Methodology for Energy Efficiency Assessment in the Transport

Sector for Smart Cities

M. Fernanda Mantilla R.

, Angelica Nieto L.

, Jose L. Martinez Lastra

and Elli Kotakorpi

FAST-LAB, Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Tampere City, Finland

Tampereen Kaupunki, Department of economic and urban development, Tampere city, Finland

Keywords: Methodology, Energy Efficiency Evaluation, Smart Cities Mobility Transport Projects.

Abstract: To measure the impact of transport projects in smart cities can be expensive and time-consuming. One

challenge in measuring the effect of these projects is that impacts are poorly quantified or are not always

immediately tangible. Due to transport projects nature, it is often difficult to show results in short term

because much of the effort is invested in changing attitudes and behaviour on the mobility choices of city

inhabitants. This paper presents a methodology that was developed to evaluate and define city transport

projects for increasing energy efficiency. The main objective of this methodology is to help city authorities

to improve the energy efficiency of the city by defining strategies and taking actions in the transportation

domain. In order to define it, a review of current methodologies for measuring the impact of energy

efficiency projects was performed. The defined energy efficiency methodology provides standard structure

to the evaluation process, making sure that each project is being evaluated against its own goals and as

detailed as it is required to the level of investment. An implementation in a smart city of the first step of this

methodology is included in order to evaluate the implementation phase of the defined process.

1 INTRODUCTION

Cities are the places where most of the produced

energy is used. By 2012 urban mobility was 40% of

all CO

emissions, in which road transport represent

32,6% of the total energy consumption in Europe,

being private cars one of the principal emitters.

Therefore, reducing car use and promoting public

transport (PT) are both essential to reduce the energy

consumption/CO

emissions in cities (International

Energy agency, 2012).

This paper presents a methodology that provides

guidelines for measuring the impact of transport

projects in energy efficiency/carbon emissions and

to perform evaluations all through the mobility

project processes. The developed methodology

engaged authorities from different cities to make a

conscious and schematic procedure for early projects

stages, so this will facilitate analysis and evaluation.

The process is divided into eight steps, starting from

the goals and objectives settlement until the final

evaluation, which encourage cities to make a

consistent process that will suit specific city

applications, local conditions and target groups. The

methodology compromises the following steps:

definition of goals, identification of target groups,

identification of variables, energy evaluation, set

targets, implementation, analysis and strategy

evaluation. The results from the evaluation process

can be used to refine transport projects and achieve

the city objectives. The energy efficiency

methodology will be implemented in three smart

cities and this paper will present the implementation

in one of them. A smart city is understood as a city

who use technology to enhance interoperability

between its components, to reduce consumption of

resources, especially in this case, energy, and to

improve the life of their inhabitants.

This paper is organized as follows: section II

gives an overview of transport projects evaluation

issues. Section III introduces the most relevant

methodologies for mobility project evaluation.

Section IV describes the defined energy efficiency

methodology. Section V presents the application of

the methodology in a smart city and finally section

VI gives the conclusion and future work.

Fernanda Mantilla R. M., Nieto L. A., L. Martinez Lastra J. and Kotakorpi E..

Methodology for Energy Efﬁciency Assessment in the Transport Sector for Smart Cities.

DOI: 10.5220/0005488300720077

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Smart Cities and Green ICT Systems (SMARTGREENS-2015), pages 72-77

ISBN: 978-989-758-105-2

 2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

2 EVALUTION ISSUES IN

TRANSPORT PROJECTS

Results of the evaluation process of projects can

provide the sensation of achievement in the sense of

remuneration for what was invested (e.g. money and

time), which is fundamental for the motivation in

transport projects and specifically from the energy

efficiency point of view. This process allows cities

to demonstrate that they have achieved the results or

identify if they need to make improvements or

corrections in the taken actions. Unfortunately, there

is not a methodology that is commonly accepted and

worldwide applied, which forces cities to create and

implement energy projects by their own. In

consequence, they become isolated entities and the

knowledge coming from their transport projects is

lost or can’t be understood by others, which makes

impossible to make further comparisons with similar

approaches.

Additionally to the issue of the missing process

definition, it is commonly known that some

transport projects are not being evaluated or

monitored. The core of this problem is on the time

nature of the projects. Transport projects on energy

efficiency or/and CO2 emissions reductions are

based on changing inhabitants attitudes, which is a

process that takes time. In consequence, to measure

short-term changes do not reflect the whole impact

of the projects.

3 METHODS FOR ENERGY

EFFICIENCY ASSESSMENT

As mentioned before, there are several

methodologies and standards for energy mobility

evaluation. In this section, the ones in which this

methodology is based are presented. It includes two

European frameworks for mobility management

projects: European Union’s MOST MET program

(Finke, 2001), Sweden’s SUMO program (Rosqvist

et al., 2004)), and the international standard ISO

50001 (“ISO 50001 - Energy management - ISO,”).

MOST MET (MM) is the toolkit for Mobility

Managements from the European Union MOST

program, which combines monitoring and analysis

processes for mobility management measurements to

assess the impact of transport projects. SUMO is a

method for systematic planning to standardize

evaluations. It focuses on evaluating soft parameters,

like communication initiatives. ISO 50001 is an

international standard that works as a tool for

organizations to establish systematic procedures to

improve the energy performance of systems. The

norm is known worldwide as the plan-do-check-act

cycle which forces organizations to go for changes

and constant improvement.

4 METHODOLOGY FOR

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

The defined methodology was created to support

smart cities to make energy assessments and provide

a basis for comparing their performance and

improvements (see Figure 1). The methodology

starts by defining the project scope and goals. Next

steps define the target groups and the relevant

variables that show how the energy use is affected.

Step 4 describes the energy evaluation that has as

output, a list of performance indicators and baselines

that on the next step are used to define targets. The

step 4 values are going to be monitoring during the

implementation step, as well as in connection with

monitoring and evaluation. Feedback from several

steps is proposed in order to make improvements in

projects already in progress or in the initial steps. A

more detail description of each step is provided in

the following sub-sections.

Figure 1: MoveUs methodology for energy efficiency

assessment.

4.1 Step 1. Define the Goals

The first step for an evaluation process is to set a

clear goal, supported by objectives. The objectives

should be in a SMART structure (Specific,

Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time

framed) (Doran, G.T., 1981). To set a specific

objective it is required to answer the five “Wh”

questions: 1) who is involved? 2) What does the city

wants to accomplish? 3) Where? Identify a location,

if it is local impact. 4) When? Establish a time

frame. 5) Why? Specific reasons or benefits of

accomplishing the goal.

MethodologyforEnergyEfficiencyAssessmentintheTransportSectorforSmartCities

Measurable is a concreate criteria for the further

measurement process. Achievable is related with

how the objectives are going to be achieving, and if

they are realistic with the current state of the system.

Relevant objectives represent believes of what the

authorities want to achieve and the use of the local

resources. Finally, Time frame helps to prioritize the

objectives, resources and work. Having clear

objectives allows a proper implementation of the

methodology and project evaluation process.

4.2 Step 2. Identify Target Groups

In order to measure the effects of mobility projects

in an effective way (in this case, less use of

resources), the early identification of the target

group is a good start. Target groups are defined as

the group of people that have similar needs and

travel patterns but often different ways to approach

the information. The identification consists in a

careful description that includes the location,

common characteristics, and if possible, how they

can be approached.

4.3 Step 3. Identify Variables

The primary goal of step three is to identify the

variables that describe the objectives of the project.

These variables should be well-documented and

easily-obtainable, so they will reflect the energy

use/carbon emission levels changes. As an

illustration, if one of the objectives is to increase the

use of PT, one variable can be the average number

of passengers per bus.

A way to start is by determining all energy

resources: electricity, biofuels such as ethanol,

biodiesel and biogas, hydrogen, and conventional

fuels like gasoline, diesel and natural gas, by having

in mind the objectives previously describe on step 1.

By identifying the energy sources, the tracking of

the transport system components that consume more

energy is easier and the variables will describe them.

4.4 Step 4. Energy Evaluation

After having the list of variables that are relevant for

measuring energy use /carbon emission levels and

the energy resources of the transport system, the

next step is to use all the information from previous

steps to perform the energy evaluation. This

evaluation consists of three steps: Energy Revision,

Performance Indicators and Baseline.

4.4.1 Energy Revision

The energy revision has three stages: 1) current

usage and energy consumption of the system

including its past and present, and all the energy

sources from step 3. With this information it is

possible to 2) identify points with high energy

consumption, which can be reduced by changing the

habits of the target groups. As a consequence, this

step will give to authorities the potential 3)

improvements in the energy consumption

performance of the transport system. The potential

improvements could be prioritizing based on the

characteristics of each city.

4.4.2 Performance Indicators

Using the system information and the knowledge

acquired in the energy revision and previous steps,

authorities can choose a group of indicators that

reflect the energy efficiency levels. These indicators

includes Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and

Affecting Parameters. The KPIs should be

associated with the objectives and target groups of

the mobility project. The affecting parameters reflect

the environment in which the project will be

materialized. The way they affect the system is by

increasing or decreasing the energy

consumption/carbon footprint values. A set of KPIs

and affecting parameters for energy efficiency

assessment in transport sector were describe for this

methodology through a literature review (M.

Fernanda Mantilla R. et al., n.d.); Mantilla R. et al.,

n.d). Cities can consult these documents or stablish

their own parameters.

4.4.3 Baseline

The second output of the energy evaluation is the

baseline. The baseline predicts the behaviour of the

KPIs based on the historical information, so it is a

quantitative reference of the objectives. In the

implementation step, KPIs must be checked

regularly and compared to the baseline that is

calculated here. The Baseline period is used for

obtaining the equation that shows how the system

behaves and the next stage is the expected

behaviour. In this stage the baseline value is

compared with the measured value during the

implementation to keep in track the energy savings.

4.5 Step 5. Set Targets

Based on the overall mobility project objectives,

SMARTGREENS2015-4thInternationalConferenceonSmartCitiesandGreenICTSystems

detail target values should be stablished. These

target values not only contain the desirable value,

but also the time when the system is going to be at

that state. At this point the project should include

schedules, resources and responsibilities for

achieving the targets, so they can be used as an input

for the implementation step.

Target values should be practical and achievable,

as well as flexible to reflect changes in the

objectives. One way to make sure that target values

are achievable is by observing the baseline value.

The baseline shows the existing energy pattern, so

any target value to far from that patter is closer to be

unachievable.

4.6 Step 6. Implementation

In the implementation step, authorities should have

always in mind target values and their time frames,

as well as all the control operations. Those

operations make sure that entities in charge of the

implementation round will apply actions to take the

transport system to the desired stage. Additionally

this step gives feedback to the step 5 in the sense

that if the target value exceeds city capacity, the set

target must be redefined.

4.7 Step 7. Analysis

When the objectives time frame comes, authorities

should be prepared to perform an analysis. In this

step the data acquired during the implementation

process is used, not only for face target values, but

also to recognize what are the factors or actions

behind the system current behaviour. Thus a careful

control procedure performed on the previous step

would be the core of the analysis and a clue for the

next step.

4.8 Step 8. Strategy Evaluation

In this step the cities will evaluate the whole

mobility project process. The evaluation

determinates the effectiveness of the projects in

fulfilling the objectives defined on the first step, to

identify the nonconformities and opportunities for

improving the energy efficiency projects.

If authorities face nonconformity, the necessary

corrective and preventing actions must be initiated

and implemented. That is why this step must be used

as a feedback to the methodology step 1, so the cycle

of the methodology starts again. Time aspects in

analysis and evaluation are important. Changing

peoples’ attitudes and behaviours takes time, so it

often takes one or several years before the last two

steps can be measured.

5 METHODOLOGY

INSTALLATION IN SMART

CITY (TAMPERE, FINLAND)

In order to test the methodology, it was implemented

in a smart city that is presented in this section.

5.1 Main Goal and Objectives

The main goal of Tampere's energy efficiency

project described in this paper is to contribute to

Tampere’s sustainable mobility goals by increasing

the share of walking, cycling and public transport.

Therefore, the main objectives include:

1. Reduce the use of private car

2. Increase the modal share percentage for

alternative modes (cycling and walking).

3. Increase the use of public transport

4. Increase public transport service awareness in

the Tampere area

5.2 Target Group

Tampere city target groups are car users and

commuters. Indirect Tampere’s target group is its

population of 220,446 inhabitants. The number of

private cars registered in Tampere is 90,906.

5.3 Identified Variables

Tampere energy sources for transport mainly consist

on conventional fuels such as gasoline, diesel and

natural gas. However their composition is, by law, a

combination of Biofuels with traditional fuels called

Bio-share, which in 2014 constitute 8% in both

gasoline and diesel. Additional sources are

electricity which is in initial states to be

implemented. Some of the identified variables can

be seen in the following Table 1.

Table 1: Identified variables for Tampere city.

Variable Objective

Energy consumption per vehicle 1,3,4

Fuel consumption per vehicle 1,3,4

Calories consumption in alternative modes 1,2

Modal share percent in each mode 1,2,3,4

Number of public transport passengers 3,4

Number of cyclists 2

MethodologyforEnergyEfficiencyAssessmentintheTransportSectorforSmartCities

5.4 Energy Evaluation

5.4.1 Energy Revision

Transport has an important role in total emissions

for Tampere City; however it had decreased its

emission from 300 ktCO

in 2010 to approximately

280 ktCO

by 2013. Part of the reductions might

come from changes in the modal share distribution,

Figure 2 shows that PT and Alternative modes

(ALM, walking and cycling) had been increased and

car use decreased. Even though the emissions have

been reduced, increases in car ownership had been

maintaining an average increase of 4% per year

(Välimäki et al., 2013).

Figure 2: Tampere transport modal share, 2005-2012-

2016.

Tampere PT is mainly bus traffic, since 2006 the

city has been implementing different strategies such

as extending bus services, lanes and traffic light

priorities in order to promote its use. PT awareness

has been done through maps and books, and new

media, such as website and mobile applications

(“Tampere City Public Transport,” n.d.)

In ALM, Tampere values has been growing as

well as the cycle/walking path network. Awareness

is done by a cycle route planner only available

online through the journey planer website.

Additional measures includes improvements in the

roads, campaigns like Minä poljen in 2012, and

studies such as vitality from walking and cycling

(vitality from walking and cycling, 2014).

5.4.2 Performance Indicators

Based on the previous information and the

objectives that Tampere city has defined, a number

of KPIs that reflect the performance of the system as

well a set of factors that affect the system were

identified, see Table 2 and Table 3.

The table below presents a list of factors that affect

the energy efficiency of the different transport

Table 2: List of KPIs for Tampere city.

ID Name

KP4 Density of passenger transport

KP5 Number of passenger transported by fuel unit

KP6 Number of fuel units per passenger

KP8 Total CO

emissions for travel passengers

KP10 Private vehicles density rate

KP13 Share of public transport in total passenger traffic

KP16 Presence of alternative fuels vehicles

KP18 Traffic-free (TF) and on-road (OR) routes

KP19 Annual usage estimation in alternative modes

KP23 KPI’s change per time unit

KP24 KPI’s percentage of change

modes in Tampere city. The letter u shows the

energy efficiency scale up. Letter d represents the

energy efficiency scales down.

Table 3: Factors affecting energy efficiency on Tampere

city.

Modes

ALM PT PV

Station/Stops distance - u -

Amount available Car - d d

Travel distance - d d

Travel time - d d

Temperature - u u

Precipitation - d d

Fog - d d

Support during winter - d d

Car parking - - d

Lights - d d

5.4.3 Baseline

Due to the amount of data and the number of

parameters selected on previous steps, only one of

the KPI will be used as an example to illustrate of

the process done in this step as well as in further

steps.

One way to represent ALM modes is by the

kilometres of Traffic Free (TF) and On Road (OR)

routes. KP18 in Figure 3 shows how the network has

been constantly growing. The opportunity

implementation can be seen as the savings in

emission of citizens that make use of the TF and OR

network. One way to calculate the savings is by

assuming a reference scenario, in this case will be a

car, with average gasoline car carbon conversion

factor (CCF) of 217gCO2/km. The equation use to

get the savings is:

KP18s =KP18 [km]* CCFcar [gCO2/km] (1)

Tampere has the potential to increase the emission

saved by users cycling through the extension of the

100

2005 2012 2016

modalshare

Year

others

cycling

walking

car

SMARTGREENS2015-4thInternationalConferenceonSmartCitiesandGreenICTSystems

network kilometres. The Figure 7 shows the baseline

equation (graph on the upper-left of the chart), based

on the equation for 2016 the probably saving will be

142.45 kgCO

(Baseline), with the implementation

of extension is expected to increase the saving by

5% reaching 149.58 kgCO2 (Target line) by the

same year.

Figure 3: KP18s Traffic-free (TF) and on-road (OR) routes

savings for Tampere city.

The same process is done on the others KPIs. So in

that sense the behaviour of Tampere’s transport

system was simplified through the methodology

implementation, so now authorities can focus on

Applying actions to improve different areas of the

system, by taking into account the previously

described process.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This paper presented a methodology that support

cities to assess energy efficiency in their transport

sector. The methodology presents a systematic and

logical process that offers the opportunity to

compare targets with other cities and in consequence

opens a way to learn from results. In addition, it

facilitates collecting data and organizing it in a way

that is easy to establish cause and affect

relationships.

Future work is under progress, and the

implementation of the mobility services for Tampere

city support the steps 6, 7 and 8, of this methodology

in which 7 and 8 will be part of the evaluation

process of the system that will be reported in the

future.

Eventually the methodology that is proposed

here will be under evaluation of the cities where it

was implemented. This feedback will be use to

refine the process, so the methodology’s potential

use as a common part of energy efficiency projects

in the transport sector and its potential in making the

public sector work more efficiently will increase.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work has partially received funding from

European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme

for research, technological development and

demonstration under grant agreement number

608885, correspondent to the project shortly entitled

MoveUs (ICT Cloud-Based Platform And Mobility

Services Available, Universal And Safe For All

Users).

REFERENCES

Doran, G.T., 1981. There’s a S.M.A.R.T way to write

management’s goals and objectives. Manage. Rev. 70,

35–36.

Finke, T., 2001. MOST-MET Monitoring and evaluation

tookit (workpackage monitoring and evaluation).

Europe and USA.

International Energy agency, 2012. Transport energy

efficiency trends.

ISO 50001 - Energy management - ISO (WWW

Document), n.d. URL http://www.iso.org/iso/home/

standards/management-standards/iso50001. htm

(accessed 1.26.15).

Mantilla R., M.F., Nieto L., A., Martinez Lastra, J.L., n.d.

Parameters Affecting the Energy Performance of the

Transport Sector in Smart Cities. (Unpublished).

M. Fernanda Mantilla R., Nieto L., A., Martinez Lastra,

J.L., n.d. Definition of Key Performance Indicators for

Energy Efficient Assessment in the Transport Sector.

(Unpublished).

Rosqvist, L.S., Hyllenius, P., Ljungberg, C., 2004. SUMO

System for evaluation of Mobility projects. Intelligent

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URL http://joukkoliikenne.tampere.fi/en/home.html

(accessed 10.20.14).

Välimäki, P., Kotakorpi, E., Willman, K., Viertola, K.,

Närhi, M., 2013. ECO2 Eco-efficient Tampere 2020:

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MethodologyforEnergyEfficiencyAssessmentintheTransportSectorforSmartCities