Real-Time Data Collection for Product Carbon Footprints in Transportation

Processes Based on OBD2 and Smartphones

Hendrik Hilpert
University of Gttingen
Institute for Information Systems
hhilper@uni-goettingen.de
Lars Thoroe
University of Gttingen
Institute for Information Systems
lthoroe@uni-goettingen.de
Matthias Schumann
University of Gttingen
Institute for Information Systems
mschuma1@uni-goettingen.de


Abstract
Calculating product carbon footprints (PCF) is a
central function of Environmental Management
Information Systems (EMIS). Collecting accurate data
for EMIS in general and PCF in particular is a critical
issue. Nowadays, emission data of transportation
processes are mostly based on averages and
estimations, as data on actual emissions of
transportation processes are costly to collect. In this
paper, we propose a cost-efficient system for real-time
data gathering for PCF in transportation processes
based on vehicle on-board systems and smartphones.
We present the system architecture, outline the
application logic and based on a generic multi-
echelon transportation network we specify its
application and integration into EMIS.

1. Introduction

The global greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted due to
human activities increased by 70 percent between 1970
and 2004, whereby carbon dioxide (CO
2
) is the most
important anthropogenic GHG. It represents
approximately 77 percent of the GHG emitted in total
in 2004 [1], illustrating why most climate change
mitigations focus on CO
2
emissions. The German
industry, for an example, emitted a total amount of 700
million tons of carbon dioxide in the year 2004 [2].
The transportation of goods alone is responsible for
more than 22 percent of the total CO
2
emissions in the
German industry [3], mainly caused by tailpipe
emissions of transportation vehicles.
Companies started to measure and report their
GHG emissions for legal, social, political and
monetary reasons [4; 5; 6] in order to become more
sustainable [7]. The product carbon footprint (PCF) has
grown in popularity over the past ten years and is seen
as suitable for reporting greenhouse gas emissions over
the complete life-cycle of products [8].
As mentioned above, transportation processes,
which occur frequently during a products life, are
emission-intensive. At present the calculation of PCFs
in the transportation process is done in environmental
management information systems (EMIS) using life-
cycle databases that contain average values obtained
from standard drive-cycles or fuel consumption
estimations [9]. These data do not provide accurate
values for PCF calculations [10], when considering
that in practice an instance of a product underlies an
individual transportation process. A specific process
depends on a variety of factors affecting the real
emissions, e. g. the traffic situation, the driving
behavior or failed first-time deliveries. One way of
deriving exact calculations for a specific transportation
process of a specific product is to equip vehicles with
costly add-on gas-analyzers. In this paper, we present
an alternative approach based on existing on-board
diagnostics (OBD2), a Bluetooth interface and a
smartphone. We are able to calculate PCFs for
transportation processes of specific products with these
components.
The paper is organized as follows. In section two
we present related research, summarizing earlier works
on EMIS, vehicle telematics and vehicle emission
gathering with OBD2 and external gas-analyzers. In
section three we present basics on the product carbon
footprint and its calculation. Section four gives an
overview about the proposed system architecture by
explaining the process scope, the data collection and
the calculation of PCFs. The paper ends with a
conclusion in section five.

2. Related research

The related research section is divided into three
parts. First, we present related work on environmental
management information systems and point out some
issues with data collection for EMIS. We then focus on
technical aspects regarding data collection for
transportation processes. We present previous work on
vehicle telematics, GPS and smartphones in the
domain of fleet management. The third section shows
Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2011
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related work that investigates the usage of OBD2 and
external gas-analyzers in order to obtain vehicle GHG
emissions.

EMIS
Page & Rautenstrauch (2001) define EMIS as
organizational-technical systems for systematically
obtaining, processing and making environmentally
relevant information available in companies [11].
Isenmanns (2008) definition is similar, with the
exception that EMIS are socio-technological systems
that are in exchange with other industry actors [12].
Teuteberg & Straenburg (2009) present a systematic
literature review on EMIS [13], where they classify
EMIS into different system types which provide
business functionality with different scopes, e. g.
environmental accounting and reporting or life-cycle
assessment (LCA). Furthermore El-Gayar and Fritz
(2006) conclude that EMIS faces different information
technology issues, e. g. enterprise system integration
and real-time data acquisition [14]. The integration of
EMIS in business environment is analyzed in various
papers [15; 16; 17; 18] and is seen as important,
because a combination (enterprise and environmental
data) is mostly needed for the EMIS business
functionality. For that reason Krcmar et al. (2000), as
an example, provide a reference model [17] and Funk
et al. (2009) developed a reference architecture which
integrates EMIS into enterprise resource planning
(ERP) systems [18]. The data acquisition issue is also
identified as important, especially the granularity and
availability of environmental data in business
environment is low [19]. Environmental data are
highly distributed, heterogeneous, often uncertain and
fuzzy as well as spatial and time relative, posing
processing and storage requirement questions [14]. In
most publications this issue is considered only at the
edge, accepting that the availability of primary
environmental data is low. Instead secondary data are
obtained from external databases [18].

Vehicle telematics and GPS
Cassis and Kun (2007) conducted a literature
review on the topic of vehicle telematics [20]. They
conclude that the main topics in the domain of vehicle
telematics are navigation, remote diagnostics, fleet
management, safety, information access, context
awareness and mobile commerce. Chatterjee (2006)
and Work & Bayen (2008) state that GPS location data
are most effective for obtaining real-time vehicle data
for traffic monitoring and fleet management [21; 22]
and several more papers (from academia and industry)
deal with GPS data in this context [23; 24; 25; 26].
Boulmakoul et al. (1999) and Schfer et al. (2002)
developed fleet monitoring systems using GPS data in
order to calculate realistic travel time and optimal
routes [23; 24]. Other authors, e. g. Parkash &
Kulkarni (2003) and Derekenagis et al. (2001), provide
similar systems, using additional graphical information
systems (GIS), in order to show the location of single
vehicles in a fleet [25; 26]. Jung et al. (2006) and Gosh
et al. (2007) extend these combinations with
smartphones, enabling real-time information flow
between the route optimizing software and the vehicles
[27; 28].

OBD2 and vehicle emissions
Several publications about OBD2 exist, dealing
with the question of which real-time data can be
obtained from a vehicle, e. g. [29; 30; 31; 32]. In the
context of obtaining GHG emissions in vehicles,
OBD2 is often used in combination with external gas-
analyzers and vehicle telematics [33; 34; 35; 36; 37].
Merkisz et al. (2008) developed such a conceptual
system which is able to measure greenhouse gas
emissions of a vehicle [33]. They use a mobile toxic
analyzer, combined with on board diagnostic data and
GPS. Ochieng et al. [34] developed a system called
vehicle performance and emissions measuring system
(VPEMS) by combining data from several emission
sensors, GPS modules and OBD2 vehicle sensors.
Gonalves & Farias (2005) conducted real experiments
with two cars recording fuel consumption, air flow
rate, position and emission data with a laptop
computer. The data were derived via the OBD-port (air
flow rate), via a fuel flow meter (fuel consumption),
via external GPS-System and an external gas analyzer.
The results show that air flow data can accurately be
converted to CO
2
emission data [36]. Micknaitis et al.
(2007) furthermore state that there is a linear
dependency [37].

None of the cited works propose to obtain real-time
CO
2
emission data directly via OBD2. Furthermore
these data are not used in combination with GPS
location data in order to calculate the PCF for a
specific transportation process of a product in an
integrated EMIS. It is this combination we intend in
this paper.

3. Carbon footprint calculation: concept
and procedure

The term carbon footprint (CF) is widely discussed
in practical and academic literature. There is a wide
range of definitions of the term, differing mostly with
regards to subject matter and ways of calculation.
There are several literature reviews about the definition
of carbon footprints (e. g. [38; 8; 39]). Wiedmann and
Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2011
2
Minx (2007) conclude that the carbon footprint is a
measure of the exclusive total amount of carbon
dioxide emissions that is directly and indirectly caused
by an activity or is accumulated over the life stages of
a product" [38]. East (2008) states that there are
different subjects for reporting carbon footprints [8]:
One approach aims at the calculation of carbon
footprints for entire companies, others deal with
countries, processes or products. On the product-level,
emissions are accumulated across all stages of a
product, e. g. the entire life-cycle of a product. The
product-level approach further one will be denoted as a
product carbon footprint.
However, two main issues are important: the units
and the scope of measurement. The unit of
measurement involves the question whether CF is
expressed by area-based units, tied to the natural
regenerative capacity of the environment, or by ton of
gaseous emissions. The majority of the definitions
analyzed by East connect the carbon footprint with the
measurement of gaseous emissions. Furthermore, there
is no consensus whether only carbon dioxide should be
included or whether it should be extended to a variety
of greenhouse gases expressed in CO
2
equivalents.
Most mitigations, however, focus on CO
2
only [39].
The scope of measurement defines which type of
emissions (direct/indirect) should be accounted for.
Three scopes are differentiated [8]: Scope one is
related to direct emissions occurring within the
organizational boundary of a company. The second
scope is related to indirect emissions that are produced
by purchased energy and scope three accounts for all
emissions that occur as a result of purchased products
or services from secondary companies.
The calculation of carbon footprints is described in
guidelines, e. g. of the British Standard Institution
(BSI) [40] or Carbon Trust [41]. The BSI guideline is a
basis for the assessment of carbon footprints, focused
on emissions on product level. In this guideline, the
process of PCF calculation is structured in five steps
[40]. The first step is to identify all materials, activities
and processes contributing, to a given product. A
product process map for the complete life cycle of the
product (cradle-to-grave) is the outcome of this step
(Product life-cycle is shown in Fig. 1).
In the second step boundaries and prioritizations
are defined, i. e. which life-cycle stages should be
included in the assessment. The third step deals with
data collection. The guidelines contain a description on
how to collect the necessary data for the PCF and
describe the data quality rules to be met. Two types of
data are necessary: Activity data and emission factors.
Activity data refers to all material and energy amounts
involved in the products life cycle, e. g. material
inputs and outputs, energy used or gas emissions.
Activity data can be gathered from primary or
secondary sources. While primary sources refer to
direct measurements for the product, secondary sources
refer to external measurements, e. g. emission
databases. Whenever possible, primary data should be
preferred. Emission factors are defined as emission
equivalents per unit, e. g. CO
2
equivalent per liter of
fuel. The data quality is defined by five rules. The
relevance rule postulates that sources, data and
methods should be appropriate and the completeness
rule states that all GHG emissions that contribute to a
products life cycle should be included. Furthermore
the data should be consistent in comparisons and
transparent to third parties. Recently the data should
accurate with less uncertainty.
The fourth step is the calculation, where the
gathered activity data are multiplied by the emission
factors for the specified product in all identified stages
of the life-cycle. The fifth step is to check the
uncertainty of the product carbon footprint. This step is
optional in the guidelines but provides two typical
sources of uncertainty in calculating the PCF. The first
is technical uncertainty, caused by limited data quality,
incorrect assumptions and incomplete modeling. The
second one is natural variability, which is accounted
for by a representative figure, so it does not need to be
quantified. By fulfilling the data quality principles the
uncertainty can be reduced enormously, e. g. using
primary data by direct measurements to improve the
PCF or using a more detailed calculation.

4. Conceptual system for calculating real-
time PCF in transportation processes

We roughly structure this section according to the
phases proposed by the above-mentioned BSI and
other guidelines.
Following the BSI steps, we define the analyzed
process and boundaries in section 4.1. In section 4.2
we present our data collection system, which is able to
obtain real-time data from the vehicle fleet instead of
using average values from a database. We first describe
the system structure and then the concrete process of
real-time data gathering using a component and an
activity diagram. Section 4.3 presents the calculation of
the PCF for the identified process. The fifth step of
checking uncertainties is handled in section 4.4.

Figure 1: Product life-cycle
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4.1. Process and boundaries

In this section we identify the process and
boundaries (step one and two, see section 3) for the
product carbon footprint calculation. The product life-
cycle (shown in Fig. 1) usually involves a number of
transport processes, which contribute significantly to
the product carbon footprint [3].
Due to its significant influence we focus on the
transport processes in product life-cycles (step one).
We do not calculate the PCF for a specific product but
rather provide a generic calculation system for all
transport processes.
In many cases, the transport processes do not
simply consist of single shipments, but involve rather
complex sequences of multiple transport, storage,
handling and transfer processes. Consider for instance
the so-called last mile of delivering products from
online shops to end customers by courier [9]. Another
example is the supply of retail stores with fast-moving
consumer goods, which may be shipped via multiple
stages (e. g. from the factory to distributing
warehouses to distribution centers and finally to the
retail stores).
We developed a conceptual transport process model
using nodes and edges as shown in Fig. 2. The
transport processes in the product life-cycle are shown
as a graph with routes going through several nodes
(denoted as L
i
, i = 1,,n). If there are shipments
between two nodes L
i
and L
j
, we denote the connecting
route as p
i,j
(i,j =1,...,n). Finally, as we want to
calculate emissions not for the route on average, but
for individual tours on the routes, the single tours on a
route have to be numbered. p
ijk
denotes the k-th tour on
route p
ij
. This conceptual process model is able
represent all kinds of transportation processes in a
product life-cycle, e. g. the last mile transports by
modeling a roundtrip via several nodes or complex
retail store supply via multiple stages.

Figure 2: Conceptual transport process
Having defined the process to be analyzed in the
following section, we determine the scope for the PCF
by setting the boundaries of the calculation (step two).
Following the definitions of Brewer (2009) we include
only carbon dioxide emissions [39], instead of all
greenhouse gases in order to initially demonstrate our
approach. Furthermore we analyze the materiality of
emissions in the transportation process. Direct
emissions in transport processes are tailpipe emissions
produced when the fuel is consumed by transport
vehicles. Indirect emissions in this process are all
emissions that emerge in the fuel production, e. g.
emissions of oil refineries. The material emissions
sources are the direct emissions, because they are
versatile as opposed to the indirect ones. Because of
that, we initially decided to include only direct
emissions in the calculation. Finally we follow the BSI
guideline by excluding immaterial emission sources.
The transportation process of a consumer to a retail
outlet in accordance with the BSI is immaterial.

4.2. Data collection diagrams

In this section, we propose a conceptual system for
the real-time emission data collection of products
during transportation processes instead of using
average values from databases.
We assume that the company executing a specific
transportation process owns a fleet of vehicles, which
is not equipped with GPS on-board units. Note that if
this assumption is dropped, the system design can be
adapted easily to the use of on-board units.
Furthermore, the vehicles are equipped with OBD2-to-
Bluetooth interfaces and the drivers are equipped with
smartphones in order to collect data from the vehicle
and automatically send them to the company servers.
The smartphones are also used as navigation systems
for the drivers. In comparison to the systems cited in
the literature review (Section 2), which are based on
external gas-analyzers, the proposed system is more
cost efficient because there is no need of extra
equipment, except the mentioned smartphone and the
OBD2-to-Bluetooth interface.
The proposed system is shown in Fig. 3. It is
depicted as a component model and includes three
main system parts, namely the vehicle, a smartphone,
and an enterprise information system (EIS). These
three parts of the system will be explained shortly in
the following:
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Vehicle:
The system components in the vehicle consist of
the controller area network (CAN)-bus-system and the
OBD2-to-Bluetooth interface. On-board diagnostics
were established in the 1980s and standardized in 1991
by Robert Bosch GmbH, introducing the CAN-Bus
(ISO 11898) [42; 43]. Since 2008 the CAN-Bus is the
only authorized interface for on-board diagnostic,
especially for emission control systems and is used by
nearly all personal and commercial vehicle
manufacturers [44].
CAN is a bitstream-oriented line-bus with a
maximum speed of 1 MBit/s, which consists of two
different line-systems and a set of nodes [29; 45]. The
nodes, connected to the bus system, are sensors that
belong to different automotive subsystems (e. g.
powertrain, safety and chassis). The connection to
vehicle-external-systems is implemented by a bus
gateway, associated with a port/socket, which is also
standardized in ISO 15031-3 and SAE J1962
specifications [46] and can be typically found in the
footwell of cars and trucks passenger cabins [42].
Error-codes, real-time data and freeze-data
(protocolled data from the bus-system) can be obtained
via the connection port to external systems. The real-
time data from the powertrain subsystem, e. g. vehicle
speed, engine RPM and MAF air flow rate [47], are
especially interesting for measuring the actual state of
a vehicle at a specific time. The MAF data, for
instance, provide grams of air per second and can be
used to draw inferences about the fuel consumption
respective the CO
2
emissions of a vehicle (explanation
about this coherence in section 4.3). We will use these
real-time data in our system.
The OBD2-port of the CAN-bus in our system is
connected with an additional OBD2-to-Bluetooth
interface. This interface is composed of a
microcontroller for interpreting the CAN-data stream
and a Bluetooth module that sends the data via
Bluetooth. In our system, this is the interface to the
smartphone.

Smartphone:
For our system, we assume a typical smartphone
equipped with GPS-, Bluetooth- and GSM/UMTS-
modules. GPS is used for deriving the vehicles current
positioning data. The Bluetooth adapter receives the
data from the OBD2-to-Bluetooth interface. The data
which is derived from the two modules have to be
saved temporarily on the smartphone. The
GSM/UMTS component, as the third module, has the
task of sending the data derived from GPS and OBD2
via cellular network to the enterprise information
system. A small application for the smartphone is
necessary, which gathers the data, stores them on the
smartphone and sends them to the enterprise
information system. Furthermore the application
provides navigation functions for the proposed route.

Enterprise information system:
The enterprise information system consists of two
layers, an application-layer and a database-layer. From
a high-level perspective, the application layer includes
two application types: enterprise resource planning and
environmental management information systems. The
application layer is responsible for computing
operations and aggregating data. The database-layer
includes a communication interface and the enterprise
database, which represents the general base for data
storage in the enterprise information system. The
communication interface has the task of sending and
receiving data to/from the fleet smartphones.
Besides an ERP core system, the ERP component
contains several different applications, e. g. a fleet
management module, which is used to plan and
organize the transportation processes. The EMIS
Figure 3: Component diagram for the data collection system
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component contains a reporting module and a life-
cycle assessment module [13; 48], in order to facilitate
the companys environmental accounting activities [4].
These EMIS modules are used to calculate a PCF using
the environmental data collected and are able to report
them to internal and external parties.
The proposed system is described in detail in an
activity diagram, which is shown in Figure 4. The
activity diagram shows a transportation process with
focus on data collection. The transportation process
starts when the driver enters his vehicle and the cargo
loading is completed. He then connects his personal
smartphone to the vehicle and switches on the ignition.
While initializing the OBD2-to-Bluetooth interface, the
driver starts the application on his smartphone. The
application initializes the GPS-receiver, connects via
GSM with the corporate enterprise information system
and requests the purposed transportation job data by an
ID, which we assume to be stored when loading the
vehicle. The EIS uses the job ID to store the start time
and to collect the relevant tour data from the database.
When the data collection is successfully completed, the
EIS relays the addresses and the route plan to the
smartphone. The application on the smartphone then
generates the route from the derived data and shows it
on a map with navigation support. After all data-
exchange is completed the driver starts the engine. The
OBD2-to-Bluetooth interface starts to gather air-flow
data from the vehicle, transferring it via Bluetooth to
the smartphone. In a second step the smartphone
receives GPS data and combines air flow data with
GPS data and buffers them locally on the smartphone.
When the buffering of both data is done the
smartphone sends the data to the EIS, which stores it in
the database. This part of the activity flow is repeated
until the driver arrives at his first destination. He stops
the engine and unloads the cargo. Once the engine is
turned off, the data gathering is interrupted and the
program waits for termination. If no termination by the
driver occurs, the program waits until the engine is
turned on again. When the driver continues the tour the
data collection proceeds as well.
If the transportation process is completed and the
vehicle is back in the depot the driver terminates the
program, which finally sends a termination signal to
the EIS. The EIS stores the stop time in the database.
With the proposed system explained in the component
and activity diagram, we are able to collect the
Figure 4: Activity diagram for the data collection system
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following data:
- air flow rate data in grams per second
- GPS location data per second
- start/stop time of the transport stored in EIS
Using these data, the system is then able to calculate
emission data for transport units. This will be
explained in detail in the following section.

4.3. PCF calculation model

In this section we describe the calculation of the
PCF, within the scope of transportation processes,
using the data derived by our conceptual system
presented in section 4.2. This calculation will be
realized in five steps in the EIS environment using the
job data from ERP-modules, the gathered air-flow rate
data and the GPS location data from the vehicles stored
in the database.
The first step is to obtain the specific job data, e. g.
start/stop address, the exact weight of the transport unit
and overall weight of the complete truck load, from the
ERP system. Matching the start/stop addresses with the
obtained GPS data in a geographical information
system, it is possible to partition a complete tour in
subsections and to assign the measured data from the
vehicle to exactly one subsection.
The second step is to calculate activity data (fuel
consumption) and an emission factor (carbon dioxide
emission per consumed fuel) for further calculations.
The first part of this step is to calculate the fuel
consumption per second. We do this by using the air-
flow rate data received from the MAF-sensor. Some
considerations are necessary for this part:
A typical vehicle uses the air-flow data from the
MAF sensor to control the fuel-injection of the engine
by the stoichiometric ratio for air vs. fuel (this ratio is
defined as 14.7:1 for grams of air to grams of fuel
[35]). In consequence the fuel consumption per second
can be derived by dividing the grams of air per second
by 14.7 (the stoichiometric value will be labeled as r
s

in the following).
The second part of this step is to derive an emission
factor for the vehicle, which consumed fuel. This
emission factor can be calculated by the following
considerations:
The chemical combustion equation delivers a
relation of combusted fuel in liters to displaced carbon
dioxides in kilograms. This relation is defined as 1 liter
regular gasoline results in 2.33 kg direct carbon
dioxide emissions and 1 liter diesel gas results in
2.64 kg carbon emissions (Note: by using another
emission factor we are able to include indirect
emissions but this may increase the uncertainty, caused
through estimated values) [49; 37]. To convert this
relation to a gram to gram relation, we use the middle
specific weights of normal gas and diesel gas, defining
the number of grams converted to one liter. The
conversion results in 1 l of regular gasoline being
747.5 g and 1 l diesel gas being 832.5 g [50]. In
conclusion we derive an emission factor of carbon
dioxide emissions for one gram of fuel (1 g normal fuel
= 3.l12 g CO
2
, 1 g diesel fuel = 3.17 g of CO
2
). These
constants are denoted as c
f
. With the previous
considerations we are able to calculate the carbon
dioxide emissions per second of one vehicle:
f
s
t
t
c
r
MAF
CO = 2

The third step is to sum up all carbon dioxide
emissions per second in a specific tour in order to get
an overall value for each subsection. The duration of
the k-th tour on the route p
ij
is denoted as T
ijk.

=
=
ijk
T
t
t ijk
CO S
1
2

Once the CO
2
emissions have been calculated for
the complete tour, they can now be apportioned to
units of the vehicle load (step four). In most cases, it is
reasonable to apportion the emissions according to the
weight (tonnage) of the transport units. The exact
weight of the specific load and the overall weight of
the complete load allow us to assign a fraction of total
emissions to a specific unit. For each unit which is part
of the load of the k-th tour of a sub-section, the fraction
of total emissions which is assigned to the unit is given
by u
ijk
.
Using these data, we can now calculate the PCF for
a products transportation processes (step five). For the
sake of a simple presentation of the calculation, we
introduce a dummy variable:

J
]k
= _
1, i proJuct wos port o p
]k
u, clsc


The PCF is then given by
.
1 1

= = =
N
i
N
i j
K
k
ijk ijk ijk
d S u


Note that tours without load (empty miles) are so
far not considered in this calculation. However,
emission data stemming from these tours is collected
and can later be assigned to the load of adjacent tours.
We assume an EMIS life-cycle assessment module as
the computation application for the previous explained
five steps, which needs to be extended with our
calculation model. An EMIS reporting module then
could be applied to report the PCF for the
Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2011
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transportation process to potential stakeholders in
sustainability reports or single statements about the
emissions for one product.

4.4. Checking uncertainties

Checking uncertainties, the fifth step of the BSI
guideline, is an optional phase in the PCF process. The
goal is to identify sources of uncertainties and ways to
reduce them. An important measure to improve data
quality is to replace secondary data with good quality
primary activity data, e. g. replace an estimated
electricity consumption factor with actual
measurements from a line sub-meter [40, p. 34]. In
our proposed system, the calculation is based on real-
time data, thus providing very high data quality. In
comparison to other PCF calculations, which use
secondary average values for the transportation
process, our approach comprises low technical
uncertainty. The conceptual process map in section 4.1
allows us to model the transportation process for a
specific product in a very detailed way. The model is
kept very general and is based on only a few
assumptions, which means that it can represent all
kinds of transportation processes.

5. Conclusion and outlook

In this paper we propose a system for calculating
the PCF of individual products transportation
processes. The system combines OBD2 real-time data
gathering with GPS and a smartphone in order to
provide high quality data for the PCF calculation. We
then show how this system enables the calculation of
actual emission data for individual products. The
system design as described in this paper will be the
basis for future research:
- In future research the conceptual system has to be
implemented as a prototype system. In this context, a
smartphone client software has to be developed.
Moreover, a matching data transferring method in the
mobile internet has to be selected, which enables
consistent data transfers between the smartphone and
EIS. In addition, the enterprise information system
has to be adjusted. There is need for a concrete
interface implementation for data transfer. Finally,
the calculation methods need to be implemented in
the EMIS. Adjustment is also needed for this step .

- Once the prototype is implemented, we will conduct
tests with several vehicles. Therefore, test data have
to be generated, representing specific transport
processes in a products lifetime. Using the collected
data we will check the developed concept.

- Furthermore, the data quality of this initial concept
might be increased by expanding it to other GHGs,
which accrue in vehicle fleets. This issue is not
necessary as long as PCFs can be defined by
measuring carbon dioxide only. Moreover indirect
emissions need to be included in the calculation. This
could be done by changing the emission factors. In
order to provide perfect calculation methods, indirect
CO
2
emissions and other gases could be included, as
they also have an impact on the environment.

In future, the calculation method may be used in
environmental decision support systems (EDSS) and
fleet management systems in order to fulfill combined
economic and ecologic route planning decisions, e. g.
the reduction of costs and emissions. In order to follow
the triple bottom line approach, our concept could be a
step towards a more sustainable development in the
transportation branch.

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