TRX, Others Refine Carbon Analysis

TRX Travel Analytics this week plans to unveil at the Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference in Munich an air travel carbon analysis tool that measures emissions per flight at the point of sale and aggregates companywide air data.

TRX's tool is one of a handful of such new travel technology products. GetThere last month introduced online booking tool enhancements that measure carbon emission data, identify green suppliers, offer dynamic messaging to relay policies and link such travel alternatives as remote conferencing suppliers. Meanwhile, Prism Group refined for corporate clients a carbon calculator it introduced this summer.

TRX's tool ranks carriers on given routes by emissions, enabling users to see which would leave the smallest carbon footprint, while an air inventory aggregator uses agency data to calculate companywide air travel carbon footprints.

Travel Analytics determines carbon emissions by inputting data on variables including flight length and aircraft age, fuel burn rates, class of service and seat configuration, said applications manager Tom Tomosky. Economy seats take up less aircraft real estate, he said, and therefore yield a smaller carbon footprint per passenger.

"A lot of these types of calculators are pretty crude in the sense that they take the mileage between whatever citypairs and apply a constant factor," Tomosky said.

The tool pulls airline schedule and fleet data from Back Aviation Solutions, seat pitch and width data from SeatGuru and uses the Emission Inventory Guidebook issued by a subset of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, among other data sources. TRX said it also would continue to refine the tool and plans to include freight data from the International Civil Aviation Organization and measure cargo's share of an aircraft's emissions.

"What we've done is build the most sophisticated model we can," Tomosky said. "We start with scheduled flights, and for each we know the specific aircraft being flown and the average number of seats and configuration for that particular carrier equipment. We know the fuel burn rates from 2006 data for a large variety of aircraft. Taken with the mileage, we can come up with very specific CO2 emission figures."

Vice president and general manager of Travel Analytics Scott Gillespie said several clients are accessing the reports. Most are focusing on aggregating data to measure air travel's impact on the company's carbon footprint, he said.

Gillespie said reports give several indicators, including the overall carbon footprint by air and what it would have been had travelers used best-in-class carriers on each citypair. He said the tool also can suggest carbon offset costs based on the company's preferred carbon-trading program, including the European Union's regulated Emission Trading Scheme—which could include airlines in the EU as soon as 2011—or voluntary programs like the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Though a "greenest logical fare" rule that the tool could support has not yet emerged, "travel managers at some large companies are discussing that," Gillespie said. "It could complicate the point-of-sale decision, because you have your greenest carriers and your preferred carriers."

Meanwhile, GetThere's dynamic messaging capabilities display a traveler's carbon footprint and compare rail to air carbon emissions on specific citypairs. The enhancements also label hotels that adhere to corporate green policy and provide ground transportation alternatives in cities with mass transportation.

GetThere developed the enhancements with input from an influx of green questions in recent requests for proposals. For some corporate customers, GetThere has developed customized reporting fields for travelers to report total trip emissions for booked itineraries.

Prism Group vice president for EMEA Herman Mensink last week said its standard reports estimate carbon emissions based on trip length, type of aircraft, average load factors and seat configuration—including business class versus economy seats. Mensink said about 15 corporate clients access customized carbon offsetting reports, one as frequently as every month.