Focusing on “Efficiency and sustainability: from research to market”, the event this year was organized with the support of the Inter-University Centre for Sustainable Development of the “Sapienza” University of Rome (CIRPS), by the National Research Council (CNR) – Department for Energy and Transport, the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA).

Renewed speakers took part in the two days while in the exhibition area, Green Expo, new environmental friendly technologies, with prototypes and cars with zero or near zero emissions were offered to the public, who could also make some drive test on eco-friendly vehicles on-board.

With a view to contribute to the Kyoto goals, H2Roma has joined the project Impatto Zero®, promoted by LifeGate. The CO₂ emissions generated by the organization of the event, including the electricity used, the mobility of participants, as well as the promotional material produced, will be evaluated by Lifegate and their negative impact on earth will be reduced by contributing to the creation and protection of over 9,000 square metres of growing forest in Costa Rica. A concrete initiative for the environment, contributing to the preservation of one of the most important natural heritage of the planet. From 2002 until now, more than 40 million square metres of forest in Italy and abroad have been regenerated and conserved.

Fabio Orecchini, H2Roma scientific coordinator, stated during the press conference presenting the event: “What awaits us is a future made by small, powerful and efficient engines and growing electrification with different fuels (petrol, natural gas/biomethane, LPG, diesel hydrogen), powered by lightweight and efficient on-board batteries”.

Related articles

http://www.h2roma.org/

http://www.sifconference.com/h2roma-energymobility-show-2011-dieci-anni-di-futuro/5180

Bike messenger is the more and more not simply seen as a job like many others, while it’s also becoming a cultural and sociologic phenomenon. In its Urban Flow, Jeffrey L. Kidder (a sociologist who spent several years working as a bike messenger) introduces readers to this “unknown world”, showing its appeal and their benefits, without forgetting to mention their disadvantages, uncertainties and dangers. The contribution of bike messengers is not meaningless as they realise no carbon emissions transfers and they contribute to the overall improvement of the transport system efficiency. Their successful and easy-to-replicate example may be a further incentive to renounce using private transportation, even just for short distances and without carrying any item. Despite the work is generally intense and difficult, and often even not well paid, the link between people and bikes is often so strong that the messengers’ after-hours are characterized by the emersion of new life-styles and subcultures inextricably linked to their job and to the urban environment.

Being aware of the economic and social aspects of innovation in mobility represented by these new “urban eco-friendly delivery boys”, we believe Kidder’s original analysis of the phenomenon and the profound cultural and sociological influences he highlights are really worth reading.

Source:

• cornellpress.cornell.edu/

The economist Matthew Turner said that the percentage of traffic grows at the same rate of the marginal increase of roads in the cities. Regarding public transportation, the study also points out that if more and more citizens employ bus or train this will not impact on the traffic trend. Indeed, the increase is registered in the number of passengers rather than in the number of drivers.

The one-to-one relation existing between roads and vehicle miles driven here above mentioned is named by the authors “the fundamental law of road congestion”. According to this law, widening the road network would not reduce traffic congestion, nor would it be done by a further increase in the use of public means, which is not impacting on the figure of vehicles per kilometers travelled (vkt). Therefore, they conclude, congestion pricing is the only effective tool to curb traffic problems.

Related articles

• The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion (percolatorblog.org)
• America’s future: More roads, more congestion (jimsbikeblog.wordpress.com)
• Study: Building Roads to Cure Congestion Is an Exercise in Futility (dc.streetsblog.org)
• Building More Roads Only Causes More Traffic (fastcompany.com)
• Does Building More Roads Cure or Cause More Congestion? (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)

Better Place is a company specialized in solving problems such as battery life and charging times. This kind of troubles posed by electric mobility harasses the drivers, even those who are more supportive of zero-emissions mobility.

Better Place has opened in these days the first service station in Europe, where you can quickly replace the battery of an electric car with another one fully charged. The station is in Gladsaxe, near Copenhagen, and it’s the first of the 20 stations that will arise in the whole Country during the next nine months, in collaboration with DONG Energy and over 45 municipalities.

The station is completely automated: during the few minutes required to change the battery with a mechanical arm, the driver can remain inside his car. The first test was performed with a Renault car, the electric one that Renault will commercialize by next autumn. Better Place explains that this technology of rapid replacement will eliminate the problem of autonomy, because the electric car can travel greater distances than those allowed by a single charge: about 160 km for Renault models coming to the market.

Related articles

• energia24club.it

After having substantially neglected urban mobility issues for a long time when urban sprawl extended, a massive construction of new light railway and underground systems happened in more than 30 Chinese cities, with a growth of 50 percent in the number of subway carriages in China in the last year. In almost all the cases, the works are financed by government subsidies. Fares are generally cheap (starting from 2 yuan, corresponding to 0,31 dollars) and the services are clean and efficient. Nevertheless, from the economic point of view, none of the Chinese metro networks is profitable, highlighting losses of several millions of yuan.

Shezhen is experimenting a new way: the new Metro line 4 (costed some 6 billion yuan) is the first Chinese rail route fully funded by a private company, Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation, under the build-operate-transfer model. MTR tries to reply what it did in 1975 in Hong Kong, by proposing a financial model that blends railway operation with property development.

The rail operator is understood to be in talks with the authorities for the right to develop its 30-hectare depot at the Longhua station. According to MTR documents, 8 ha of the depot are reserved for property development: property prices in Longhua would have the potential to rise 60-70 percent in the next 5 years, to 40 thousands yuan per sqm, owing to the area’s improved accessibility. Moreover, the MTR will collect lease and advertising income from the 100 shops and 900 advertising boxes at the 15 stations on the route.

MTR has been granted a 30-year franchise for Line 4. This line, occupies the network’s most central location and provides interchanges for all lines and it will also link up with the future high-speed railway to Guangzhou and Hong Kong’s East Rail at Futian.

In any case, “government subsidies are expected to remain a major mode of financing public transport services on the mainland, but if the rail-plus-property model proves to be sustainable, the government will consider adopting it for other rail projects,” said one rail expert.

Next years to come will show whether this model may offer a more market-oriented alternative to general government subsidies and public investments in the building of new urban metro lines, creating opportunities for private investors to join this business and a more profitable future for the community.

Related articles

• hk-operator-putting-metro-profit-track (gochina.scmp.com)
• On the right track (economist.com)

Many European cities are creating car-unfriendly environments, for instance by increasing the costs for driving. Another way to tilt the drivers towards more environmental-friendly transport means is that of hampering them to park. In fact, while there is always room for new shopping malls and apartment buildings in cities like Vienna, Barcelona and London, the number of parking spaces are being restricted, and the on-street parking is vanishing.

In the last few years, even former car capitals like Munich have evolved into “walkers’ paradises”. Pedestrians and trams are given priority treatment in Zurich: red lights have been added in close proximity on roads into town, and pedestrian underpasses have been removed. Operators in the city’s ever expanding tram system can turn traffic lights in their favor as they approach, forcing cars to halt.

Europe’s cities generally have stronger incentives to act: public transportation is better in Europe than in the United States, and gas often costs more, over 8 dollars a gallon. What’s more, the need for a cut in the emissions from transport is being seriously taken into consideration.

However, it is not easy to get people out of their cars. While the first step is that of providing efficient public transport, the strategy, which is proving to pay off, is that of making harder and more costly to park.

Exploiting the traffic of cities to realize energy? It is possible thanks to piezoelectric materials put under the roads where vehicles pass every day. The so-called “piezoelectricity” is the capacity to produce electric current when subject to a mechanical stress, i.e. the movement of vehicles on the road. The company Innowartech, which launched the innovative idea, is now making test road in Israel.

The innovative system, relying on a “parasitical collection of energy”, could highly contribute to solve the energetic global crisis in an environmental-friendly way. Indeed, normally the total amount of mechanical energy produced by millions of vehicles moving on the roads all over the world is practically wasted .

A coat of piezoelectric crystals which produce electricity when these are crushed is installed under the first asphalt layer. Piezoelectric generators collect energy and accumulate it on batteries located along the road edges. This energy could be used by people, houses, offices etc.

According to Innowattech, the electric generator Piezo (the IPEG) should be able to produce 200 KWh, thus a four-lane road produces about 1 MWh of electricity, enough to supply energy to 2500 families. Considering that Israel has about 250 kilometers of roads where it is possible to install this type of technology and considering the traffic volumes and their increasing trends, we can adfirm without any doubts that a great amount of energy could be produced in this way.

The same technology could also be applied on runways in airports and on railways. The system could also provide real-time information on weight, frequency and speed of vehicles passing over and also the distance between them.

The system was revealed for the first time last year, and it is now one of the really exciting projects the bigger corporations for green power and the environmental organizations are examining and evaluating. What it is most interesting in this energy production system is that, in spite of other systems, this one does not require to build new infrastructures (i.e. poles for the production of wind power, solar panels).

Lucy Edery-Azulay, the project manager, says that the technology is based on piezoelectric materials which allow the conversion of mechanical energy exercised by vehicles’ weight in electric power. Therefore, this way of producing energy relies only on existing roads and exploits mechanical energy that otherwise would be unused and wasted.

Related articles

• http://it.emcelettronica.com/produrre-elettricit%C3%A0-mentre-si-guida-utilizzando-i-materiali-piezoelettrici http://www.innowattech.co.il/

Related articles

• Piezoelectric MEMS boosts vibration harvester by ten times (nextbigfuture.com)
• CA Highways could be a source of green energy (reviews.cnet.com)
• Calif. highways could be source of green energy (reviews.cnet.com)

By using appropriate driving style and habits drivers can save up to 15 percent of petrol, said a survey of the University of California. Researchers also tested a specific ICT tool which tell the drivers the most sustainable and eco friendly driving behaviours.

Under aggressive driving behaviours – i.e. full speed acceleration when departing from a stop at a green traffic light and then suddenly putting on the brakes at the next crossing – the engine burns more than 15 percent of petrol than when driving with a moderate approach. With this respect a new scientific discipline, the eco-driving, born just few years ago  to teach drivers how to reduce fuel consumption and to contribute to cut (even though not much) polluting emissions.

The “transportation Centre” of the University of California has just issued  a report collecting all the suggestions aimed at reducing petrol consumption, and has tested one of the many electronic devices available today to control fuel consumption and suggest to the driver the most appropriate  behaviour to that end. These systems can currently save of 6 percent of fuel when driving in town.

According to the Economist, today 1 percent of vehicles circulating in the US are equipped with similar devices, particularly trucks and hybrid cars, but, an estimate says that within 2020 one car in three will have on its dashboard an eco-computer to reduce consumptions and optimize the drive.

The system on which the University of California is working on puts together a GPS to observe position and speed, Google Earth’s maps to distinguish between roads and highways, and a series of sensors positioned on cars to control fuel consumption and exhaust fumes compositions. The system was put through test and resulted effective as all of the Californian drivers who tested it were persuaded to follow the eco-driving suggestions.

Shifting  to a superior gear as soon as possible, keeping the speed constant, anticipating traffic, accelerating and braking very softly, checking at least once a month tyre pressure – these are some the tips to keep fuel level up for a long time.

When in a queue it is better to move forward slowly rather than stop and start again: in fact to start again it takes more energy than increasing speed gradually. When possible, it is good to lower the clutch, trying to estimate when the car will run out of kinetic energy.

Maintaining tyre pressure always at the recommended level saves almost a tank full of fuel every year: flat tyres, in fact, cause more friction on asphalt and resistance in progress.

Premised that every car model behaves in a different way, in general engines begin to lose efficiency over 100 kms per hour. The time gained by further accelerating isn’t worth the burnt petrol!

In the United States an informal club of the so called “hypermilers” has already been set up: very conscientious drivers, who can “eco-drive” for 100 kilometres with only 4,5 litres of fuel even the so called gas- guzzlers.

Drivers’ behaviours are key elements on the way towards a more sustainable transport and SWOMM encourage all the experiences which could contribute to move forward… in a sustainabl!

Related articles

• repubblica.it/ambiente

Related articles

• Eco-Driving, Like Hypermiling, Saves Real Bucks (treehugger.com)
• Do You Drive Eco? – Discovery News (threefishlimit.wordpress.com)
• Eco-Friendly Tyres Now Available at JAXQuickfit Tyres (prweb.com)
• Teaching Green: Ford Empowers Eco-Drivers to Maximize Their Own Fuel Efficiency (prnewswire.com)

Devised by Giulio Ceppi, professor  at the Polytechnic of Milan and founder of “Total Tool Milano”, the project has already found the interest of  different firms interested in promoting  concrete and innovative solutions in the sector of road infrastructures.

KmZero Road turns over its head the notion that road building is an aggressive factor for the environment, transforming it in an energy source which utilizes both local natural factors (sun, wind, etc.) and the energy produced by the transit of vehicles in order to produce sustainable energy.

This is possible through the use of technologies and practical solutions which reduces both the  environmental impact and, in particular, the presence of polluting factors released in the atmosphere. In order to achieve these results the project plans to use a balanced use of solar panels and micro wind power generators, and, to increase road safety, antifreeze modules are going to be inserted in the asphalt of the motorway.

Giulio Ceppi, president of Total Tool, says that “KmZero Road” is conceived as a road-system which behaves as an organism, with an own inner metabolism, capable of interacting with the external environmental and deriving from it some operational advantages, also in terms of safety and future economic management: the road moves away from being a simple cost becoming itself an energy resource, contributing to safety and to the active integration of different functions.

The SWOMM workshop deals with innovative experiences like this one, in order to improve environmental quality and infrastructural efficiency in the transport sector.

Related article

• http://www3.lastampa.it/ambiente/sezioni/ambiente/articolo/lstp/390305/

Related articles

• The role of transport for urban liveability and economic growth (swomm.info)
• Wind energy on highways (micheal1993.wordpress.com)
• China’s highways buildout to 2020 (nextbigfuture.com)
• Innovative Ways to Generate Energy from Highways (solarfeeds.com)