Multi-Scale Model of the U.S. Transportation Energy Market for Policy Assessment - Part 1

Our current regulatory scheme for energy may not be viable as we turn to new energy sources including plug-in hybrid vehicles. By understanding the multitude of factors influencing market forces, this project will help assure that the regulatory actions by federal, state and local governments play a positive role in influencing the transportation energy market. Achievement of federal targets for alternative energy use will require large-scale infrastructure investment in: - New types of vehicles - Facilities for extraction, refining, and transportation of different alternative fuels - Biofuel feedstock production and transportation facilities - Fuel storage facilities - Fuel supply stations - Research and research facilities necessary to provide technological advances required for alternative fuels to be feasible The exact type of investment, and the utility and life-span of the resulting infrastructure, is sensitive to a wide variety of dynamic factors, including supply and usage of different alternative fuels, weather fluctuations, production of biofuel feedstocks, prices and supply of traditional fossil fuels, and public perception of environmental concerns. All of these various factors are closely integrated and are ultimately regulated by market forces. Regulatory actions by federal, state and local governments can play a critical role in influencing the transportation energy market, but because of the high degree of interdependency between the various factors that govern this market, it is difficult to predict the market consequences and sensitivity to any given regulatory change. The proposed research will develop an agent-based complex systems model for transportation energy usage. This model is intended to be used for development of optimal regulatory approaches for control of alternative energy usage and infrastructure investment. Two scales of modeling are considered - a city scale, in which the actions of agents represent choices made by individual users, and a national scale, in which agents represent the aggregate population of a town or city and the agent choices are made subject to a probability distribution representative of the choices of the city population.

• Record URL:
  http://www.uvm.edu/trc/university-transportation-center/utc-current-project-list/multi-scale-model-of-the-u-s-transportation-energy-market-for-policy-assessment/
• Supplemental Notes:
  • http://www.uvm.edu/~transctr/research/trc_reports/UVM-TRC-13-004.pdf

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $5549.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT06-G-0018

  022029

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Troy, Austin

  Aultman-Hall, Lisa

• Performing Organizations:

  UVM Transportation Center

  University of Vermont
  210 Colchester Avenue
  Burlington, VT  United States  05405
• Principal Investigators:

  Rizzo, Donna

  Marshall, Jeff

  Eppstein, Margaret

• Start Date: 20071001
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20080930
• Source Data: RiP Project 15276

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Alternate fuels; Biomass fuels; Energy consumption; Energy conversion; Infrastructure; Policy; Policy, legislation and regulation; Research projects; Sustainable development
• Uncontrolled Terms: Feedstocks; Transportation facilities
• Subject Areas: Energy; Public Transportation; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01569211
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: UVM Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: DTRT06-G-0018, 022029
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jul 2 2015 1:01AM