An Update on Public Transportation's Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Transportation is a major source of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are causing climate change. As communities work to cut emissions and become more resilient, they are including public transportation advances as a significant part of their climate action strategies.

The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Board's TCRP Research Report 226: An Update on Public Transportation's Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions provides updated national analysis of public transportation’s role as a climate solution by documenting its 2018 GHG impacts.

Supplemental materials to the report include three factsheets (Fact Sheet 1, Fact Sheet 2, and Fact Sheet 3); various key findings regarding transit as a climate solution; a PowerPoint presentation summarizing the findings and research and a template for transit agencies to add their own data for climate communications; and a simple spreadsheet tool that provides this study’s 2018 GHG impact findings by transit agency and allows the user to apply several of the future scenarios to see how their transit agency’s GHG impacts change with electrification, clean power, and ridership increases.