Energy intensity of railway and road passenger transport and its breaking point according to vehicle capacity usage

Abstract

The priority of EU transport strategy is to decrease the negative environmental impacts of all transport modes. This paper evaluates the energy intensity of passenger car as a representative of road transport and a diesel train unit as vehicle of railway transport. Authors use a software simulation of fuel consumption to simulate influence of railway vehicle capacity usage on its fuel consumption. Measurements of fuel consumption in real operation conditions are used to correct results of this simulation. Only fuel consumption measurements in real conditions are used in examination of capacity usage influence in passenger cars. Results from this real measurement are also compared to the producer declared value of fuel consumption and they give intervals of their deviation from measured values. This study is done for a transport situation of regional importance in a valley where the road and railway infrastructure is leaded parallel. Evaluation of results gives a comparison of unit fuel consumption showing which transport mode is friendlier to environment according to the capacity usage.