An analysis of human behaviour which can cause fatalities in the bus and train tunnel during a tunnel fire event

This dissertation develops the analysis of human behaviour which can cause fatalities in the Bus and Train Tunnel during a tunnel fire event. The project aim is to utilise the Root Cause Analysis framework to produce recommendations for the BaT tunnel design with respect to human behavioural fire safety. Tunnel fire safety is a young area of research. There is much ambiguity in tunnel fire science and includes many unanswered questions such as; human behaviour in relation to tunnel fire emergencies with a particular reference to tunnel operators and emergency services. The Root Cause Analysis framework was utilised to discover the underlying causes of fatality within a tunnel due to human behaviour. The framework allows for the root causes to be discovered and ensures that recommendations are produced for each event that has the potential to cause loss of life. Throughout the study publically available information surrounding the BaT tunnel was documented. A literature review was then conducted into the tunnel operations and fire safety within tunnels. Following the literature review, extensive data gathering was conducted to include statistics on historic tunnel fires and case studies that are applicable to the aims of the study. A root cause analysis was carried out pertaining to tunnel fire safety within tunnels. The root cause analysis was conducted upon a specified tunnel fire design which utilizes publically available information along with assumptions that are based on prescriptive measures. The assumed tunnel fire design root cause analysis was undertaken on both the busway and the railway. The Root Cause Analysis highlighted that both the busway and the railway had identical root causes. The causes of fatality were discovered to be due to Communication breakdowns, slow reaction times, inadequate understanding and inadequate maintenance. The ways recommended to mitigate these risks is through intensive training of all staff, educating the public through marketing and the establishment of sound management within well-defined processes. There are many limitations involved within the analysis which cause the recommendations to be incomplete. Hence, before implementation of the recommendations the study should be carried out upon complete design data. The Root cause analysis is an effective framework that could be used to find the causes of risk and failure within the BaT tunnel. The framework was effective in identifying the root causes of the defined scenario. For a more complete analysis, more scenarios should be analysed, with true design data and including the modelling of the ventilation system where possible

Mapping innovation in the European transport sector : An assessment of R&D efforts and priorities, institutional capacities, drivers and barriers to innovation

The present document provides an overview of the innovation capacity of the European transport sectors. The analysis addresses transport-related innovation from three different angles. It identifies the drivers and barriers to innovation for the main transport sub-sectors; it assesses quantitative indicators through the detailed analysis of the main industrial R&D investors and public R&D priorities in transport; and it identifies the key actors for transport research and knowledge flows between them in order to detect shortcomings in the current institutional set-up of transport innovation. The analysis finds that despite the significant on-going research efforts in transport, largely driven by the automotive industry, the potential for systemic innovations that go beyond modal boundaries and leave the currently pre-dominant design are under-exploited due to prominent lock-in effects caused by infrastructure and the institutional set-up of the innovation systemsJRC.J.1-Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Shipping and sustainability liquefied natural gas as an alternative fuel : evidence from Portugal

O transporte marítimo é um elo vital do comércio mundial graças à sua capacidade, confiabilidade e relação custo-eficácia no transporte de grande quantidade de bens; nenhum outro modo de transporte consegue alcançar tais economias de escala. Mas este argumento subestima os custos reais. A frota marítima internacional, excluindo barcos de pesca e navios militares, produziu em 2012 cerca de 796 milhões de toneladas (Mt) de dióxido de carbono (CO2) e 816 Mt de dióxido de carbono equivalente (CO2e) de gases de efeito de estufa (GEE) combinando dióxido de carbono (CO2), metano (CH4) e óxido nitroso (N2O) correspondendo a cerca de 3,1% das emissões globais (IMO-International Maritime Organization, 2015; Rahman e Mashud, 2015) e é um dos setores de mais rápido crescimento em termos de emissões de GEE (Gilbert, Bows e Starkey, 2010; Bows-Larkin, 2014) previstas aumentar entre 102% a 193% em relação aos níveis de 2000 até 2050 (Bows-Larkin, 2014), crescendo a uma taxa mais elevada do que a taxa média de todos os outros sectores, com excepção da aviação. Como as emissões marítimas são produzidas, em grande parte, em mar aberto e por navios registados em países de bandeira de conveniência, foram excluídas dos compromissos nacionais no âmbito do Protocolo de Quioto de 1997, que cedeu o controlo à IMO o organismo da ONU responsável pelo sector1. De acordo com o Maritime Knowledge Centre da IMO, a frota mercante mundial de navios com pelo menos 100 gross tonnage (tonelagem bruta) era composta por 93.161 navios no final do ano de 2016. Espera-se que um número crescente de navios mercantes entre em operação nas próximas décadas, nomeadamente navios porta-contentores de grande capacidade, navios metaneiros e outros adstritos a actividades diversificadas como produção, armazenamento e descarga de gás natural e de petróleo (em inglês Floating Production Storage and Offloading - FPSOs). Os combustíveis marítimos tradicionais também produzem emissões de óxido de enxofre (SOx), óxidos de azoto (NOx) e micropartículas e o impacto sobre o ambiente dos poluentes primários e secundários resultantes da combustão do fuelóleo pesado (HFO) tem contribui para a acidificação, eutrofização e formação de ozono (O3) fotoquímico (Bengtsson, 2011). Um efeito particularmente pernicioso na saúde das populações expostas é a mortalidade prematura relacionada com micropartículas inaláveis associadas com o aumento do cancro de pulmão e problemas cardiorrespiratórios (Corbett et al., 2007) e, embora os efeitos nocivos mais graves sejam particularmente sentidos nas zonas costeiras e em áreas próximas das atividades portuárias, estes efeitos também ocorrem no interior dos países devido às condições predominantes dos ventos (Corbett, Fischbeck and Pandis, 1999) incluindo efeitos transfronteiriços (Nore, 2011). Em Portugal e de acordo com o World Resources Institute, as emissões de CO2 com origem nos combustíveis marítimos cresceram 24,5%, entre 2003 e 2012, em linha com o crescimento mundial (de 26,8%) no mesmo período de dez anos (World Resources Institute, 2015). Nesta tese, para efeitos de monetarização das emissões produzidas pela frota mercante nacional serão utilizados os dados do Inventário Nacional de Emissões, dados de 2014, os quais revelam que, embora o contributo do sector para o registo nacional seja mínimo – devido nomeadamente à exiguidade da frota – o potencial de danos causados não é de todo despiciente. Técnicas para aumentar a eficiência energética e tecnologias de mitigação dos efeitos nocivos - scrubbers, (depuradores) e dispositivos catalíticos - têm sido desenvolvidas e implementadas -, no entanto, embora o seu contributo para a descarbonização do sector deva ser levado em conta, estas tecnologias não correspondem à alteração pretendida do paradigma energético e podem constituir um incentivo ao business-as-usual. Por outro lado, o recurso a combustíveis com menor conteúdo de enxofre como o diesel marítimo é contraproducente uma vez que as emissões dos motores a diesel foram recentemente classificadas como cancerígenas pelo Centro Internacional de Investigação do Cancro (Oeder et al, 2015). O que isto significa é que embora o diesel corresponda ao exigido futuramente pelo Regulamento Tier III emitido pela IMO, na realidade não respeita suficientemente as preocupações com a saúde humana. De qualquer modo as refinarias não teriam provavelmente capacidade suficiente de fornecer todo o diesel necessário para abastecer a frota mundial. Por outro lado, as medidas de redução de poluentes emitidas pela IMO poderão ver seus efeitos reduzidos pelo crescimento esperado da atividade marítima nas próximas décadas e são destinadas a ser adoptadas lentamente ao longo de um largo período de tempo e mostram um progresso muito lento no contexto de evitar um aumento de temperatura superior a 2ºC acima dos níveis pré-industriais (Gilbert, 2013; Bows-Larkin, 2014), daí a necessidade urgente de investir em novas tecnologias e em novos tipos de combustíveis.The objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to provide important inputs for the decarbonisation of marine transport and climate change mitigation policies concerning liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a substitute fuel. Real-world results show efficiency gains from LNG compared with traditional fossil fuels burned on-board vessel’s engines even when equipped with mitigation technologies. Yet, this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to LNG be elected as a substitute fuel. For a fuel switch of such order of magnitude to occur within a major end-use sector, other requirements are to be fulfilled: the government intervention in the public interest, and, to justify such policy intervention, the degree of social acceptability. This is accomplished by developing a social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) performed at a regional basis after the assessment of the trade-off between the provision level of the good and Portuguese nationals’ disposable income had been examined. SCBA attaches money prices - a metric of everything that everyone can recognise - to as many costs and benefits as possible in order to uniformly weigh the policy objectives. As a result, these prices reflect the value a society ascribe to the paradigm change enabling the decision maker to form an opinion about the net social welfare effects. Empirically, emissions from the Portuguese merchant fleet weighted by their contribution for the National Inventory were used to quantify and monetise externalities compared with benefits from LNG as a substitute marine fuel. Benefits from the policy implementation are those related with the reduction of negative externalities. Costs are those determined from the price nationals are hypothetically willing-to-pay for. Conclusions show that benefits are largely superior to the costs, so action must be taken instead of a doing nothing scenario. Apart from the social ex-ante evaluation, this thesis also imprints the first step for developing furthermore complete studies in this aspect and it can help fill policy makers’ knowledge gap to what concerns to strategic energy options vis-à-vis sustainability stakeholders engagement. Although it addresses Portuguese particularities, this methodology should be applied elsewhere

An Environmental and Economic Assessment of Introducing Hydrogen to a Combined Heavy Duty/Off-Road Vehicle Fleet in the UK

The emissions from many industries have fallen over the past decade, however transport has failed to follow suit and has stayed consistently high, now being the largest source of CO2 in the UK. Although the light duty sector is transitioning towards electrification, heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) lack suitable technology and still rely heavily on diesel, with disproportionately high CO2 emissions alongside criteria air pollutants. One potential solution for heavy duty transport is hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). The aim of this project is to investigate whether hydrogen can be a suitable fuel for emissions reduction in the heavy-duty sector, whilst also remaining economical. This is achieved by first conducting an economic assessment using Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis, which is then followed by an environmental investigation in the form of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using SimaPro software with the widely recognised inventory database, Ecoinvent. Vehicle emissions software COPERT is also used to support this modelling further. Results compare and analyse the economics and life cycle emissions of a mixed fleet of FCEV heavy duty on-road and off-road vehicles to battery electric and diesel counterparts, and considers 6 vehicle types (cars, buses, trucks, tippers, refuse vehicles, and forklifts) and 14 fuel scenarios, offering a novel contribution to existing literature. In this work, results are generated from both a general perspective and a fleet-owner perspective using real mileage figures from UK council fleets. Results identify the cost components and life cycle stages with the greatest impact on FCEV competitiveness and a sensitivity analysis helps determine conditions under which hydrogen is most favourable, in addition to the prediction of future scenarios. Results show that for most vehicles hydrogen is not cost-effective under base case conditions. Only hydrogen forklifts are cheaper than their diesel counterparts, whilst generally electric powertrains show the lowest costs overall. Despite this, BEVs may incur indirect costs from payload losses and efficiency drops in cold weather which could offset their savings, so should be considered before making final decisions. Further, the cost competitiveness of FCEVs can be improved if favourable policy and regulatory conditions are applied, like purchase grants and fuel price reductions. Hydrogen shows greater promise in terms of sustainability as several FCEV HDVs show lower life cycle emissions than diesel and electric counterparts. Similar to their costs, emissions can be reduced in the future by varying the modelling conditions, like the use of a decarbonised electricity grid, for example. In general, hydrogen can significantly reduce the emissions from HDVs, but their costs are most likely going to restrict their uptake unless favourable conditions are implemented. If these conditions are not met, other technologies may help achieve net zero targets sooner

Space benefits: The secondary application of aerospace technology in other sectors of the economy

Over 580 examples of the beneficial use of NASA aerospace technology by public and private organizations are described to demonstrate the effects of mission-oriented programs on technological progress in the United States. General observations regarding technology transfer activity are presented. Benefit cases are listed in 20 categories along with pertinent information such as communication link with NASA; the DRI transfer example file number and individual case numbers associated with the technology and examples used; and the date of the latest contract with user organizations. Subject, organization, geographic, and field center indexes are included

NASA Thesaurus. Volume 1: Hierarchical listing

There are 16,713 postable terms and 3,716 nonpostable terms approved for use in the NASA scientific and technical information system in the Hierarchical Listing of the NASA Thesaurus. The generic structure is presented for many terms. The broader term and narrower term relationships are shown in an indented fashion that illustrates the generic structure better than the more widely used BT and NT listings. Related terms are generously applied, thus enhancing the usefulness of the Hierarchical Listing. Greater access to the Hierarchical Listing may be achieved with the collateral use of Volume 2 - Access Vocabulary