Impact of Energy Transition on the Composite Transportation Sustainability Index: Case Study of Tunisian Cities

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the energy transition impact on the transportation sustainability level in Tunisian cities taken as an illustrative case study by proposing a set of scenarios which consist of replacing a percentage of passenger cars with internal combustion engines by electric ones. A total of 89 sustainable transportation indicators were used in this study, which were normalized, weighted and aggregated using the principal components analysis method. Sustainable transportation indicators were categorized into three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social and economic) which were further divided into nine subdivisions.The proposed algorithm generates composite indices for each subdivision as well as for each pillar or dimension (Economic, social and Environmental), and aggregate them into a composite transportation sustainability index for each Tunisian city. Then scenarios were proposed to systematically introduce electric cars (5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 40%, 50%) and to recalculate the composite transportation sustainability index for each Tunisian city to determine the impact of the electrification of the car fleet or a part of the fleet on the evolution of the level of mobility.Results show that the national territory is divided into two zones. Indeed, the most marginalized governorates belong to the so-called interior zone. As for the zones that are relatively better developed, they essentially include the coastal governorates. As energy transition takes place, the composite transportation sustainability index improves progressively according to the percentage of electric vehicles introduced for each Tunisian city.