What We Are Reading
Considering the environmental impacts of cars, the focus tends to be on air pollution in the form of exhaust coming out of tailpipes. But tires contribute significantly. According to a report shared by Emissions Analytics, a single car sheds 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) of tire particles weight per year, on average. Multiplied across the global fleet that equates to 6 million tons of tire particles annually.
“Emissions Analytics performs independent tests on cars including real-world tailpipe and tire emissions. It has compiled data that confirms that tire particulate pollution has significantly surpassed tailpipe emissions.”
What might initially look very sustainable, like EV, can be proven harmful in other ways once a rigorous scientific analysis is applied. It is important that we do not dampen technological efforts to curb emissions impacts but rather facilitate establishing their sustainability in toto, before they become a claimed government Silver Bullet. Teslas and other EV may in the end not really be much less emitting or in fact even more emitting than our old internal combustion engines. Especially if everyone keeps buying SUV sized EVs.
This op-ed by Deutsche Welle demonstrates some of the hidden environmental and socials costs of existing and developing transport solutions. To be considered sustainable, solutions should address all pain-points and be more closely regulated.
At the MRP we've been looking at particulate matter emissions (PM2.5 / 10) and their impacts for the past ten-years.
To harness the potential of new technologies to meet the needs of citizens, smart places should be built for people and designed with people. The Smart Places Customer Charter captures customer expectations of smart places in six principles which have been shaped by direct community input.
We are beyond thrilled to have put the MRP's name to the Smart Places Customer Charter.
With our focus on delivering smart places in collaboration with academic, private, and public institutions and adherence to UN Sustainable Development Goals we felt that the Charter was a fantastic fit!
We believe that the natural environment should be preserved and incorporated into transport and urban planning to offer cleaner, healthier, and transparent living environments for current and future generations; domestically and globally. This is accomplished through the provision of ethical and secure integrated data, modelling, and digitally inclusive solutions that are stringently verified and certified by external governing bodies, organisations, and institutions.
We are excited to share more developments towards delivering measurable, sustainable benefits that will ensure that we inculcate continued adoption of socially and environmentally sustainable transport initiatives with all stakeholders; the community, academia, public / private sector.
We greatly encourage our MRP members to consider aligning with the Charter's core principles.
As the MRP has calculated, it is feasible to target a significant level of car ownership reductions, in the region of 15 – 20%, but only once users are confident that shared rental micromobility are sufficiently accessible. This point will only be reached when sufficient, well-located vehicles that raise accessibility levels, to ensure anyone wanting to plan their trip has confidence of being able to commit to their journeys without material risk of failing to complete the trip as planned. MRP is currently heavily focussed and invested in developing reliable mathematical models and equations, based on complex advanced data science, to assist decision makers in government to confidently calculate the optimal numbers of shared urban mobility vehicles in any city.
The MRP calculated 390 kg of CO2-eq emissions for a five year base lifespan in our modelling. It is great to see TÜV SÜD confirm their certified quantities are in the same range. With private cars (ICE and EV) showing a lifespan footprint of 40 - 65 Tonnes, it also confirms that e Scooters are on average between 40 - 65 times less emitting over their lifetime usage, adjusted for a 15 year baseline comparison.
As the MRP has noted in the past based on its own APAC wide safety research, Vulnerable Road User (VRU) accident rates and reporting is skewed by the significant differences in physical exposure that VRU endure due to the crowding out of urban space by private cars. This is a deliberate crowding out strategy that was started in the 1920’s by automotive companies. In maintaining the status quo, being the under investment in active and micromobility infrastructure on the basis of claimed VRU accident risks, we will not change our global car addiction nor reduce the transport emissions humans cause by any degree