Electrification and Automation of Road Transport: Impact Analysis of Heat and Carbon Emissions for Singapore

This paper presents a city-scale evaluation of the effects of road transport electrification and automation on heat and carbon emissions. We present a case study for the city of Singapore examining the spatio-temporal profile of the heat emissions due to road transport for a typical day. We calibrate and validate our simulation model which is later used for analysis of future electrification and automation scenarios. Furthermore, we also evaluate the temporal energy demand associated with the electrification of transport and assess the heat released for the production of this energy. Our results show a sixfold decrease of the energy usage, and thus heat production, of the road transport sector in case of a complete electrification of all vehicle classes, which include lorries and vans, private vehicles, taxis, buses, and motorcycles. We find that while autonomous mobility greatly reduces the overall trip durations as it mitigates congestion, the energy consumption of the sector remains almost unchanged compared to the fully electric scenario due to the overall increase of average speed in the transport system. Finally, we perform a carbon emission analysis comparing the current scenario to a fully electrified road system. Our results show that, for the case of Singapore, while electricity generation produces twice as much CO2 as the cradle-to-gate emissions for petrol/diesel, electric vehicles still reduce the total carbon emissions of the road transport sector by 40%.