Photo by: Duane Daws
State-owned Transnet has developed a new app that allows users to calculate their carbon emissions savings when they elect to move their freight on rail instead of by road.
The carbon calculator app would also enable corporate reporting on transport carbon emissions.
As the owner and operator of the country’s rail network, Transnet has undertaken to increase its market share of freight movement by promoting a modal shift from road to rail and would report yearly on the associated carbon emission savings.
South Africa would introduce a carbon tax in 2016 to account for the environmental cost of greenhouse-gas emissions and incentivise the use of cleaner energy sources.
The proposed carbon tax rate was currently R120/t of carbon dioxide equivalent, to be levied by government on the use of fossil fuels.
Rail was three to four times more energy efficient than road per ton of cargo transported. It also offered a clean, safe and cheaper freight logistics solution through improved road safety, reduced road congestion and pollution and a lower cost of doing business.
Developed in collaboration with the Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering, based at the University of the Witwatersrand, the app’s primary purpose was to enable Transnet customers to calculate the carbon emissions benefit of moving specific tonnages of cargo in South Africa by rail instead of road.
The calculator applied the relevant rail tractive power – electric or diesel – of each route to calculate the carbon footprint of tonnage.
Users could select a specific origin and destination, the commodity type and its weight to calculate the emission savings.