Title

Applications of Integrated Energy and Emissions Modeling Tools

Time

10:00am - 11:00am

Location

1605 Tilia, Room 1103, West Village

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Randall Guensler is a Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. After completing his undergraduate degree at UC Davis, he worked for the California Air Resources Board for seven years, obtaining an M.S. in Environmental Engineering and a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from UC Davis along the way. At Georgia Tech, he has managed more than $21 million in transportation, energy, and air quality research, including a recent $3.0 million Department of Energy ARPA-E TRANSNET project which included regional transportation simulation and real-time incentives to change travel behavior and reduce energy use. Dr. Guensler is a Member of the Transportation Research Board’s Managed Lanes Committee and a former Chair of the TRB Committee on Transportation and Air Quality. He teaches undergraduate courses in environmental impact assessment and sidewalks, and graduate courses in transportation planning, and transportation energy and air quality. He has served on a variety of National Academy of Sciences, US Environmental Protection Agency, and Coordinating Research Council committees and panels charged with the assessment of vehicle emissions and identification of research needs.

Ann Li is a Ph.D. student in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. She is also receiving a M.S in statistics from Georgia Tech this spring. She earned her B.S. in GIS at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. Ann has worked on multiple research projects at Georgia Tech related to vehicle energy modeling and GIS applications in transportation. In her dissertation research, she is developing models that can be used by transit agencies to generate optimal long-term bus fleet turnover plans, with a focus on switching from conventional to alternative fuel buses.

From 2016-2018, Georgia Tech researchers worked with the US Department of Energy’s ARPA-E TRANSNET program team to develop a systems model designed to help minimize surface transportation energy consumption. The modeling approach integrated real-time and historic traffic data, big data analytics, and a control architecture to interact with users.

The team coupled a historic space-time memory of traffic conditions with Python-based models to predict ‘shortest-path’ multi-modal trajectories through evolving congestion conditions. The TRANSNET system compares travel time, cost, energy, and emissions tradeoffs across alternative modes, departure times, and routes, given observed and predicted traffic conditions. The energy consumption and emissions for each alternative trajectory through the system are modeled using tools developed in NCST-supported research efforts.

In this webinar, Dr. Guensler will present an overview of the various NCST-supported modeling tools that allowed the research team to model on-road and lifecycle energy use and emissions for the TRANSNET project. Hanyan (Ann) Li, a Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate, will then provide an overview on the integration of NCST modeling tools into her dissertation work to optimize route assignment and recharging station placement for battery-electric transit buses.

Related Publications

The following is a selection of related publications authored by the speakers:

• Xu, X., H. Li, H. Liu, M. Rodgers and R. Guensler (2018). “Evaluation of Transit Eco-Driving in Rural, Suburban, and Urban Environments.”  DOI: 10.1177/0361198118797778 Transportation Research Record.  Washington, DC. September 2018.
• Guensler, R., H. Liu., Y. Xu, A. Akanser, D. Kim, M.P. Hunter, M.O. Rodgers (2017). “Energy Consumption and Emission Modeling of Individual Vehicles.” 10.3141/2627-11. Transportation Research Record. Number 2627. pp. 93-102. National Academy of Sciences. Washington, DC. 2017.
• Li, H., Haobing Liu, Y. Xu, M.O. Rodgers, R. Guensler (2015).  Performance of Multiple Alternatives to Reduce Carbon Emissions for Transit Fleets: A Real-world Operations Perspective.  Energy Procedia (Elsevier), Vol 88, June 2016, pp 908-914.
• Xu, X., H. Liu, Y. Xu, M. Hunter, and R. Guensler (2016). “Estimating Project-level Vehicle Emissions using Vissim and MOVES Matrix.” DOI 10.3141/2570-12. Transportation Research Record. Number 2570. pp. 107-117. National Academy of Sciences. Washington, DC. 2016.
• Xu, Y., F. Gbologah, H. Liu, M.O. Rodgers, and R. Guensler (2015). “Assessment of Alternative Fuel and Powertrain Transit Bus Options using Real-world Operations Data:  Life-cycle Fuel and Emissions Modeling.” Applied Energy. Volume 154, Number 15. pp. 143-159.