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Research Overview

Climate change planning is a crucial component of addressing the climate crisis. Canada has correspondingly adopted climate action plans such as Net-Zero Emissions by 2050, Canada's 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, and a Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy Plan. Furthermore, Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) approved one of the most ambitious municipal plans, HalifACT 2050, which targets net-zero municipal operations and a 75% community-wide reduction of emissions by 2030.

Government bodies have also adopted data collection methods, such as CalTRAC and HaliTRAC surveys, to underpin these documents. However, literature reviews reveal scientific and technical challenges in demand and emission model integration. Municipal-level modelling is specifically of the utmost importance to accurately track people and goods movements and changes in transport emissions.   

The Climate Action for Transportation (CART) Network received $3.6 million through Canada's Climate Action and Awareness Fund (CAAF) for a five-year Dalhousie Transportation Collaboratory (DalTRAC) research project. As 23% of the over all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada come from the transportation sector, the scientific contribution of this research will help bridge the gap in tracking and monitoring changes in GHG emissions over time to inform mitigation policies and test targeted policy scenarios using a modelling systems (e.g., working from home, online shopping). 

Project 

Project Goal 

To develop new data, tools and process to characterize movements of people and goods to quantify finer-grained, geospatially resolved vehicular emissions (i.e., greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollutants) in multiple Canadian cities, including Halifax, Moncton, Hamilton/Burlington, Ottawa, Calgary, and Surrey.

This project has three key objectives:

OBJECTIVE #1

Development of an activity-based , tour level travel demand, supply chain and emissions modelling framework.​

OBJECTIVE #2

Explore changes in activity travel, local delivery, and emissions during and post COVID-19 transitions.

OBJECTVE #3

Assess and predict emissions through testing of scenarios, including established climate mitigation strategies and emerging opportunities.

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