Evaluating air emission inventories and indicators from ferry vessels at ports

This paper provides an estimation of exhaust emissions released by passenger ferries at the port-level. The methodology is based on the “full bottom-up” approach and starts by evaluating the fuel consumed by marine diesel engines on the basis of its individual port-activities (manoeuvring, berthing and hoteling). Specific air emissions are estimated as regards to the different propulsion sources: main engine, auxiliary engines, thrusters and boilers. The Port of Barcelona was selected as the site at which to perform the analysis, in which 25 passenger ferries operating in the Mediterranean Sea were monitored. Real-time data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), factor emissions from engine certificates, engine loads during port time, and vessel characteristics from IHS-Sea web database were also collected for the analysis. The research findings will improve our understanding of local pollution at port-cities and help to derive appropriate measures to improve air quality. of providing a comprehensive analysis of ship engine exhaust emissions in a wide region that contains numerous Australian ports. Tichavska and Tovar (2015) used Automatic Identification System (AIS) data and the Ship Traffic Assessment Modee (STEAM) emission model to calculate emissions from cruise ships and ferries in Las Palmas Port. Chang et al. (2013) calculated the emissions from ships in the port of Incheon, Korea, and compared a bottom-up approach with a top down approach and found large discrepancies. Winnes et al. (2015) built a model that calculates GHG emissions from ships in various scenarios for individual ports and different kinds of measures for emission reductions. Maragkogianni and Papaefthimiou (2015) presented a “bottom-up” estimation based on the detailed individual activities of cruise ships in the Greek ports of Piraeus, Mykonos, Santorini, Katakolo and Corfu and Dragovic et al. (2015) estimated ship exhaust emission inventories and their externalities in the Adriatic ports of Dubrovnik (Croatia) and Kotor (Montenegro) for the period 2012–2014. The methodology for emission estimation relied on the distinction of various activity phases (manoeuvring and berth/anchorage) performed by each cruise ship call (bottom-up) as a function of energy consumption during each activity multiplied by an emission factor. The present paper proposes a methodology based on the full bottom-up approach and begins by evaluating the fuel consumed by each vessel on the basis of its individual port-activities (manoeuvring, berthing and hoteling) and differentiating between the main vessel propulsion, auxiliary propulsion, boilers and thrusters. Unlike previous studies, the input data model is based on empirical data and extended work field (only Cooper (2001) make emission measurements of passenger ferries, but it such case it was on-board during normal service routes) and, on the other hand, it also provides accurate emission indicators (rates per hour, per passenger, per Gross Tonnage (GT) or a combination of all three) for passenger ferries, which can be used by other researches to reliably and quickly estimate emission inventories in other ports at the port-level.