One of the areas of economy that has a major impact on air pollution and fuel consumption is transport. The effects of environmental pollution caused by transport are most visible in large cities. Smog and congestion often occur there. A radical way to reduce these negative impacts is to introduce zero-emission means of transport into operation in cities and to develop public transport. In the case of zero-emission means of transport using electricity, the method of generating this energy is of great importance. With the majority share of hard and brown coal in electricity generation, the potential benefits from reducing the total emission of harmful substances into the atmosphere may be severely limited. Using the example of public transport in the city of Rzeszów, the article decided to examine the impact of the method of generating electricity on environmental pollution. In the conducted simulation studies, it was decided to use current data as well as predicted scenarios of generating electricity in Poland. 3 scenarios were conducted: replacement of conventional buses with electric buses without changing electricity generation CO 2 emissions intensity, full electric bus fleet with prediction of change of electricity production CO 2 emissions intensity, replacement of conventional buses with electric buses with prediction of change of electricity production CO 2 emissions intensity. First scenario showed only 26% decrease in CO2 emissions in year 2040, second 55% decrease and third 66% decrease. Results show that in the case of Rzeszów, electrification of public transport is not sufficient to achieve significant decrease in CO 2 emissions. Shift towards cleaner electricity is also required to achieve it.
Śmieszek et al. (Thu,) studied this question.