A 2009 Mobile Source Carbon Dioxide Emissions Inventory for the University of Central Florida

Abstract

A mobile source carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions inventory for the University of Central Florida (UCF) has been completed. For a large urban university, more than 50% of the CO₂ emissions can come from mobile sources, and the vast majority of mobile source emissions come from on-road sources: personal vehicles and campus shuttles carrying students, faculty, staff, and administrators to and from the university, as well as on university business trips. In addition to emissions from on-road vehicles, emissions from airplane-based business travel are significant, along with emissions from nonroad equipment such as lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and small maintenance vehicles utilized on campus. UCF has recently become one of the largest universities in the nation (with over 58,000 students enrolled in the fall 2011 semester) and emits a substantial amount of CO₂ in the Central Florida area. For this inventory, students, faculty, staff, and administrators were first surveyed to determine their commuting distances and frequencies. Information was also gathered on vehicle type and age distribution of the personal vehicles of students, faculty, administrators, and staff, as well as their bus, car-pool, and alternate transportation usage. The latest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved mobile source emissions model, Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES2010a), was used to calculate the emissions from on-road vehicles, and UCF fleet gasoline consumption records were used to calculate the emissions from nonroad equipment and from on-campus UCF fleet vehicles. The results of this UCF mobile source emissions inventory were compared with those for another large U.S. university.

Implications:

With the growing awareness of global climate change, a number of colleges/universities and other organizations are completing greenhouse gas emission inventories. Assumptions often are made in order to calculate mobile source emissions, but without field data or valid reasoning, the accuracy of those assumptions may be questioned. This paper presents a method that involves a survey, the use of the MOVES model, and emission factors to produce a mobile source emissions inventory. The results show that UCF mobile source CO₂ emissions are larger than most other universities, and make up about 2% of all the mobile source emissions in Orange County, Florida.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Department of Sustainability and Energy Management at UCF for providing financial support for the 2009 UCF Mobile Source Emissions Inventory, as well as Metroplan Orlando for providing financial support for the 2008 Emissions Inventory of Central Florida.