CO2 Impact
CMT would have lower CO2
emissions, per passenger mile, than personal car, or conventional mass transit
modes like bus and light rail. Higher load factors for CMT express bus will
mean lower CO2 per passenger mile. With CMT, large vehicles will carry large
groups and vans will carry small groups.
This page shows data from
three different government web pages that indicate that the typical city bus
uses more BTU per passenger mile than a personal car with 1.57 riders.
Data also indicate average
number of riders on city bus is only 8.8.
BTU per Passenger Mile and Vehicle Mile
This next page shows BTU per
passenger mile for light rail. The median value (4400 BTU) is more than a car
with 1.57 riders (3600 BTU). BTU is high on many systems probably due to low
ridership in the off peak hours.
Bar charts compare BTU and
pounds of CO2 per passenger mile for several modes.
CMT express bus and circulator
vans have lower values than other modes due to higher load factors.
A high load factor just means
the vehicle is more fully loaded with riders.
While conventional bus has
only 8.8 riders, the CMT express would have 20 or more riders.
This higher load factor is
due to smaller vehicles, like vans, carrying the smaller groups. Another factor
is vehicle miles per gallon or mpg. A conventional bus stops 15 or more times
in a 3 mile run and gets 3.8 mpg. A CMT express will stop once in a 3 mile run
and get 5.5 or more mpg.
The light rail value is based
on 3000 BTU per pass-mile, which is a better than an average system.
Trains run on diesel or
electricity. Most electricity is produced by coal fired power plants.
Pounds of CO2 per Passenger Mile
On page 14 of a Power Point
document MCI claims :
“Typical MCI intercity coach
fuel economy is 6.7 mpg”
These are 40+ foot long buses
that carry 57 riders. Compare to a city bus that gets only 3.8 mpg. The
difference is that a city bus stops 5 times per mile , while an MCI intercity
coach runs for a 100 miles before stopping.
http://www.iisd.org/taskforce/pdf/mci.ppt
CMT circulator vans could be
plug-in hybrids.
These could have a 20 mile
all-electric range. Some of the lithium batteries being developed can be
recharged in 5 minutes.
A van could make three runs
of 6 miles each and then recharge for 5 minutes.
Dodge Sprinter Plug In Hybrid Van
One hundred miles of express
bus routes would cost less than eight miles of light rail,
yet displace more car miles and prevent more
CO2 emissions.
CO2 Impact of CMT and Light Rail
In the future a CMT express
running on hydrogen could have near zero CO2 emissions:
Vance Zanardelli, Ford’s
Chief Engineer for Hydrogen Engines, says that Ford has unveiled a supercharged
hydrogen internal combustion engine that will be produced primarily as shuttles
in airports. According to Zanardelli,
Ford says the technology offers near-zero-emissions benefits now and is much
cheaper than hydrogen fuel cells, which
are still years away from production.
http://www.carlist.com/autonews/2005/autonews_136.html
"The hydrogen internal
combustion engine is a bridging strategy that will stimulate the hydrogen
economy." Eight have already been
sold to the state of
The hydrogen could be
produced by power from wind turbines and solar cells.
or
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