More than half of the world’s population now lives in urban areas. It is therefore no surprise that urban traffic has become a major source of carbon emissions. In Europe, it represents 40% of all transportation-related emissions. Urban planners, industrial groups and service companies are actively looking for efficient solutions to meet conflicting needs.

Pollution, noise, stress, traffic jams: we’re polluting our city centers with gasoline and diesel fumes and contributing to gridlock by opting for individual vehicles at the expense of public transportation. The increased traffic is taking a heavy toll on society’s economic and environmental well being. The environmental cost of urban traffic in the European Union is estimated at 100 billion euros per year, including the cost of lost time, i.e. 1% of Europe’s GDP. To cope with this alarming situation, urban planners, the transportation industry and ordinary citizens are anxious today to develop new modes of transportation that will improve traffic, save energy and reduce pollution. Solutions include renewed investment in public transportation, the deployment of intelligent traffic management systems, car sharing and optimization of individual transportation with electric vehicles designed for urban mobility.

The leading problem is gridlock. Traffic jams in Mexico City, Paris and Los Angeles are daily reminders of this. Not only does traffic congestion raise stress levels, it also has serious repercussions for the economy, social welfare, health and the environment, and it ravages buildings and nature. But what can be done to solve these problems?

Combining transportation modes efficiently

The European Green Paper published in 2008, Towards a New Culture for Urban Mobility, offers a number of ideas. The first was to make alternatives to passenger vehicles safe and more attractive, such as walking, mass transit and cycling (bicycles, motorbikes and scooters). A condition precedent is that citizens must be able to switch between these different transportation modes easily. In other words, they must know that they will have access to a practical transportation mode before deciding not to take the car. Intelligent and nimble traffic management systems must be put in place to achieve this goal.

The other major avenue is to optimize the use of passenger vehicleswith solutions such as car sharing and car pooling, virtualmobility for urban and suburban populations (telecommuting, on-line shopping) and new parking policies in downtown areas. One solution would be to charge different parking fees in the city and at its periphery. Appealing parking alternatives at the edge of downtown areas may also convince commuters to combine individual and public modes of transportation. And it works! Seamless connections with well-designed, well-operated mass transit systems meant the end of traffic congestion in downtown Munich.

Rather than building new infrastructure such as tramway lines, why not improve the use of existing facilities? This approach proved successful in London and Stockholm, where urban toll systems made traffic much more fluid. Smarter management of infrastructure and public roads is another way to reduce congestion, as in Barcelona,where dedicated bus lanes, loading/unloading areas, and modular parking spaces were created.

Tracking vehicle traffic

All of these solutions assume that intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are in place for trip planning, improved traffic management, and more efficient transportation demand management. How does this work? First, data on vehicles and their movements need to be tracked and processed. GPS is an already existing source of information, but further optimization is in the works.

Europe plans to use the Galileo Satellite Net work to collect even more precise positioning data. Similarly, intelligent toll systems should offer a variety of new services, such as variable fees based on the time of day and the type of user, the transportation mode and the number of passengers in the vehicle. All this assumes that data protocols are developed and implemented so that the data can be shared between systems, which is not yet the case. The ultimate goal of the ITS is to give commuters all the information they need to choose their transportation mode and time of travel. There are great hopes for this little revolution. Dynamic management and more targeted use of the urban road system could free up 20% to 30% of additional road capacity, if notmore. This could be vital, since urban transportation networks are built on the public domain, and expanding or modifying them is not always an option.

A sociological revolution

Are city dwellers ready to change their habits by adopting car sharing, for example? This system allows users to rent a vehicle for a short period of time, even for just an hour. Doing so often eliminates the need to buy a car: it is estimated that each car in a car sharing program replaces fifteen privately owned vehicles. This appears to be confirmed by an April 2009 report by the French consulting firm of Olivier Wyman, which estimates the total potential market for car sharing in Europe at 145 million euros in 2008, with the United Kingdom and the Netherlands leading the pack, and the French market amounting to only 5 million euros. The European market is growing more than 15% a year. But the strongest growth is in North America, where the market, estimated at more than 130 million euros in 2008, is growing by more than 50% a year. In addition to its economic potential, car sharing also provides substantial environmental benefits.

Already, major car rental companies such as Avis and Hertz have penetrated this promising market segment. Hertz, for instance, acquired Eileo in April 2009. This French company, which specializes in car sharing technology, offers solutions integrating the entire information chain. For Hertz CEO Mark Frissora, Eileo offers state-of-the-art, user-friendly technology. Established in 1999, Eileo has designed and deployed fleet tracking and car sharing solutions. Its carembedded electronicmodule integrates GPS, GPRS and RFID. It facilitates car sharing among several drivers and tracks the vehicles in real time via an internet platform. This technology does not interfere with the car’s electronic systems and is compatible with all car models.

A technology revolution

The passenger vehicle nonetheless remains the most commonly used transportation mode in our cities. Here also, many avenues are being explored. Optimizing existing technologies is at the top of the agenda. To reduce carbon emissions, automobiles must perform better with more efficient engines that get higher gas mileage. The internal combustion engine is not on its way out yet. “We can still save a few dozen grams of carbon per kilometer,” notes Victor Deletang, head of R&D at the federation of French Vehicle Equipment Industries (FIEV). Jacques Radé, an automobile industry consultant, is even more optimistic.

How can we improve the performance of combustion engines? By controlling the combustion process with real-time engine management systems, by using a combination of engine downsizing and turbo systems to improve performance, by developing engines that use less energy and emit less CO₂, and by reducing vehicle friction and total weight. “There’s a lot of room for improvement, particularly in gasoline engines,” confirms Dominique Herrier, deputy director of Engines and Energy at the Institut français du pétrole (IFP). “Engine downsizing can lead to a 10% to 30% reduction in fuel burn and emissions”, she adds. The IFP produced a demonstrator two years ago that improved fuel efficiency by 20% to 25% while maintaining original vehicle performance.

Like auto makers and original equipment manufacturers, the IFP is pursuing other carbon reduction channels as well, with projects for electric cars, low-carbon fuels such as Natural Gas for Vehicles (NGV), or even a mix of NGV and hydrogen. “On the hybrid side, we’re currently working on the architecture of a thermal engine for hybrid applications,” says Dominique Herrier. “This includes a partnership with Valeo to develop engines that run on natural gas.”

Promoting the development of hybrids

Two solutions stand out from the rest in the struggle to reduce emissions: hybrids and electric cars. According to a study presented by the consulting firm of Roland Berger at the 2008 Paris Motor Show, electric cars (hybrid, battery, fuel cell, etc.) will represent 25% of the world market in 2020. Professor Robert Bell, chairman of the Economics Department at Brooklyn College (a member of the City University of New York) and author of The Green Bubble, an essay on the economic impacts of green technologies, holds more radical views. According to him, “ten years from now, the majority of US automobiles will consist of hybrids.”

While hybrids are already on the path to success, the electric car is not a solution for everyone just yet. Their batteries are still limited and, at a minimum of 12,000 euros per unit, the cost is high. But battery manufacturers such as Saft, Continental, NEC and Matsushita have boosted their research programs, and car makers are collaborating with them. There’s another obstacle: focusing production on all-electric cars would mean a radical restructuring of the automobile sector. Companies and suppliers whose fate is tied to the combustion engine might fear the demise of their industry and the domination of companies specialized in electric engines and power electronics. But it’s coming. In February 2009, Valeo and Michelin formed a partnership to develop appropriate systems. The limited range of these vehicles makes them suitable for use in private fleets or urban environments, and is in fact an obstacle to their deployment in areas where drivers need to cover long distances every day, as can be the case in the United States.

Is the electric car a niche product? Yes, at least for now... Chrysler’s green mobility vehicle, Peapod, was launched last April. With a range of 50 kilometers and a maximum speed of 40 kilometers per hour, this vehicle is suitable only for urban transportation. Despite these technologies’ current limitations, Renault-Nissan projectmanagers in charge of plug-in vehicles anticipate a bright future for these products. For them, “all-electric cars hold even more potential than hybrids.” In fact, developing all-electric cars is a key priority for the Renault-Nissan partnership: more than 500 people have been assigned to the R&D teams in charge of the program. The group believes in the potential of these technologies for three main reasons: the need to boost efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions, rising oil prices and better electricity storage technologies, particularly lithium-ion batteries.

Promoting the use of electric vehicles

Renault expects to bring four electric cars to the market by 2012. The first one is a family car being developed in Israel with the Californian firm Better Place. The project innovates not just in terms of technology, but also in terms of financial engineering: consumers will buy the cars, but must subscribe to a service that charges them for their use of energy based on the distance driven. This system emulates cell phone billing methods. In France, Renault intends to launch an all-electric version of its Kangoo model by 2011. This plug-in model is intended for corporate and government fleets, where the customer needs to limit its carbon footprint. These new technologies are an important differentiation factor for car makers. Toyota is the recognized pioneer in hybrids, with one million Prius models already sold, while Renault is investing in plug-in vehicles. Peugeot has decided to focus initially on micro-hybridization and stop-start technology, then on diesel hybrids. The promising electric car market is attracting new players as well, such as Bolloré, which is betting on lithium-metal-polymer batteries to launch its own line of vehicles using this technology by 2010.

However, the costs of these systems may cast a shadow on their future prospects. Additional production costs range from a few hundred euros for micro-hybridization (stop-start systems) to several thousand euros for a full hybrid vehicle, or even more for all-electric cars. According to the study published by Roland Berger, the cost of batteries needs to be cut in half for all-electric cars to become economically viable by 2020, assuming a very high cost of fossil fuels. Success may come if battery manufacturers continue to make progress and political decision-makers keep up the pressure.

Green trains: the next step

Cars are not the only vehicles to turn green to gain access to cities: train manufacturers are also jumping on the bandwagon. Their goal is to improve passenger transportation and to haul freight into city centers. In 2008, French retail chain Monoprix redesigned its logistic systems to bring merchandise by rail to the Bercy train station, in very heart of Paris. From there, trucks fueled with NGV deliver the goods to the sixty Monoprix stores in Paris. This improvement in logistics cuts the group’s carbon emissions by 280 tons each year (for 120,000 tons of merchandise delivered). Two warehouses in the Seine-et-Marne department are now connected to the Bercy train station. Train technology is improving as well: Bombardier’s AGC regional train is the rail transportation equivalent of a hybrid car. AGC uses electricity where the network is electrified and reverts to diesel on other tracks. These technology improvements are essential, since trains are among the main beneficiaries of city dwellers’ growing green awareness. In France for instance, TGV highspeed train traffic was up 3% in 2006, while regional trains gained 9%. Domestic air traffic was down during the same period. The United States is also interested in greener trains.

On November 4, 2008, a project for a highspeed train powered by electricity from renewable sources (solar or wind energy) was approved by referendum in California. Since then, the project has been included in President Obama’s economic stimulus package.