Almenn verkefni 2020

Heiti verkefnis : 

Decarbonization Scenarios for Reykjavik’s Passenger Transport II: The Combined Effects of Behavioral Changes and Fleet Change

Verkefnastjóri : 


Stutt lýsing á verkefninu:


This project proposal presents an extension to an ongoing project named Decarbonization Scenarios for the Reykjavik’s Passenger Transport, partially funded by Vegagerdin (2019-2020). The ongoing project, ending in March 2020, has its focus on the technological and urban structural aspects, whereas in this extension we would turn the focus to the behavioral responses of the residents of the Capital Region following the mentioned technological and structural changes, and behavioral changes following from lifestyle changes triggered by increasing climate change awareness and more radical policies. In the project, potential pathways of socio-technical transition in the transportation system would be developed, estimating their impact on key travel behavior variables, and resulting reductions of GHG emissions. Moreover, for the first time the changes in the peak energy demand over time following the expected development in each scenario calculate would be calculated, and the greenhouse gas breakeven points for electric vehicle adoption when the production and freight emissions of them are taken into account. This information is vital for recommendations about the best policy-options for passenger transport decarbonization in Reykjavik. The project offers a unique opportunity to integrate existing datasets and skills of collaborating researchers to provide timely insights into the combined effects of behavioral changes and technological developments to decarbonize Reykjavik’s passenger transportation and to deliver policy recommendations to urban transport planners to design effective policies to facilitate the transition to achieve the targets set by the City of Reykjavik. Such comprehensiveness in future scenario building is rare even globally, and the project outcomes will be academically interesting in addition to the practical utility for the stakeholders in the decarbonization process in Reykjavik, and provide opportunities for high-impact academic publishing

Tilgangur og markmið:


The fundamental purpose is to estimate GHG emissions of different transition scenarios focusing on the behavioral changes and technological developments using the Icelandic energy and transportation system model, including the full life cycle emissions due to production, delivery and use of vehicles. Moreover, the peak energy loads under different transition pathways are calculated for the first time as well as the greenhouse gas payback periods of different rates of EV penetration.

The primary objectives are to:

1)     Develop plausible decarbonization scenarios that focus on change in lifestyles and travel behavior

2)     Estimate the impacts of behavioral changes following different policy-options to advance decarbonization of Reykjavik’s passenger transport

3)     Estimate the peak energy demand for each option

4)     Estimate the carbon payback periods from EV adoption in the different scenarios

5)     Suggest best policies to reach passenger transport decarbonization in Reykjavik