Sleeping our way into replacing short-haul flights –studies of modal shift from short-haul flights to overnight sleeper services
| Main Author: | Keyuan Yin |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | Brynmor Pickering |
| Format: | info publication-thesis Journal |
| Bahasa: | eng |
| Terbitan: |
, 2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
https://zenodo.org/record/4542827 |
Daftar Isi:
- Air transport plays an essential role in Europe’s short-haul passenger transport. However, air transport contributed nearly 14% of greenhouse gas emissions of all transport modes in the European Union. Meanwhile, the transport sector must meet the increasing demand for short-haul passenger transport. Based on railway transport’s better environmental performance and overnight railway sleeper’s advantages on leveraging sleeping hours into efficient travel times, this thesis studies the potential modal shift from short-haul flights to overnight railway sleepers. By analyzing both the number of passengers for Europe’s national and intra-Europe flights and existing overnight sleeper services in and out of Europe, this study flags potential overnight sleeper routes with large passenger volumes and adequate travel distances. The carbon saving potential of these routes has been analyzed in both the short run and long run. In the long run, this study introduces the scenario that synthetic aviation fuels will be adopted in air transport to reduce its environmental impacts. After a passenger split between overnight sleepers and air transport based on a case study, this study finds that overnight sleepers have negligible carbon reduction effect in the short run. In the long run, with the introduction of synthetic aviation fuels and carbon-free electricity in the transport sector, air transport can reach carbon-neutrality. However, to carry the same number of passengers to various locations, air transport with synthetic fuel will consume 5.9 to 7.7 times more energy than railway transport. Furthermore, air transport’s non-CO2 effects also have global warming potential. Compared with air transport under the synthetic fuels scheme, railway transport shows considerable competitive advantages in energy efficiency and general environmental impact in the long run. This study concludes that overnight sleepers have shown negligible decarbonization effects in the short run. In the long run, railway transport will have advantages in energy efficiency and environmental impacts over air transport when synthetic aviation fuel is considered. However, overnight sleeper has an upper limit of passenger base because it has a relatively limited travel range. Further studies are needed to plan future short-haul passenger transport modal shift by considering more options, such as high-speed railway.