Speakers

Amit Bhatt

India Managing Director, ICCT

Amit Bhatt is the ICCT’s Managing Director for India. He is based in New Delhi and has over 20 years of experience in transportation, urban development, and management. Before joining ICCT, Amit was Executive Director for Integrated Transport at WRI India for 12 years. Prior to the World Resources Institute he worked with the Urban Mass Transit Company, India’s leading urban transport consultancy, and with Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services. He has also served as an adjunct faculty member at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi.

Amit has a bachelor’s degree in architecture and a master’s degree in transport planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. Amit also has a master’s degree in economics and a diploma in transport economics and management.

Vaibhav Kush

Researcher, ICCT

Vaibhav Kush is a Researcher with ICCT’s India team, leading the Low Emission Zones work there. He engages with sub-national administrations to accelerate adoption of Low- and Zero Emission Zones in India. He has been working in the Sustainable Mobility sector since 2016, with expertise in safe systems, policy formulation and stakeholder engagements. Before joining ICCT, Vaibhav was associated with WRI India’s Sustainable Cities program for over six years, leading projects under Botnar CRS Challenge. He was actively involved in Haryana Vision Zero, pedestrianisation of Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, development of IRC guidelines on urban transport, etc. Prior to WRI India, Vaibhav has worked as an Architect and was involved in the design of large scale green building projects like corporate parks, Inter-container Depots, universities, etc.

Vaibhav has a bachelor’s in Architecture and a Master’s in Urban Planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. He is a member of several professional bodies including International Sociological Association, Institute of Town Planners India, Council of Architecture, Indian Roads Congress, Indian Institute of Architects, Indian Buildings Congress, among others.

Sudhendu J. Sinha

Adviser, NITI Aayog

An alumnus of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi did his Major in History. He has experience of over 29 years in operations, infrastructure planning, coordination and management at field and policy making levels in Indian Railways with considerable success and appreciation.

His performance has been recognised and awarded twice at the National level (National Award for e-Governance- 2019-20, for ‘Excellence in providing Citizen – Centric Delivery’ by Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Govt. of India, ‘National Award for Outstanding Service’ Ministry of Railways Govt. of India -2006) and thrice at the Ministry (of Railways) level. He also served as Dean of the Indian Railway Institute of Transport Management (IRITM), Lucknow, and General Manager Web Applications at the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS). He has training and enrichment from Japan (Railway Management), Malaysia (ICLIF – Advance Management), Singapore (INSEAD – Advance Management), Germany (UIC) and the US (Oracle).

He is the Adviser at the NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transformation of India), the apex ‘Think Tank’ of the Govt. of India.

 

The post National Workshop on Low-emission Zones in Cities appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

In Colombia, thanks to public policies, there are requirements for a minimum purchase of 30% of electric vehicles in the public transport fleet by 2025. According to the requirements imposed by the national government for large cities, a minimum purchase of electric buses is required, starting in 2025 with 10% and progressively increasing to reach 100 % in 2035.

Specifically in Bogotá, the local government has gone further and has established that it will not allow new internal combustion buses as of 2022. To achieve this, the business models, vehicle typologies and recharging infrastructure necessary for the use of zero-emission buses will have to be in place.

The post Charging infrastructure for zero-emissions buses — Strategies in Bogotá, Colombia appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a third phase of greenhouse gas standards on heavy-duty vehicles and engines for model years 2027 and later, to accelerate road freight decarbonization. Many public comments supported it, but truck manufacturers including Volvo and Daimler have asked the EPA for a three-year delay of the rule. Their principal argument is that charging infrastructure will not be available to support the number of electric truck sales the rule would encourage.

Will infrastructure not be available in sufficient quantities? Well, we see that significant public investment has already been made, private investments have already led to groundbreaking on charging sites, ribbons have been cut at publicly accessible truck charging depots, and truck manufacturers themselves are building the infrastructure.

Beyond that, the reality is we don’t need to build everything everywhere, all at once. It makes strategic and economic sense in the near term to electrify the largest number of trucks along the smallest number of roadways where the business case is strongest (“no regrets” zones and corridors). And the assessment we present below shows that strategic infrastructure deployment in a limited number of freight hubs and corridors would be enough to ensure the EPA proposal can be met with sales of electric trucks.

We illustrate this with the infrastructure needs of long-haul trucks, just one of many vehicle categories covered in the EPA proposal. Here we define a long-haul truck as a vehicle that travels 500 miles daily and a long-haul corridor as one continuous segment at least 300 miles long.

Despite being less than 20% of the vehicles in the U.S. heavy-duty fleet, long-haul trucks are responsible for an outsized share of daily traffic volume (Table 1). Previous analysis demonstrated that battery-powered long-haul tractors offer the strongest business case when compared with other zero-emission alternatives. When coupled with megawatt charging in the second half of this decade, battery-powered long-haul tractors are estimated to be the only zero-emission powertrain with the potential to achieve a lower cost per mile than long-haul diesel tractors.

Table 1. Projected vehicle stock, activity, and energy consumption of commercial vehicles in the United States in 2030.

	Vehicle stock	Zero-emission vehicle stock	Fleet-wide average daily vehicle miles traveled (eVMT)	Fleet-wide average daily zero-emission vehicle miles traveled (eVMT)	Fleet-wide average daily zero-emission vehicle energy consumption (MWh)
Class 4-8 long-haul vehicles	2 million	70,000	469 million	18 million	35,000
All Class 4-8 vehicles	11 million	1.1 million	1.1 billion	94 million	140,000
Long-haul vehicle share	18%	6%	43%	19%	25%

Source: Ragon et al. (2023)

To assess the minimum infrastructure needs of these long-haul trucks in 2030, we: (1) examined freight traffic patterns, including our own national infrastructure analysis ; (2) revisited the infrastructure work of CALSTART and EPRI to inform our efforts and consider our analysis against their assumptions; and (3) consulted with industry experts to understand which long-haul corridors to prioritize. Our goal was to find the smallest number of roads with the highest traffic volume that could support 18 million long-haul electric truck miles (eVMTs) in 2030. These 18 million eVMTs are the electric truck activity spurred on by the Inflation Reduction Act, as estimated under our moderate scenario in this paper. That amount would also be enough to keep zero-emission trucks in commercial road freight aligned with international climate goals. We also considered a second scenario: the charging infrastructure for long-haul trucks needed to match the EPA Phase 3 proposal assuming manufacturers comply only with electric vehicle sales.

First, we find that public charging plazas along 1,800 miles of U.S. roads, identified as Tier 1 in Figure 1, would be enough to align long-haul truck electrification with international climate goals in 2030. The Tier 1 corridors are just 0.06% of paved road miles in the United States in 2020 or about 3% of the U.S. National Highway Freight Network. To arrive at 18 million daily eVMT on these corridors, we assume that one out of every four long-haul truck miles are electric. Forthcoming sales requirements for zero-emission trucks in California, Oregon, and Washington paired with total cost of ownership parity expected between battery-electric and diesel-powered long-haul tractors in Texas by 2027 put this within reach.

Figure 1. Tier 1, 2, and 3 priority corridors for electrifying long-haul truck activity in 2030 in line with international climate goals.

The Tier 2 corridors are where additional infrastructure would be needed in 2030 to achieve 18 million daily eVMT if instead only 15% of long-haul truck miles along Tier 1+2 corridors are electric. Tier 3 corridors expand the map and show where infrastructure would be needed if only 10% of long-haul truck miles along Tier 1+2+3 corridors are electric in 2030. Even the combined Tier 1, 2, and 3 corridors are still just 0.2% of paved road miles in the United States in 2020 or less than 10% of the U.S. National Highway Freight Network.

Second, the EPA proposal requires even less infrastructure than the first scenario because fewer electric trucks would be on U.S. roads. We project that the EPA proposal could generate close to 9 million long-haul eVMT per day, half as much as considered above. Approximately 1,000 total road miles across three corridors in California and Texas would be enough to comply with that; this assumes that 25% of long-haul truck miles on these roads are electric in 2030 and that manufacturers choose to comply only with electric truck sales, which the EPA rule would not require.

If, instead, only 10% of long-haul truck miles are electric, charging needs resulting from the EPA rule would require infrastructure deployment along 2,100 miles of the Interstate Highway System. This is shown in Figure 2 and the amount is still a fraction of a percent of U.S. paved roads and less than 4% of the national highway freight network.

Figure 2. Priority corridors for electrifying long-haul activity in line with maximum electrification required by the EPA Phase 3 proposed standard if 10% of long-haul truck miles are electric in 2030.

Despite manufacturer concerns, this analysis highlights the limited nature of the infrastructure required to meet the projected needs of long-haul electric trucks in 2030. Even an electrification scenario more ambitious than the EPA proposal and aligned with international climate goals would require public charging infrastructure for long-haul trucks across less than 1% of U.S. roads. Infrastructure at this scale would not be expected to be a major barrier to achieving greater greenhouse gas reductions, should the EPA choose to strengthen its proposal.

Deploying infrastructure in phases and starting strategically in the highest-priority locations would be enough for long-haul trucks in the near term. Our analysis shows that the infrastructure needs of the EPA proposal and of even more ambitious proposals can be met.

Author

Yihao Xie
Researcher

Ray Minjares
Heavy-Duty Vehicles Program Director and San Francisco Managing Director

Related Publications

TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP OF ALTERNATIVE POWERTRAIN TECHNOLOGIES FOR CLASS 8 LONG-HAUL TRUCKS IN THE UNITED STATES

Evaluates the total cost of ownership for diesel, battery electric, hydrogen fuel-cell, and hydrogen combustion powertrains.

Print

Decarbonizing TransportCharging infrastructureElectrification

SectorHeavy vehicles

RegionUnited States

The post Deploy charging infrastructure in “no regrets” freight zones and corridors to keep U.S. commercial truck electrification aligned with climate goals appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

This report details the elements of the Technology Ascent Plan (PAT), a document that presents specific goals to improve air quality and reduce public health impacts in Bogotá, Colombia, through operational monitoring and follow-up mechanisms coordinated by three different institutions: the Secretariat of Mobility, the District Secretariat of Environment, and TransMilenio. The authors explore its main components and analyze the development of guidelines for the implementation of zero or low emission vehicles, the creation of a database with information in the public domain, and the definition of clean mobility strategies in an evaluation and control program. This is an important document to guide the decarbonization of the city’s fleet, with measures and strategies that can serve as a model for other cities in the country and in Latin America to adopt.

The post The Technology Development Plan as a tool for the transition to electric buses in the city of Bogotá D.C. appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

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O setor de transporte no Brasil se destaca devido ao seu forte foco em biocombustíveis, com a maioria dos carros de passageiros sendo veículos flex (92% das vendas em 2020), operando com uma proporção significativa de etanol à base de cana-de-açúcar na mistura média de combustível. Ainda assim, depois da agricultura e da mudança no uso da terra, o setor de transporte é a terceira maior fonte de emissões de gases de efeito estufa (GEE) no país. Alcançar a meta do Brasil de zerar as emissões de GEE líquidas até 2050 dependerá, portanto, de uma redução rápida das emissões de GEE nesse setor.

Este estudo avalia quais tipos de motores a combustão ou elétricos permitem a maior redução das emissões de GEE de carros de passageiros. A avaliação do ciclo de vida (ACV) inclui as emissões da fabricação de veículos e baterias, bem como a queima de combustível, a produção de combustível e eletricidade e a manutenção. O estudo compara veículos com motor de combustão interna flex (ICEVs) e veículos elétricos a bateria (BEVs) usando veículos novos médios nas categorias compacta, média e SUV compacto. Quando possível, as emissões de veículos elétricos híbridos (HEVs), veículos elétricos híbridos plug-in (PHEVs) e veículos elétricos a célula de combustível a hidrogênio (FCEVs) também são avaliadas.

O estudo constata que as emissões do ciclo de vida dos ICEVs flex variam amplamente quando operados com gasolina C, etanol ou uma mistura dos dois combustíveis. Isso implica que, para uma avaliação representativa de suas emissões, as proporções médias de gasolina C e etanol no mercado precisam ser consideradas. Com a matriz elétrica brasileira, os BEVs atuais emitem cerca de um terço das emissões do ciclo de vida dos ICEVs flex e os modelos futuros podem se aproximar de emissões zero. Os FCEVs a hidrogênio mostram uma redução semelhante nas emissões de GEE, mas somente quando operados com hidrogênio verde baseado em eletricidade renovável. Híbridos e híbridos plug-in, ao contrário, mostram apenas uma redução limitada nas emissões de GEE e não alcançam emissões zero a longo prazo. Essas descobertas refletem as mesmas tendências observadas em análises anteriores do ICCT de veículos na China, Europa, Índia e Estados Unidos.

Com base nessas descobertas, este estudo também apresenta uma série de recomendações de políticas para descarbonizar o setor de transporte. Em particular, metas ambiciosas nos padrões de emissões de CO2 do próximo Programa Mobilidade Verde e Inovação – PROMOVI (anteriormente Rota 2030) poderiam estabelecer as bases para aumentar continuamente a produção de veículos elétricos no Brasil. Isso ajudaria a alinhar o setor de transporte com as metas climáticas do governo. Além disso, incluir as emissões de mudança no uso da terra no programa de biocombustíveis RenovaBio ajudaria a melhorar a sustentabilidade do etanol.

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The transportation sector in Brazil stands out due to its strong focus on biofuels, with most passenger cars being gasoline-ethanol flex-fuel vehicles (92% of sales in 2020) operating on a high share of sugarcane-based ethanol in the average fuel mix. Still, after agriculture and land use change, the transport sector is the third largest source of GHG emissions in the country. Reaching Brazil’s target of net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 will thus depend on a swift reduction of GHG emissions in this sector.

This study evaluates which combustion engine and electric power train types allow the largest reduction of GHG emissions from passenger cars. The life-cycle assessment (LCA) includes the emissions of vehicle and battery manufacturing, as well as fuel combustion, fuel and electricity production, and maintenance. The study compares flex-fuel internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) using average new vehicles across the compact, medium, and compact SUV segments. Where possible, the emissions of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are also assessed.

The study finds that the life-cycle emissions of flex-fuel ICEVs vary largely when operated on gasoline C, on ethanol, or on a mix of the two fuels. This implies that for a representative assessment of their emissions, the market average shares of gasoline C and ethanol need to be considered. With the corresponding average electricity mix, current BEVs emit about one third of the life-cycle emissions of gasoline-ethanol flex-fuel ICEVs and future models can approach zero emissions. Hydrogen FCEVs show a similar reduction in GHG emissions, but only when operated on renewable electricity-based (green) hydrogen. Hybrids and plug-in hybrids, in contrast, only show a limited reduction in GHG emissions and do not reach zero emissions in the long term. These findings reflect the same trends observed in previous ICCT analyses of vehicles in China, Europe, India, and the United States.

Based on these findings, this study also presents a series of policy recommendations for decarbonizing the transport sector. In particular, ambitious targets in the CO₂ emission standards of the upcoming Green Mobility and Innovation Program – PROMOVI (formerly Rota 2030), could lay the groundwork for continuously increasing electric vehicle production in Brazil. This would help to align the transport sector with the government’s climate targets. Further, including land use change emissions in the RenovaBio biofuels program would help to improve the sustainability of ethanol.

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Este informe detalla los elementos del Plan de Ascenso Tecnológico (PAT), un documento que presenta metas específicas para mejorar la calidad del aire y reducir los impactos en la salud pública de Bogotá, Colombia, a través de mecanismos operativos de monitoreo y seguimiento coordinados por tres instituciones distintas: la Secretaría de Movilidad, la Secretaría Distrital de Ambiente y TransMilenio. Los autores exploran sus principales componentes y analizan el desarrollo de guías para la implementación de vehículos de cero o baja emisiones, la creación de una base de datos con información de dominio público y la definición de estrategias de movilidad limpia en un programa de evaluación y control. Se trata de un documento importante para orientar la descarbonización de la flota de la ciudad, con medidas y estrategias que puedan servir de modelo para que otras ciudades del país y de América Latina adopten políticas públicas orientadas a un transporte urbano más limpio.

The post El plan de ascenso tecnológico como herramienta para la transición hacia buses eléctricos en la ciudad de Bogotá D.C. appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

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