This study helps fill the information gap by comparing the operation and fuel economy of vehicles in adaptive cruise control (ACC) and non-ACC modes based on large-scale field test data collected by Volvo Car Corporation (Volvo Cars) from vehicles traveling on the designated 'Drive Me' project road network in Gothenburg, Sweden. The test vehicles' travel data are classified by driving mode (ACC vs. non-ACC) and driving conditions, which refer to traffic speed and road grade in this study. The results from the data logging f leet are used to estimate the aggregate fuel con - sumption differences at the Drive Me road-network level for vehicles traveling in ACC vs. non-ACC mode based on appropriately weighting the total amount of travel that took place on the network under different driving conditions. At the ACC penetration levels observed in the field test data, vehicles tended to drive more smoothly in ACC mode than in non-ACC mode. The corresponding travel-weighted fuel consumption rate for vehicles in ACC mode was about 5%-7% lower than for vehicles in non-ACC mode when traveling at similar conditions. Sensitivity analyses impart confidence in this result, and in the future, the established evaluation framework could be used to objectively quantify potential on-road fuel consumption impacts from vehicles with even higher levels of automated driving capability.
Authors: Zhu, L.; Gonder, J.; Bjarkvik, E.; Pourabdollah, M.; Lindenberg, B.
Notes: This IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine article (Vol. 11, Issue: 3, Fall 2019: pp. 29-41) is copyrighted and only available by accessing it through IEEE Xplore Digital Library.
Measuring Fundamental Improvements in Sustainable Urban Mobility: The Mobility-Energy Productivity Metric
7/9/2019
Recent technological advancements in mobility are creating many options for connecting citizens with employment, goods, and services, particularly in urban areas where modes such as bike and car shares, electric scooters, ridesourcing, and ridesharing are proliferating at a rapid pace. Analysis and tools for overall transportation planning are dominated by urban regional travel demand models whose roots in highway operations poorly reflect the system dynamics in denser areas where parking costs, convenience, and availability - not to mention sustainability concerns and quality of life - are driving people to an ever-greater spectrum of mobility services. In this paper, we present a new paradigm for evaluating mobility options within an urban area. First developed for the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Efficient Mobility System research program, this metric is termed the Mobility-Energy Productivity (MEP) metric. At its heart, the MEP metric measures accessibility and appropriately weights it with travel time, cost, and energy of modes that provide access to opportunities in any given location. The proposed metric is versatile in that it can be computed from readily available data sources or derived from outputs of regional travel demand models. End times associated with parking, curb access, cost, and reliability and frequency of service need to be carefully considered to obtain an appropriate and accurate perspective when computing the metric based on outputs from regional travel demand models. Ultimately, the MEP metric can be used to reflect the impacts of new mobility technologies (transportation network companies, electric scooters), business models (car shares and bike shares), and land-use practices (such as transit-oriented development) on sustainable urban mobility. This paper lays out the need, requirements, and framework for this new metric, and offers it, in collaboration with the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE), as a foundational metric for Smart City assessment.
Authors: Garikapati, V.; Young, S.; Hou, Y.
Get Your Building Ready for Electric Vehicles
7/3/2019
By the year 2030, there may be as many as 19 million plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) on the road in the United States, representing a market share of 10%. With effective PEV charging implementation, commercial building owners and managers can add value to properties, increase the convenience and affordability of driving PEVs for tenants and employees, and show leadership in adopting advanced, sustainable technologies. This fact sheet provides recommendations for building owners to make commercial buildings and new construction PEV-ready.
Effects of Buy America on Transportation Infrastructure and U.S. Manufacturing
7/2/2019
Buy America refers to several similar statutes and regulations that apply when federal funds are used to support projects involving highways, public transportation, aviation, and intercity passenger rail. Unless a nationwide or project-specific waiver is granted, Buy America requires the use of U.S.-made iron and steel and the domestic production and assembly of other manufactured goods, particularly the production of rolling stock (railcars and buses) used in federally funded public transportation. This report examines the effects of Buy America on iron and steel manufacturing, rolling stock manufacturing, and transportation.
Analytical White Paper: Overcoming Barriers to Expanding Fast Charging Infrastructure in the Midcontinent Region
7/1/2019
This white paper highlights the main considerations in designing a demand charge tariff structure that is suitable for encouraging direct current fast charger investment, highlights approaches taken by some utilities, and presents information for utilities and regulators to consider as they are seeking their own solutions to this problem. Note: This copyrighted publication can be accessed on the Great Plains Institute website.
Authors: McFarlane, D.; Prorok, M.; Jordan, B.; Kemabonta, T.
Notes:
This copyrighted publication can be accessed on the Great Plains Institute website.
Clean Cities Contacts
6/20/2019
Contact information for the U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Cities program staff and for the coordinators of more than 75 local Clean Cities coalitions across the country.
Summary of Best Practices in Electric Vehicle Ordinances
6/18/2019
This document is a summary guide to electric vehicle (EV) and electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) ordinances in the United States. The guide is sorted into best practice categories and provides a summary of typical provisions used by cities for each category. Each category includes a table with key points and text examples from actual ordinances, as well as recommendations from model codes for that topic, drawn from one of several model ordinances or ordinance guidance documents that have been developed to inform cities on developing EV-ready zoning standards. This summary is provided as a reference to cities seeking to develop EV zoning standards or development regulations.
Authors: Cooke, C.; Ross, B.
Fuel Diversification to Improve Transportation Resilience: A Backgrounder
6/6/2019
Transportation fuel (like most other necessities) can be made more resilient to natural disasters by improving the redundancy of its supply, increasing local storage, strategizing access to that storage, expediting resupply, and improving the efficiency at which that fuel is used for transportation purposes. Alternative fuels such as natural gas, propane, and electricity have very different sources and distribution, and therefore add resilience to the fuel supply through redundancy. However, it is important to examine the inter-dependencies of these fuels and timing that may present vulnerabilities during a hurricane. This workshop presented a variety of perspectives to assist in making Tampa Bay's transportation system more resilient through the strategic use of alternative fuels.
Authors: Johnson, C.
Vehicle Electrification: Federal and State Issues Affecting Deployment
6/3/2019
Motor vehicle electrification has emerged in the past decade as a potentially viable alternative to internal combustion engines. Although only a small proportion of the current motor vehicle fleet is electrified, interest in passenger vehicle electrification has accelerated in several major industrial countries, including the United States, parts of Europe, and China. Despite advances in technology, plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) continue to be significantly more expensive than similarly sized vehicles with internal combustion engines. For this reason, governments in many countries have adopted policies to promote development and sales of PEVs. This report discusses federal and state government policies in the United States to support electrification of light vehicles and transit buses, as well as proposals to reduce or eliminate such support.
Authors: Canis. B.; Clark, C.E.; Sherlock, M.F.
Renewable Fuel Standard: Information on Likely Program Effects on Gasoline Prices and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
6/3/2019
This report examines what is known about the effect the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has had to date on retail gasoline prices in the United States, the RFS’s effect on greenhouse gas emissions, and whether the RFS will meet its goals for reducing those emissions. The report also details how renewable identification numbers (RINs) are used to show compliance with the RFS, historical RIN prices, how RINs affect retail fuel prices, and steps the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has taken to improve the RIN market.