Thursday, September 17, 2009

Car Versus Train

So Queensland Rail now have an Emissions Calculator for Citytrain trips. Just enter your start and finish stations, and it works out the emissions by train and by car - and how much pollution you saved by taking the train.


The train graphic adds a little something to the experience :)
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Update: With the changes to QR, the calculator is now located at http://www.queenslandrail.com.au/Community/Pages/Emissions.aspx

2 comments:

Stuart McMillen said...

I really wish that QR had a 'GreenPower' rail ticket option.

It would work in a similar way to buying GreenPower through your household energy provider. Commuters would pay a slightly higher fee for each ticket, with the knowledge that the electricity from their travel would be supplied from solar/wind/biomass/etc power sources.

Since the QR trains run on electricity, such a system would allow riders to directly support renewable energy that is directly connected to their behaviour (rather than through some indirect 'offsetting' agency).

david said...

Hi Stuart,

Nice idea. Particularly with the go cards, the additional fee could be charged automatically (if one chooses that option when getting the go card).

Also, the fee could be easily calculated as the go card system already tracks the number and length of the trips made by each card.

Good thinking!