1.3. Performance indicators

Performance indicators are figures that give a comprehensive overview of a company’s energy performance per activity and its impact on climate change. The definition of performance indicators and their monitoring together play an important role in a company’s CO2 strategy, since they enable monitoring any reduction in GHG emissions that is linked to the company’s services. Performance indicators complement carbon footprinting, enabling the data collected to be used to monitor current and future performance.

A benchmarking of existing and published indicators for transport services or equivalent activities9 revealed that most of the indicators were either global emissions inventory or emission ratios usually expressed as ‘passenger.kilometre’. It was also concluded that there was no standard methodology across transport companies for those indicators.

Methodology

Once the available data have been listed and their accuracy checked, relevant indicators can be selected. A public transport company can choose to define a global indicator for the whole company or an indicator per mode. For traction performances, a figure per mode is highly recommended.

These indicators will help answer both internal and external questions.
  • For the company itself, these figures enable carbon and energy performance to be measured against targets and carbon reduction plans
  • For stakeholders, this data enables comparison of carbon performance between different modes and against economic performance, enabling more informed future investments
  • For passengers, they can be used to drive behaviour change, getting people to use more sustainable transport modes.
Indicators are linked to the company’s context. They take into account a wide range of fields:
  • Technical changes of the equipment (rolling stocks, heating systems, etc.)
  • Changes in transport provision (capacity upgrade, commercial speed improvement, new lines creation, etc.)
  • Variation in transport ridership (economic crisis, population growth, modal shift, etc.)
  • Maintenance requirements (new rolling stock requires less maintenance)
  • Energy mix (change in the electricity provider, new electricity plants)
  • Weather conditions (harsh winter, hot summer, etc.).

Given that indicators have to be updated regularly, it is important to choose easily collectable and reliable data.

T2K approach to defining indicators

Based on available data and their mutual experience, T2K partners defined eight indicators: six for energy and two for CO2 . Those indicators cover the whole range of transport companies’ activities. They also take into account the different kinds of energy sources.

Indicators

  • Traction energy consumption per passenger.kilometre (kWh/pax.km)
  • Traction energy consumption per seat.kilometre (kWh/seat.km)
  • Stations’ energy consumption per m2 (kWh/m2);
  • Workshops and depots’ energy consumption per m2 (kWh/m2)
  • Office buildings’ energy consumption per m2 (kWh/m2)
  • Share of renewable energy (%)
  • CO2 equivalent emissions due to traction energy consumption per passenger.kilometre (gCO2e/pax.km)
  • CO2 equivalent emissions due to traction energy consumption per seat.kilometre (gCO2e/seat.km).
Table 4 – Performance indicators of the T2K partners in terms of CO2 equivalent emissions due to traction energy consumption per passenger.kilometre (based on local and european emissions factors, 2012)
 
Local emissions factors Unit     moBiel RATP RET STIB TfGM
CO2 equivalent emissions due to traction energy consumption per passenger.kilometre gCO2e/pax.km Values per mode Regional railway   4.22 2.13    
Metro   3.91   22.00  
Tramway 22.7 3.38 2.89 27.00 41.6
Bus 50.2 108.64 187.72 114.00 -
Ferry     2843.49    
 
European emissions factors Unit     moBiel RATP RET STIB TfGM
CO2 equivalent emissions due to traction energy consumption per passenger.kilometre gCO2e/pax.km Values per mode Regional railway   33.45 59.64    
Metro   31.01   52.20  
Tramway 46.4 26.82 80.92 64.07 34.62
Bus 54.7 109.67 191.61 124.08 -
Ferry     2902.45    

The reader should bear in mind that the performance indicators can hardly be compared between the partners due to the fact that the context of every company is different. Several factors can impact the results: age of the fleet, use of dedicated lanes for public transport, public transport priority systems, flatness of the territory, etc.

9 In the T2K project, 21 transport companies or affiliated structures were identified for the benchmark. Of those 21 entities, 14 proposed some environmental indicators for climate change.