About the Mobility-Impact simulator
ContextThe Mobility-Impact simulator was developed by the Juvene Foundation on behalf of the inter-cantonal platform énergie-environnement. It was created in 2014-2015 as part of an information campaign which included a collaboration with the Swiss French television RTS to produce educational videos alongside the simulator. In autumn 2019, a new version adapted to mobiles and including some additions and improvements was launched.
Objectives and use
The purpose of the Mobility-Impact is to raise public awareness on the many challenges of our mobility. It is aimed in particular at teenagers as well at the general public.
Unlike the many transports impact calculators available on the Internet, Mobility-Impact is quite entertaining and encourages people to question the sustainability of our transports.
Mobility-Impact is particularly interesting when “played” with others to create discussions and debates. Rather than providing ready-made answers, Mobility-Impact allows you to experience the influence of multiple factors and to nuance and even contradict some preconceived ideas. For example: is an electric car always ecological? Is the consumption/pollution per kilometre of a plane its main problem?
Results limitations
Although carried out with great scientific rigour, Mobility-Impact does not claim to replace existing online impact calculators. The results obtained should therefore not be used for professional purposes as they are based on many assumptions and orders of magnitude.
As the aim of Mobilty-Impact is essentially didactic, some unrealistic possibilities are allowed, such as travelling by plane from anywhere in the world or applying a Swiss electricity mix to trips taking place elsewhere in the world. Although they do not correspond to reality, these possibilities make it possible to experiment with hypotheses and encourage reflection. The results may therefore differ significantly from reality and it is up to the user to determine the level of credibility of the parameters he chooses for a journey.
Routes are based on the data transmitted by Google-maps. Missing or incomplete data from Google-Maps can, in some cases, lead to "surprising" journeys. For example, it is impossible to enter China by road, but it is possible to travel inside the country. Google-maps being updated constantly, the quality of information improves over time.
For professional assessments, various online calculators exist in Switzerland and abroad. Examples include mobitool, a joint project of SBB, Swisscom, BKW FMB Energy Ltd and Öbu with the support of SuisseEnergie: mobitool.
Calculation methods
Results in Mobility-Impact are always calculated per person. The number of people per vehicle therefore has a strong impact, since it allows consumption to be divided by the number of passengers.
For each mode of transport, the most credible available data have been taken into account, in particular from government sources or trustful independent organizations. In general, it is the cross-referencing of several sources that has made it possible to determine realistic orders of magnitude.
In Mobility-Impact only direct consumptions and impacts of transports are taken into account (e. g. not embodied energy/pollution of infrastructures/vehicles or embodied energy/pollution from fossil fuel extraction). By limiting calculations to direct impacts and using sources using the same principle, Mobility-Impact largely avoids the risk of distortion between results whose calculation methods would be too far apart to be validly compared.
As far as electricity is concerned, Mobility-Impact includes the pollution/ primary energy consumption necessary for its production. This makes it possible to take into account the importance of the "electricity mix".
While we can justify our calculation methods, it is always difficult to understand what other organizations are doing. Depending on the average values or the degree of precision chosen, but especially depending on the calculation limits (e. g. embodied energy, indirect pollution, etc.), results obtained in other online calculators may differ significantly from those of Mobility-Impact.
Supervision
Results in Mobility-Impact are always calculated per person. The number of people per vehicle therefore has a strong impact, since it allows consumption to be divided by the number of passengers.
For each mode of transport, the most credible available data have been taken into account, in particular from government sources or trustful independent organizations. In general, it is the cross-referencing of several sources that has made it possible to determine realistic orders of magnitude.
In Mobility-Impact only direct consumptions and impacts of transports are taken into account (e. g. not embodied energy/pollution of infrastructures/vehicles or embodied energy/pollution from fossil fuel extraction). By limiting calculations to direct impacts and using sources using the same principle, Mobility-Impact largely avoids the risk of distortion between results whose calculation methods would be too far apart to be validly compared.
As far as electricity is concerned, Mobility-Impact includes the pollution/ primary energy consumption necessary for its production. This makes it possible to take into account the importance of the "electricity mix".
While we can justify our calculation methods, it is always difficult to understand what other organizations are doing. Depending on the average values or the degree of precision chosen, but especially depending on the calculation limits (e. g. embodied energy, indirect pollution, etc.), results obtained in other online calculators may differ significantly from those of Mobility-Impact.
Supervision
- Plateforme Energie-Environnement
- Martin Reeve, Design and Coordination
- Mathias Krebs, Software Programming
- Jérôme Heu, Illustrations
- Tania Chytil, RTS-découverte
- Laure Michel, Sorane SA
- Pierre-André Magnin
- Michel Gaudry
- Google Maps
Based on Google Maps
Project group
