The greenhouse gas inventory of a local urban transport: the case of the municipality of Siena (Italy)

Abstract

This paper describes how urban mobility demand keeps increasing at a great rate and this mobility is satisfied mainly by road transportation mode. The paper describes how road urban transport, especially private vehicles, causes the rise of greenhouse gas concentrations inside cities. For this reason, local public administrations focus their efforts on more sustainable management of urban transport, both private and public, in order to improve the air quality. The aim of this paper is to assess the greenhouse gas emissions related to urban vehicular traffic in the municipality of Siena (Italy) by way of the Greenhouse Gas Inventory. This methodology is able to quantify greenhouse gas sources and sinks at a local level following the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. This powerful tool enhances the knowledge of local administrative authorities in planning and managing a local territorial system. The authors conducted an analysis with data from the years 1999 and 2000. Starting from the Greenhouse Gas Inventory of the energy sector of Siena, the paper quantifies the share of responsibility of greenhouse gas emissions that are related to urban transport; results show that this share is about 41% of the total emissions of Siena. Careful consideration will be given to commuting to work and school, in order to provide valuable suggestions to the policy-makers to enforce a more sustainable management of public and private transport at an urban level.