Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics

CIVE 662 Masters Research Seminar (1 credit)

Title: Energy and Environmental Footprints of Urban Travel: The Case of

the City of Montreal

Author: Nayer Daher

Supervisor: Prof. Omid M. Rouhani

Date: Monday, February 26th, 2018

Time: 2:00 PM

Location: Macdonald Engineering Building-Room 497

Summary:

The transportation sector in Canada is the second largest greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitter and the leading source of some
criteria air pollutants, especially nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. These emissions pose severe threats to the
environment and the human health, encouraging researchers and practitioners to accurately quantify and include these
emissions in their transport policy evaluations. However, studies have found that transport users are generally unaware of
their energy and environmental footprints and are not able to link their personal transport activities to their travel-related
impacts. To address this knowledge gap, this study examines the feasibility of providing energy and environmental costs of
travel to Montreal transport users.
We conduct a survey on Montreal transport users to assess the perceptions, preferences, and behavior regarding fuel costs,
GHG social costs, and air pollution health-related costs. Based on the survey results, approximately 85% of the
respondents were not able to estimate GHG social costs and health-related air pollution costs across different modes.
Other respondents generally overestimated these costs, and they interestingly reported higher environmental costs for
public transport (metro) compared to personal cars. In addition, the respondents preferred to receive such information in
monetary units rather than their own (original) units (gram, liter, etc.) and were more comfortable in receiving the
information through mobile applications over other tools/means. I also found that fuel and environmental information can
influence respondents’ travel decisions, especially their route choice behavior. Finally, 70% of the respondents would use
such information, and 30% would be willing to pay an average of $7/month in exchange for obtaining the information.
The objective is to simulate and estimate the fuel consumption and emissions resulting from driving in Montreal, under
various traffic conditions. In this regard, I combined the results of a macroscopic travel demand model (EMME) and a
motor vehicle emissions simulator (MOVES) to determine emission/fuel rates. Then, I monetize the obtained rates using
the average 2017 fuel price, the marginal social cost of carbon, and the associated health-related costs of major criteria-air
pollutants. In addition, for travel time cost calculations, the survey results provide an estimate of the Montreal residents’
value of time. Using all the aforementioned information, I calculate a general travel cost ($/km) for each Montreal
borough. The resulting average estimates range from $0.1/km to $0.7/km for fuel costs, $0.008/km to $0.09/km for GHG
costs, $0.003/km to $0.07/km for air pollution health-related costs, and from $0.27/km to $3.25/km for travel time costs,
representing huge cost variations depending on the time of day and the geographical location.

Keywords - Energy and environmental footprints of travel; Montreal transport users; MOVES; General costs of travel.