WIT Press


Small Light Urban Vehicles: A Solution For Increasing Energy Efficiency And Decreasing CO2 Emissions Within City Limits

Price

Free (open access)

Volume

107

Pages

11

Page Range

479 - 489

Published

2009

Size

1,282 kb

Paper DOI

10.2495/UT090431

Copyright

WIT Press

Author(s)

V. Momcilovic, D. Vujanovic & V. Papic

Abstract

The main idea behind this paper is to impose restrictions on private cars’ admittance to restricted areas due to their \“weight efficiency”. We must take into account that energy efficiency is a direct consequence of the work realized and that the CO2 emissions are also proportional to this value. In essence, the intention is to minimize the vehicles’ weight per consumption unit in order to lower the engine power and therefore the CO2 emission. In recent years, we have witnessed the percentage of heavier and bigger cars constantly increasing. Those cars, which are weight- and CO2-inefficient, are present in the city centres where their environmental impact is an important issue. The solution is to impose or influence a change in citizens’ purchasing habits towards a small, safe, fuel efficient, \“weight efficient” car with lower CO2 emissions, permitting their owners open access to all \“critical” urban areas exempt of \“weight charging”. Keywords: vehicle weight reduction, energy efficiency, CO2 emission, critical urban areas.

Keywords

vehicle weight reduction, energy efficiency, CO2 emission, critical urban areas