Policy oriented emission factors for road freight transport Sébastien M.R. Dente a,⇑ , Lóránt Tavasszy b a Ritsumeikan University, 1-1-1 Noji-higashi, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan b Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands article info Article history: Received 28 December 2015 Revised 30 March 2016 Accepted 22 March 2017 Available online xxxx Keywords: Sustainability indicators Emission functions Road freight transport abstract Impact assessments of carbon emission mitigation policies by shippers and carriers require appropriate emission models and indicators of logistics activity. Usually, the ton-kilometer indicator is used to measure logistics activity, and emissions are calculated as a linear func- tion of this indicator. Generally, the models that emission factors originate from are unknown. This makes their application difficult, especially when interdependencies between measures must be considered. Here, we develop a policy oriented framework of simplified emission factors that are derived from internally consistent, comprehensive models, are applicable to the various measures by different logistic actors and are as easy to use as the usual ton-kilometer indicator. We identify a set of emission factors by taking simple first order derivatives of two comprehensive models proposed in the literature, the EcoTransIT World Model and the Ligterink model. The approach allows us to compare the models and discuss the effectiveness of our framework for alternative mitigation strategies. We position the emission factors of the first as a specific case of the latter model and dis- cuss the bounds of the applicability of emission factors from the two models. Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The transportation sector is a great contributor to climate change, accounting for as much as 22% of the energy related world GHG emissions (IEA, 2010). It represents the third largest GHG source within the UK in 2009 (DECC, 2010) and is responsible for 36% of the French national CO 2 emissions (CITEPA, 2011). In the context of climate change mitigation, the reduction of CO 2 emissions associated with transportation and logistics activities is an important challenge. Nevertheless, the objectives for emission reduction set at the supranational (United Nations, European Union) and national levels are most often general, not providing specific targets for the transportation sector. For example, the objective of the European Union to reduce their annual greenhouse gas emission by at least 20% by 2020 and by 80–95% by 2050, compared to 1990 emissions levels (EC, 2011), do not target specifically the transportation emissions. Besides, transport modes and purposes are not all considered equally. The Kyoto protocol does, for example, not include international transportation in its accounting frame- work (UNFCCC, 1998). This raises some questions of fairness, as maritime and air transportation have benefited so far from the absence of constrains related to their GHG emissions. Maritime and air transportation were found responsible for as much as, respectively, 11% and 2% of the GHG emissions, caused by the transportation of goods and associated with French consumption in 2004 (Hawkins and Dente, 2010). The biggest GHG emission share was associated with road transportation, as the main trade partners of France were in Europe. Road sector emissions indeed dominate transport emissions globally, notably due to its reliability and flexibility which makes it a privileged terrestrial transportation mode (ITF, 2010). Some http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2017.03.021 1361-9209/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: 15v01062@gst.ritsumei.ac.jp (S.M.R. Dente). Transportation Research Part D xxx (2017) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Transportation Research Part D journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trd Please cite this article in press as: Dente, S.M.R., Tavasszy, L. Policy oriented emission factors for road freight transport. Transport. Res. Part D (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2017.03.021