Improved methodology for the calculated monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions from the activities of road and off-road transport in the Russian Federation

A methodology is proposed to obtain consistent and coherent estimates of greenhouse gas and precursor gas emissions from road transport and off-road vehicles and to quantify their accuracy and uncertainty. Accuracy increase of the estimates is achieved by detailing the initial data, reflecting the specific features of the national vehicle fleet structure and transport activity indicators, for which a wide range of statistical, probabilistic and expert methods are used. Using the methodology implemented in the “Transport Model” software product, it is possible to reconstruct time series of emissions for previous periods with an assessment of their accuracy and uncertainties, as well as to perform scenario modelling in order to forecast future emissions. The methodology was used to obtain quantitative estimates of three types of greenhouse gases emissions and three precursor gases from road transport and off-road vehicles for the period of 2010 to 2022, to compare the results with National Inventory data, to produce emission estimates for four categories of off-road vehicles for the first time, and to estimate fuel consumption and changes in the number of vehicles of all categories for the period of 1990 to 2022. An information array containing official statistical data on indirect indicators of transport activity by vehicle category for the period of 1990 to 2022 was compiled, the results of the emissions calculations were compared with the indirect indicators using multiple regression methods, and the accuracy and uncertainties of these results were quantitatively assessed. The estimated greenhouse gas emissions were considered as random values for which a confidence interval was calculated as an indicator of uncertainty and a median correction as an indicator of accuracy. The high quality of the results of the calculations based on the methodology considered was confirmed.