Decrease of the Maximum Speed in Highway Tunnels as a Measure to Foster Energy Savings and Sustainability

The high energy consumption of the lighting installations in highway tunnels has become a hot topic in the last few years due to the high figures in terms of money, consumed energy, use of raw materials, emissions of greenhouse gases due to the remarkable number of manufactured elements, and mainten...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 12; no. 4; p. 685
Main Authors Peña-García, Antonio, Salata, Ferdinando, Golasi, Iacopo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 20.02.2019
Subjects
Carbon dioxide
CO2 emissions
Construction
Consumption
Emissions
Energy
Energy conservation
Energy consumption
Energy measurement
energy savings
environmental impact
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Hypotheses
Installation
Lighting
Mountains
Projectors
Raw materials
Reflectance
Regulation
road safety
Roads & highways
Sustainability
Traffic accidents & safety
Traffic flow
Traffic speed
Transition zone
Tunnels
Spain
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Summary:The high energy consumption of the lighting installations in highway tunnels has become a hot topic in the last few years due to the high figures in terms of money, consumed energy, use of raw materials, emissions of greenhouse gases due to the remarkable number of manufactured elements, and maintenance, among others. In spite of the different strategies proposed up to date and their savings, the potential benefits of decreasing the maximum speed allowed in tunnels have not been considered in depth as a complementary measure yet. In this work, the impact of such a decrease in terms of energy consumption, number projectors, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and yearly costs in energy is analyzed and discussed. The results strongly suggest the convenience of introducing maximum speed reduction in traffic regulations which, in addition, could create positive synergies with traffic safety.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en12040685