Assessment of Fuel Economy Technologies for Medium and Heavy ...

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Department of Energy used travel demand models in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Seattle, in conjunction with speed-fuel efficiency relationships, to evaluate the combined benefits of travel reductions and operating efficiencies from areawide systems of managed lanes. 30 The results from different scenarios ranged from an 0.1 to 2.5 percent impact on fuel consumption and GHG emissions depending upon the scenario. Extrapolating these results to a national level based on projected 2030 congestion levels in different urbanized areas led to an overall estimated reduction in national fuel consumption ranging from 0.5 to 1.1 percent. 31 Another national study of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction strategies estimated that cordon pricing could potentially reduce VMT on the order of 3 percent if applied to all metropolitan areas in the United States. 32 These are rough estimates for all vehicles, however, that may not be transferable to truck traffic. Evaluations of cordon pricing schemes implemented in both London and Stockholm examined effects specifically on truck traffic. Experience in London suggests that the reduction in overall vehicle-kilometers of travel (VKT) has come almost exclusively from passenger vehicles rather than trucks. While the cordon pricing scheme reduced total VKT by 16 percent within the pricing zone, the data show that truck demand did not change once the scheme was introduced, remaining at a constant level of 0.07 million VKT in 2006. Truck travel speeds also did not change significantly. On the other hand, truck trips crossing the cordon declined, suggesting that each truck makes more deliveries, generating an equivalent truck VKT. Furthermore, these trucks have benefited from reduced queuing and subsequently, truck idling and associated fuel consumption was reduced. To measure the impact of London‘s cordon pricing scheme on truck fuel consumption, it is necessary to compare truck idling before and after the scheme was introduced. Once the scheme was introduced, excess delays were reduced by 26 percent, from 2.3 to 1.7 minutes per kilometer. 33 Given 70,000 truck-kilometers traveled and a reduction in excess idling delay of 0.6 minutes per kilometer (2.3-1.7 minutes per kilometer), the scheme reduced truck idling by a total of 42,000 minutes (700 hours). With each truck hour of idling consuming 0.8 gallons per hour, 34 the truck fuel consumption reduction from congestion pricing would have been 560 gallons annually – a very small amount. 30 These systems included high-occupancy/toll (HOT) lanes on freeways, in which drivers of singleoccupancy vehicles can use the lane if they pay a fee which depends upon the congestion on the untolled travel lanes. Depending upon the scenario, either existing/planned high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes were converted to HOT lanes, or a new HOT lane was constructed alongside an existing/planned HOV lane to form two HOT lanes. 31 Energy and Environmental Analysis, Inc., ―Market-Based Approaches to Fuel Economy: Summary of Policy Options,‖ prepared for National Energy Technology Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, 2008. 32 Cambridge Systematics, Inc., Moving Cooler: An Analysis of Transportation Strategies for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Urban Land Institute: Washington, D.C, July 2009. 33 Transport for London, Central London Congestion Charging: Impacts Monitoring, Fourth Annual Report, June 2006. 34 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ―A Glance at Clean Freight Strategies: Idle Reduction,‖ February, 2004. - 20 -
In Stockholm, the cordon pricing scheme reduced total GHG emissions from vehicles by 10 to 14 percent in the pricing zone. According to the manual counts of travel within the zone, there has been a 13 percent reduction of truck trips, but only a 7.8 percent reduction in truck VMT once the scheme was implemented. The total VMT is 2,185,000 and heavy truck VMT is 55,994, 2.8 percent of total VMT. If the GHG were reduced by 14 percent, then trucks were responsible for 0.4 percent of the total reductions, a modest amount. To estimate the maximum potential fuel savings from congestion reduction, it is necessary to estimate total freight truck delay as well as total fuel consumption by hour of delay. Winston and Langer 35 estimate the cost of congestion to freight trucks to be approximately $10 billion in the year 2000, based on the Texas Transportation Institute‘s measures of urban delay in 2000 and the FHWA Freight Analysis Framework estimates of total origin-destination delay. Using the authors‘ value of time of $30 per hour of delay, the results imply a total of 333 million hours of delay ($10 billion/$30 per hour). According to a 1993 FHWA study, which produced fuel consumption estimates for the Highway Performance Monitoring System, a combination truck consumes 1.934 gallons of fuel per hour in congestion. 36 These values imply that, in 2000, the total excess national fuel consumption resulting from highway congestion was at most 500 million gallons (333 million hours * 1.51 gallons/hour), or 2.0 percent of (current) truck fuel consumption. 37 This value provides the upper bound for the potential fuel consumption savings from congestion reduction strategies (including congestion pricing), assuming that only operational (and not demand) effects are considered. Potential for Government Promotion: Congestion pricing has been experimented with in a number of areas, primarily on existing tolled facilities, but has not yet gained widespread popularity. From a technical standpoint, congestion pricing is relatively easy to implement on facilities that already are tolled. The broader-scale application of this strategy beyond existing or proposed toll highway facilities, however, is likely to require the universal deployment of electronic toll collection technologies. This will require coordination by a state or regional transportation agency. The U.S. DOT is encouraging greater experimentation in this area. In 2007, the Department awarded $853 million in funding to five metro areas for Urban Partnership Agreements to reduce congestion, which include a significant focus on tolling/pricing strategies. (iii) Intermodal Transport Key Question: What impact would public-sector initiatives to improve intermodal transport have on fuel consumption 35 Winston and Langer, ―The Effect of Government Highway Spending on Road Users‘ Congestion Costs,‖ AEI-Brookings, May 2006. 36 Science Applications International Corporation, Speed Determination Models for the Highway Performance Monitoring System, prepared for the Federal Highway Administration, 1993. 37 Two factors may cause this estimate to be overstated – first, the use of the combination truck fuel consumption rate slightly overestimates the total wasted fuel since this rate will be less for single-unit trucks (1.607 gallons/hr); and second, trucks have become more fuel-efficient since that time (average truck fuel efficiency increased by 22 percent between 1993 and 2007, according to the Transportation Energy Data Book Edition 28, Table 5.1). On the other hand, total congestion has increased since the Winston and Langer study was conducted in 2000. - 21 -
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