Energy Consumption of the Urban Transport Fleet in UNESCO World Heritage Sites: A Case Study of Ávila (Spain)

Abstract

Emission reduction and energy efficiency are fundamental objectives for the sustainability of the urban transport (UT) sector. One of the actions to achieve these objectives is to replace the vehicles that make up the fleet of UT buses with more efficient ones, equipped with regenerative braking systems that allow the recovery of part of the energy used in travel. However, sometimes the total replacement of the fleet of UT buses is not feasible and only a partial replacement of the fleet is possible. The present study proposes a mathematical model of easy application to compare different UT routes and to locate the greatest improvement niches. The contributions of the proposed model focus on several aspects: (i) optimizing economic resources; (ii) allocating the most efficient equipment where energy consumption can be most optimized; and (iii) simplifying the task of optimizing passenger transport routes. Thanks to the proposed model, the 6 UT lines of the city of Ávila can be classified in order to maximize efficiency in a possible partial renewal of the fleet.