标题: Single European Sky and its Impacts on CO2-Emissions [打印本页] 作者: 航空 时间: 2010-10-12 21:02:37 标题: Single European Sky and its Impacts on CO2-Emissions
作者: 航空 时间: 2010-10-12 21:03:07
e-zine edition 41 1 ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH Single European Sky and its Impacts on CO2-Emissions Aviation has been subject to comprehensive changes over the last decades. Passenger numbers and freight volumes have boomed and are expected to increase further in the next few years. Adverse impacts are correlated to growth rates, and will increase further in a business-as-usual scenario for the airline industry. One of the themes in the debate on external effects is the discussion on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This discussion is very critical to the aviation industry, due to the high impact of CO2-emissions in the lower troposphere, and due to the high growth rates in the air transport sector. Promoted by the airline industry, the implementation of a Single European Sky (SES) is one step in reducing CO2-emissions in aviation. This paper examines the potential of a SES for in-flight emission reductions. Actual routes have been compared using the geodesic distance on selected corridors within Europe. Introduction In recent decades, the aviation industry has seen comprehensive changes, influenced by political decisions (liberalization, deregulation and privatization of the industry), economic growth and lower production costs (lower costs per seat-km). These megatrends are expected to continue within the nearby future and can be outlined by: strongly growing demand in air passenger and freight transport (growth of around 5 per cent per year (IATA, 2007)); changes in business models of airlines (e.g. low-cost carriers, reorganization of former flag carriers, pure cargo airlines, etc.); tremendous enhancement in airport capacity, especially in Asia (e.g. United Arab Emirates, India, China); expansion of regional airports and the efforts of regions to convert former military airports into civil airports (e.g. Black Forest airport); development in airplane design (e.g. introduction of the A380 and Boeing Dreamliner, which promise to reduce costs significantly); increase in airline cooperation (e.g. Star Alliance, oneworld); increase in capacity constraints at major European airports (e.g. London Heathrow, Frankfurt). Growing demand and increasing capacity constraints have caused considerable and constant increases in the delays in air transport. This has led to consequences for users and for the environment, as well as to a considerable financial impact on the airlines. Many of these delays are caused by the clogging of the air traffic management (ATM) system, which has apparently been less and less able to cope with the growing number of flights (EC, 2007a). Forecasts for the future show further increases in the supply of air transportation (about 3.1 percent p.a. until 2030 according to EC, 2008a) and in the flexibility for passengers to ease air travel. This will lead to more flights within the European air network. Adverse effects will emerge, and will be strengthened. The results can directly affect the industry, e.g. congestions at airports in the short run, or indirectly in case of external impacts. One of the main topics in the debate on external effects concerning air transportation is noise, CO2 and NOx emissions. Total external effects per 1,000 passenger-kilometers are approximately 52.5 EUR for air transport, according to scientific studies, which is very high compared to rail transportation (22.9 EUR) (UIC, 2004). The challenging task for the future will be to decouple emissions from traffic and economic growth. The EU has defined a comprehensive approach based on three pillars, namely (1) support research and development for “greener” technologies, (2) implement market-based measures and (3) modernize ATM systems (EC, 2008b). Part of the SES approach is the SESAR initiative, which is responsible for by: Aaron Scholz, Patrick Jochem, Dr. Anselm Ott and Paolo Beria the technological component of SES. Its main objective is to achieve 10 per cent fuel savings per flight, thereby enabling a 10 per cent reduction of CO2-emissions per flight (EC, 2008b). The SESAR Master Plan outlines that the optimization of horizontal and vertical flight profiles have the potential to reduce inflight emissions by around 4 million tons p.a. (SESAR, 2008). The airline industry defines the creation of a Single European Sky (SES) as a milestone in reducing environmental emissions. SES is seen as the largest single climate change project of the EU, and CO2-reductions of up to 15 per cent are characterized as feasible by the industry (Lufthansa, 2006a, Lufthansa, 2006b, Lufthansa, 2007, and TuiFly, 2007). Reductions should come from shortening holdings (aircrafts flying in a fixed pattern awaiting permission to land), improving flight corridors and more efficient routings. In the following paragraphs, we will concentrate on in-flight reduction potentials. European Air Traffic Management Policy The European air traffic management network has slowly been developed over time. Each sovereign nation uses its own mechanisms and has set up its own agency for traffic management. In 1919, the International Commission for Air Navigation (ICAN) was created to develop “general rules for air traffic”, which were applied in most countries where aircrafts operated (Arndt, 2004). Despite further attempts to unify the network, especially during the 1960s, more than 25 civil ATM agencies still existed in Europe, including 58 management centers using 22 different operating systems (Lufthansa, 2006a). Figure 1 displays the current situation in the European ATM network. The complexity of the European system can easily be observed when the American management system is compared with its European counterpart. Europe only has half as many flights than the US, yet 22 different systems exist in Europe (compared to just one in the US). Same goes for air space, but more providers operate in the market. These are the reasons why costs per flight for air transport management are twice as much in Europe as in the US. The highly fragmented European air transport management system is characterized as half as efficient as the US system (EC, 2007b). Table 1 summarizes key factors for both regions. To overcome the current heterogeneous situation in Europe, the idea of a single sky emerged in the 1960s, when Eurocontrol, the European organization for the safety of air navigation, was founded. Its strategic objective is the creation of a single upper sky, which enables the efficient use of airspace. Air traffic boundaries are still strongly related to national borders, which results in detours, holding patterns and additional kerosene consumption (see Figure 1). Therefore, the European Parliament laid down the framework regulation for the creation of the SES in 2004 (EC, 2004). Its objectives are: to restructure the European airspace as a function of air traffic flows rather than according to national borders; to create additional capacity by optimizing flight routes; to increase the overall efficiency of the European air traffic management system; to enhance safety standards; to minimize delays. The European Commission has set 2020 as the target date for SES to be completed (EC, 2007b). Potential CO2-Emission Reductions Through Pptimization of Flight Routes Potential effective reductions depend on various factors, such as wind, capacity constraints in the network or no-fly zones. Therefore, a calculation method has been developed that compares distances of the current flight route with an optimal flight route. The optimal route means plotting the geodesic path between origin and destination. The approach can be interpreted as an optimistic approach that shows the potential maximum reduction through optimizing routes. Even with an SES, there will still be factors that directly influence and constrain the optimal route choice, such as no-fly zones, congestion and weather. The approach reverts to some assumptions, which are explained in the following. Constant kerosene consumption per flight-km: The approach assumes constant kerosene consumption per flight-km. This is a reliable assumption for flights on the same altitude. Only for take-off and climb flight are much higher consumptions needed (more than ten times above average consumption). Thus, it is assumed that aircrafts fly on the same altitude, but they fly different routes.i The methodology applies a subtractive approach where the distance of the optimized flight routes is subtracted from the current flight route distance. 2 Figure 1: Air traffic management zones in Europe. Source: own composition based on Lufthansa 2006. European Continent USA Air space (million square km) 10.5 9.8 Air navigation service providers (civil and military) 47 1 Management centers 58 21 Operating systems 22 1 Programming languages 30 1 Flights (in millions) 9 18 Cost of traffic management per flight (in euro) 742 386 Table 1: Comparison between selected air traffic management information in Europe and the US (Source: Lufthansa, 2006a and Eurocontrol, 2004). No-fly zones: There are territories over which aircraft are not permitted to fly. These areas are mainly military territories (e.g. Royal Air Force barracks), buildings of executive authorities (e.g. Buckingham Palace) or sites of special cultural interest. The total size of the no-fly zones is small compared to the total size of Europe. Route choice decisions, especially in the upper sky (aim of the SES initiative), are only slightly influenced by nofly zones, and have therefore been neglected in the developed approach. No holdings: Holdings are mainly caused by congestion around airports, which are bottlenecks for the industry. Holdings are considered in the actual flight data, but are not considered in the reduction potential analysis because of multifaceted parameters (e.g. weather, congestion, emergency flights). Furthermore, the comprehension of holdings in current routes emphasizes the optimistic approach, which has been chosen for the analysis at hand (subtrahend increases while the minuend keeps constant). In the following, we highlight six exemplary European flight routes, which are mapped in figures 2 to 4. The flight routes have been chosen because of their importance (flight frequency) in the European air network, and according to the number of possible ATM crossings to become a gauge for the potential efficiency gains. The actual database has been provided by Eurocontrol, and it consists of around 6,200 flights of August 2007. Flights from August 2007 have been chosen for two reasons: First, August is traditionally a holiday month in Europe with a lot of air traffic and congested routes. Based on the developed subtractive approach, congested routes generally lead to increasing flight distances (detours), which are considered in the minuend. As the ideal flight route keeps unchanged (subtrahend), flight data from the summer holiday month August support the objective of calculating potential maximum reduction. Second, data for only one month could be provided by Eurocontrol. The authors decided in favor of data from August 2007 for the abovementioned reason. The Eurocontrol database included route length and data on latitude and longitude for key points on the route for each of the 6,200 flights. Information on route length has been used for calculating potential reductions, whereas geographic information has only been used for mapping the routes (Figures 2 to 4). The most frequently flown intra-European route is Madrid- Barcelona (Eurostat, 2007). Even though it is a short distance in a single country, the origin and destination are located in different ATM zones. It is not surprising that the actual routes appear to be very straight when compared to other relations, such as Barcelona-Amsterdam, in which about five different ATC zones are flown over, and in which in particular the outbound flights are far off the geodesic path (see Figure 2). Looking at an East-West relation – here the Paris-Warsaw link – flights seem to be more straight, even though they 3 Figure 2: Flight routes Amsterdam-Barcelona and Madrid-Barcelona Source: own mapping based on data from Eurocontrol – August 2007. Figure 3: Flight routes Paris-Warsaw and Frankfurt-Berlin (Source: own mapping based on data from Eurocontrol – August 2007) cross about five different ATM zones (see Figure 3). Considering the most frequent intra-German route (from Frankfurt to Berlin), the routes are far from direct connections. On diagonal European routes, flights are nearly on geodesic paths, even though they cross between four to six different ATM zones. Considering the corridor London-Rome and Munich- Helsinki, flights are relatively straight, but a large number of different routes is chosen (see Figure 4). This research compares the actual distance with its geodesic path. The real distances are taken from the Eurocontrol database for August 2007. The data from the geographic information system for each flight is available, which allows the reconstruction of the actual flight corridor. The shortest distances between origin and destination, the geodesic path, are gained from GIS software. Table 2 summarizes the findings and displays the average savings for each direction. General savings are achieved for each single relation. The level of saving heavily depends on the relation itself, the total distance and the number of ATM zones that is crossed. Conclusion Looking at the increasing CO2-emissions in aviation, the introduction of the Single European Sky (SES) can really reduce trip length within Europe, and thus reduce CO2-emissions in aviation. In short, by harmonizing the European ATM, in-flight savings of fuel consumption can be achieved for many inner European flights. Furthermore, holdings are expected to be reduced because of optimized collaborations between ATM, airports and airlines. Both effects, in-flight savings and reduced holdings, are economically very valuable to airlines. Production costs per seat-kilometer can be decreased, and reliability increased. Together with optimized technology, aviation might mitigate 0.6 megatons of CO2, in Germany alone (BDI, 2007). In a market environment with a high degree of competition, lower production costs will be (at least partly) forwarded to the customer. Furthermore, a more efficient ATM may also lead to lower costs of air traffic management per flight. Both effects will lower air fares, which create additional demand that will be served by the industry. Finally, optimized flight routes, resulting in reduced flight times, allow for a more efficient use of the airplanes (more flights). Scenarios are conceivable in which emission reductions based on fuel savings per flight are overcompensated by induced emissions caused by lower production costs. Estimations made by the airline industry show fuel savings of up to 15 per cent per flight due to the implementation of the SES. The authors ascertain a similar magnitude for the emission savings per flight. From an economic point of view, the introduction of the SES should be supported to overcome the inefficient situation in Europe. 4 Figure 4: Flight routes London-Rome and Munich-Helsinki Source: own mapping based on data from Eurocontrol – August 2007 Origin Destination Savings (%) Frankfurt (FRA) Berlin-Tegel (TXL) 14 Berlin-Tegel (TXL) Frankfurt (FRA) 12 Munich (MUC) Helsinki (HEL) 5 Helsinki (HEL) Munich (MUC) 8 London-Heathrow (LHR) Rome-Fiumicino (FCO) 9 Rome-Fiumicino (FCO) London-Heathrow (LHR) 6 Amsterdam (AMS) Barcelona (BCN) 8 Barcelona (BCN) Amsterdam (AMS) 9 Warsaw (WAW) Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) 5 Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) Warsaw (WAW) 9 Barcelona (BCN) Madrid (MAD) 7 Madrid (MAD) Barcelona (BCN) 13 Lisbon (LIS) Bucharest (BBU) 4 Bucharest (BBU) Lisbon (LIS) 5 Table 2: Savings in distance on selected flight connections within Europe due to the implementation of a Single European Sky e-zine edition 41 5 In the long run, adverse impacts of the SES on the environment are multilayered and are thus complex to estimate. Cost reductions per flight may result in additional demand due to production cost savings per flight. Therefore, further policy measures are necessary to reduce overall CO2-emissions in Europe. An emission trading system (ETS) with a European or even global coverage is seen, by the authors, as a comprehensive supplement to the SES. Unlike the SES, ETS allows emission caps to limit total emissions. And, a sophisticated ETS does not only include the airline industry, it covers the total economy and leads to a better allocation of resources. On November 13 2007, the European Parliament agreed on a directive launched by the European Commission to incorporate the air transportation industry in the ETS by 2011. The directive plans to include intracontinental and intercontinental flights in the trading system. The proposal will now be discussed by the European Council of Ministers, which has the last voice in this decision. Biographies: Aaron B. Scholz is a research fellow at the Institute for Economic Policy Research of the Universität Karlsruhe (TH) since 2005. At the Institute Aaron works as a transport analyst and project manager. He studied business engineering at the Universität Karlsruhe (TH) with a main focus on micro and macro scale transportation issues. Aaron holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Science (major in Transport and Logistics) of the Lincoln University (Christchurch, New Zealand). His fields of interest are air transport especially air cargo and the assessment of transport infrastructure projects. To contact Aaron Schloz: aaron.scholz@iww.uni-karlsruhe.de Patrick Jochem is a PhD-scholarship student of the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) and a research fellow at the Institute for Economic Policy Research of the Universität Karlsruhe (TH). He studied economics (Dipl.) at the universities of Bayreuth, Heidelberg and Mannheim. Before 2006 he was working as a research assistant at ZEW (Centre for European Economic Research), Mannheim, and as a research fellow at BSR-Sustainability, Karlsruhe. His research interests are in the field of transport policy, transport modeling, econometrics, CO2 emission trading, and sustainability. Paolo Beria is carrying research and professional activity at Milan Politecnico University, TRT Research Centre and Milan Transport Authority (AMA). The fields of interest are economy, regulation and assessment of transport projects, and in particular, issues concerning transport megaprojects. Paolo is a lecturer in Transport Systems at Milan Politecnico and in Transport Economics at IULM University in Milan. He is co-author of two books in Italian and published numerous international papers in journals and in international conferences. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Patrick Tasker from Eurocontrol for his support. References Arndt, A. (2004), Die Liberalisierung der des grenzüberschreitenden Luftverkehrs in der EU - Eine quantitative Analyse der Wohlfahrtswirkungen und des Anbieterverhaltens, P. Lange Verlagsgruppe, Frankfurt. BDI (Federation of German Industries) (2007), Kosten und Potentiale der Vermeidung von Treibhausgasen in Deutschland, McKinsey Report, Berlin. Eurocontrol (2004), Flickenteppich europäischer Luftraum – der Vergleich zeigt: es geht auch anders!, Eurocontrol, Brussels. EC (European Commission) (2004), Regulation No 549/2004, Brussels. EC (European Commission) (2007a), Information Note on the European Single Sky, Brussels. Download at: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/air_portal/traffic_management/ses/doc/ history/info_note_en.pdf (last visit Mai 7, 2008). EC (European Commission) (2007b), Report of the High Level group for the future European Aviation Regulatory Framework: A framework for driving performance improvement, Brussels. 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Lufthansa (2006b), Annual Report 2006, Frankfurt. Lufthansa (2007), Interview of W. Mayrhuber, CEO, with the German newspaper “Bild”, December 2007, Hamburg. SESAR (2008), SESAR Master Plan (D5), SESAR consortium, Brussels. TuiFly (2007), Climate Change and air transportation, On-board magazine of TuiFly 03/2007, Langenhagen. UIC (2004), External costs of transport – update study, International Union of Railways, Paris. i In the calculation the authors abstract from wind directions for inter European flight routes, which could reduce fuel consumption considerably for intercontinental flights.作者: yygao 时间: 2011-5-31 12:24:04