Canada’s transportation emissions include emissions from several subsectors, including air, marine, rail, and road. Road transportation emissions account for approximately 84% of transportation emissions. Emissions from road transportation have been increasing steadily over the past decade. Addressing emissions from road transportation is critical to meeting our greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. A comprehensive inventory is an important first step in a targeted emission reduction program, as we cannot measure progress without a baseline from which to measure against.
There are many ways to conduct a transportation inventory. While some municipalities use fuel sales data, others deploy traffic surveys or downscale larger national or provincial inventories. While all of these methods can provide insights into a community’s transportation emissions, comprehensive vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) is the most robust and accurate method available.
Through an agreement with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, Clean Air Partnership has secured vehicle registration data for all vehicles registered in Ontario from 2016-2020. Using this dataset and applying various statistical techniques, CAP can provide community-level VKT-based transportation inventories for use by Ontario municipalities (single tier, lower tier, or upper tier). For any municipality, vehicle kilometres travelled are provided by vehicle classification (car, light truck, medium truck, heavy truck) and by fuel type. Inventories include both passenger and freight vehicles. This data enables policymakers to identify the number of vehicles in their community, their travel distances and associated emissions, and to examine the growth of electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
For more information about the inventory, pricing and packages, please contact Kevin Behan, kbehan@cleanairpartnership.org