“Sustainable mobility” describes ways of moving people and goods around while avoiding environmental and societal damage, such as energy resource depletion, congestion, and air pollution. Achieving sustainable mobility is a decidedly interdisciplinary challenge requiring a perspective that combines environmental, mechanical, and transportation engineering with planning and other fields of study.

Figure 1. The sustainability crew is an interdisciplinary group that includes urban planners, computer scientists, businesspeople, and environmental, transportation, and mechanical engineers.

The goal of this project is to provide students with an interdisciplinary introduction to transportation and environmental modeling. We have developed the Sustainable Mobility Learning Lab, a web-based tool designed to support classroom and university outreach activities.

Linsey C. Marr1, Lisa A. Schweitzer2, John C. Linford3

1Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2Urban Affairs and Planning, 3Computer Science

Users design a race car by selecting from one of three engine types, six fuels, three road surfaces, and four weather conditions and then test their car on the race track.

Table 1. Example options that a user can select for a race car.

Acknowledgments: This work was supported by the American Honda Foundation.

Variable Option 1 Option 2

Engine type Internal combustion Fuel cell

Fuel Diesel Hydrogen

Road surface Concrete Asphalt

Weather conditions Calm winter Windy summer

Figure 2. Resulting concentrations of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in terms of air quality index (AQI) and parts per million (ppm) around the race track for each of the user’s options (Table 1).

Users can adjust the map to show results for different pollutants (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, noise, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds) and vehicle speeds (3-125 mph).

The practice of sustainable mobility requires highly interdisciplinary considerations that address all of the topics shown to the left, at a minimum.

The website explores each topic through a series of images (Figure 4), instructive text, and links to additional resources.

Sustainable Mobility Learning Labhttp://www.sustainablemobility.org.vt.edu

Figure 3. Lifecycle analysis for a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine showing the contribution to resource consumption and pollutant emissions by each stage of the fuel cycle: (1) extracting the raw form of the fuel (feedstock), (2) processing and transporting it (fuel), and (3) operating the vehicle.

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Figure 5. A calorie calculator allows users to compare how their transportation and activity choices affect their personal energy consumption.

Figure 4. Some of the myriad effects of our transportation systems include congestion, global warming, and oil spills.