Environmental and Energy Impacts of Automated Electric Highway Systems

Abstract

This article proposes a methodology that can be applied to evaluate the environmental and energy impacts of a de novo technology, the automated electric highway systems (AEHS). The authors used the Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) program to estimate the impacts on emissions and energy use associated with a hypothetical implementation of this technology on the Interstate 70 corridor in Missouri during the period 2011–2040. The estimation results suggest that application of AEHS on the study corridor would decrease fossil fuel energy use by more than 25%, while emissions would decrease by up to 27%, depending on the pollutant being considered. A sensitivity analysis was also performed, in order to assess the impact of different demand estimates for the system; a 10% reduction in AEHS vehicle miles traveled would have an effect of 5% or less on the criteria of interest. This article represents one of the first attempts to quantify the environmental benefits of this widely discussed technology, and can serve as a guiding methodology for evaluation of upcoming intelligent transportation system technologies.