Collaboration

Green Mobility

Three students of the Aalto University School of Economics took up a challenge from Nokia. They looked at the potential of six alternative passenger vehicle transport modalities, e.g. ridesharing, public transport, carpooling and eco-driving, to change people’s traffic behaviour and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Henkilö seisoo pimeässä ja hänen taustalleen on heijastettu vihreää koodia.

The students analysed quantitative data from 11 countries including Finland and the USA and calculated the potential of improvement, estimated from assumed rates of behaviour changes that could be caused by the uptake of ICT and mobile applications. The project was supervised by researcher Merja Penttinen from VTT and Aalto University School of Science.

The results concluded that of the countries analysed, USA has the largest potential for reducing carbon dioxide emissions via the uptake of mobile applications, but the CO2 abatement potential is globally significant. There is also significant potential in Finland. The most potential for reducing CO2 emissions appears to be in eco-driving, public transport and car sharing. Potential for ICT solutions to help in reducing carbon emissions is underlined by the fact that the implementation of mobile ICT solutions is faster than renewing the entire car fleet, which takes on average 10.7 years in Finland. Mobile applications can, for example, influence travel decisions, such as the choice of travel modality, before driving.

According to Harri Paloheimo, Sustainability Innovations Manager at Nokia, the limitations of available data generate uncertainty in this kind of assessment covering global impact and extending to 2020, but the project gave a good start to exploring the area of ICT’s potential in reducing emissions of road transport.

Harri Paloheimo
Sustainability Innovations Manager
Nokia

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