A Comparison of Carbon Dioxide Emissions between Battery Electric Buses and Conventional Diesel Buses

Feng Mao, Zhiheng Li and Kai Zhang
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Feng Mao: Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China
Zhiheng Li: Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China
Kai Zhang: Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: To prove the important role of battery electric buses (BEBs) in reducing carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, we propose a framework to compare CO 2 emissions between BEBs and conventional diesel buses (CDBs) based on low sampling frequency BEBs data at the city scale in Shenzhen. We applied the VT-Micro model to improve the estimation of CDBs’ CO 2 emissions. A modal-activity-based method was implemented to reconstruct the second-by-second trajectories from the dataset as the input of the VT-Micro model. We updated the data of the Guangdong power generation mix to improve the estimation of BEBs’ CO 2 emissions. The experiments showed that BEBs could reduce CO 2 emissions by 18.0–23.9% in comparison with CDBs when the frequency of air-conditioning usage was low. In addition, BEBs tended to achieve more CO 2 emission reduction benefits when the transit buses traveled at a low speed. Improving the traffic efficiency of road networks and promoting inter-provincial electricity trading are important to promote the adoption of BEBs.

Keywords: battery electric buses; the VT-Micro model; modal-activity-based method; power generation mix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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