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TraK: Transport and Climate

Subject

Conducting a projection of the global transport demand and technology developments and analyzing those with atmospheric and climate models.

Project

Pressure on the transport sector to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions is strongly increasing in light of the Paris agreement to limit global warming to below 1.5°C. Globally, transport accounts for 23 % of the energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. The release of greenhouse gases from transport continuously increases. The project Transport and climate (TraK) aims to develop a reference projection for the global transport demand and its emissions. In case studies, the effect of different measures and pathways will be analyzed. The time horizon will be 2050, together with an outlook to 2100. The Institute of Transport Research will hereby generate projections for the global passenger and freight transport demand. A study on the freight corridors to and from Europe will complement the analysis. Furthermore, the Institute of Transport Research will work on new methodologies to derive transport demand figures for metropolitan areas by combining remote sensing and socio-economic data.

Objectives

The motivation of the work in TraK are contributions to the scientific assessments of air quality and climate, in the context of the scientific community surrounding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The projections on transport demand will be coupled with technology assessments and projections for the energy sector. The national emissions will be processed with chemical transport and climate models. Climate impact of global transport will be evaluated as well as air quality impacts in the Europe and South-East-Asia region.

Approach

The project TraK builds on the model-network that was created under the project „Transport and the Environment“ (2010-2017). Statistical analysis and proxy data will be used for the global projection of transport demand. For Germany, the transport model DEMO will be improved. The global climate will be modelled with the DLR climate model EMAC. A flexible emission model will be developed together with the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht.

Project Phases

• Methodologies and competencies (2018-2019)
• Projection of transport demand (2019-2020)
• regional analysis of air quality and climate effects (2020-2021)
• climate modelling and case study calculations (2020-2021)

Contracting Entity

• DLR institutionelle Förderung

Project Parnter

• Deutsches Fernerkundungs-Datenzentrum (DFD)
• DLR Institut für Fahrzeugkonzepte (FK)
• DLR Institut für Flughafenwesen und Luftverkehr (FW)
• Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (HZG)
• DLR Institut für Kommunikation und Navigation (KN)
• DLR Institut für Lufttransportsysteme (LY)
• DLR Institut für Methodik der Fernerkundung (MF)
• DLR Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre (PA)
• DLR Institut für Verkehrsforschung (VF)
• DLR Institut für Simulation und Softwaretechnik (SC)

Project Duration

January 2018 – December 2021