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Title:

Carbon Footprints for Public Transportation Agencies in Florida

Accession Number:

01374347

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States
Order URL: http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/168060.aspx

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Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780309223270

Abstract:

Under sponsorship of the Florida Department of Transportation, a study was conducted to measure the carbon footprint for Florida’s public transit agencies. The state’s 31 public transportation agencies were contacted to obtain data. With the Climate Registry’s general reporting protocol (GRP), the research team calculated emissions on the basis of the provided data. The research team found that carbon dioxide emissions from revenue vehicles accounted for 82.5% of a typical agency’s emissions (86.5% if weighted by footprint size). The balance of the footprint included trace emissions from vehicle operations; emissions from purchased electricity; emissions from operating nonrevenue vehicles; emissions from fuel used to heat, operate, and maintain facilities; and refrigerants lost from vehicle and building air-conditioning systems. Refrigerant losses accounted for about 5% of a typical agency’s footprint. Data on losses were the most difficult to collect. The collected data were estimated to account for 75% to 80% of the total carbon footprint of Florida’s transit agencies, and the data total footprint accounted for less than 1% of the state’s surface transportation carbon footprint. This research also examined how Florida’s transit agencies could help reduce the state’s transportation carbon footprint by providing service that encourages people to ride public transportation instead of driving. The study also provides lessons for conducting similar inventories elsewhere, including data collection, constraints on agencies’ abilities to provide data on a voluntary basis, some limitations of the GRP, and possibilities for simplifying the process in some circumstances.

Monograph Accession #:

01450930

Report/Paper Numbers:

12-0140

Language:

English

Authors:

Hillsman, Edward L
Cevallos, Fabian
Sando, Thobias

Pagination:

pp 80–88

Publication Date:

2012

Serial:

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

Issue Number: 2287
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISSN: 0361-1981

ISBN:

9780309223270

Media Type:

Print

Features:

Figures; References; Tables

Geographic Terms:

Subject Areas:

Energy; Environment; Public Transportation; I15: Environment; I70: Traffic and Transport

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Feb 8 2012 4:53PM

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