ICT measures to reduce CO2 emissions in metropolitan areas: the case study of Madrid

The road transport sector is responsible for around 20% of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in Europe, being this share increased year after year. In this framework, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) have been identified as potential instruments to achieve a reduction in energy consumption and emissions of road vehicles, but significant results and quantitative data are still missing. Within the Research and Development project “ICT-Emissions” (7th European Framework Programme) some ICT measures affecting speed management and driving profiles are being tested in the city of Madrid. The aim of this test case is to evaluate the reduction in fuel consumption -and therefore in CO2 emissions- by comparing the base scenario (no ICT measure applies) with different application scenarios. The methodology is based on the collation of data using equipped floating cars (FCD), which performed a representative number of trips (more than 2,000) producing positive results (from 2% to 17%) in terms of CO2 emissions savings.