The Energy Efficient Mobility Systems (EEMS) Program envisions an affordable, efficient, safe, and accessible transportation future in which mobility is decoupled from energy consumption. The program will conduct early-stage R&D at the vehicle, traveler, and system levels, creating new knowledge, insights, tools, and technology solutions that increase mobility energy productivity for individuals and businesses.
EEMS supports research and development that investigates how disruptive forces such as automated, connected, electric and/or shared (ACES) vehicles will impact energy consumption in transportation. It also helps communities determine how they can plan for and encourage energy efficiency increases in mobility. For example, a VTO-funded paper showed that the disruption that connectivity and automation brings to the transportation sector could result in a potential 200% increase in 2050 baseline energy consumption, or a 60% decrease in energy use. Increases could be caused by many factors, including easier travel and more accessibility, whereas harnessing connected and automated technologies to enable ride sharing, drive smoothing, and vehicle resizing, could decrease energy consumption. EEMS will be working with researchers and different stakeholders and communities to better understand how to make use of ACES technologies to make mobility more energy efficient.
SMART Mobility Consortium:
Argonne National Lab
Idaho National Lab
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
National Renewable Energy Lab
Oak Ridge National Lab
EEMS work operates in a continuous feedback loop between research and development (R&D), analysis and modeling, and real-world living labs. R&D activities are focused on scalable smart mobility projects that identify system-level opportunities to significantly increase the energy efficiency of the movement of people and goods. The Systems and Modeling for Accelerated Research in Transportation (SMART) Mobility Consortium is an effort led by five Department of Energy national laboratories that aims to deliver new EEMS data, analysis, and modeling tools, and create new knowledge to support smarter mobility systems. Living labs projects demonstrate and assess the return on investment of mobility systems that reduce energy consumption while delivering the benefits of new mobility technology, and provide critical real-world data to inform EEMS R&D efforts. EEMS also coordinates with other programs within the Department of Energy such as Clean Cities and ARPA-E, as well as the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce.
EEMS Research
Nearly 30 Energy Efficient Mobility Systems presentations from DOE’s Annual Merit Review (AMR) that was held in June 2017 in Washington, DC, are now accessible online. The projects included topics on connected and automated vehicles, advanced fueling infrastructure, mobility decision science, urban science, and multi-modal transportation.