Train: CO2-emissiefactoren 🇳🇱

High-Level Description

CO2-emissiefactoren is a leading European reference for robust, harmonized CO₂ emission values across sectors, including rail. For train travel, it reflects operational energy, electricity mix, traction efficiency, and (where applicable) infrastructure impacts—supporting consistent, comparable, and decision-useful results.

Note on versions: The factor set is published per year. Set methodology_version (a 4-digit year) to pin a version for reproducible results. On this endpoint, omitting it uses the latest supported year — train items carry no date, so the year is never inferred here. (On the Travel Data API, where activities do carry dates, an omitted methodology_version is derived from the trip/activity start date instead.) A requested year without its own published set resolves to the most recent prior year (e.g. 2024 → 2023), and a year before the earliest supported set (2020) returns a validation error. Supported years: 2020, 2021, 2023, 2025, 2026.

Sample API Requests

A. Without audit mode (for pre-booking/quotes)

{
  "expand": ["items"],
  "items": [
    {
      "audit": false,
      "type": "train",
      "methodology": "CO2-EMISSIEFACTOREN-NL",
      "external_reference": "test",
      "train_type": "international",
      "fuel_type": "average",
      "origin": "AMS",
      "destination": "BER",
      "number_of_travelers": 1,
      "energy_scope": "ttw"
    }
  ]
}

B. With audit mode (for finalized/post-booking calculations)

{
  "expand": ["items"],
  "audit_for": "<Auditable Entity ID>",
  "items": [
    {
      "audit": true,
      "type": "train",
      "methodology": "CO2-EMISSIEFACTOREN-NL",
      "external_reference": "test",
      "train_type": "international",
      "fuel_type": "average",
      "origin": "AMS",
      "destination": "BER",
      "number_of_travelers": 1,
      "energy_scope": "ttw"
    }
  ]
}

Note: audit_for is optional. Provide when calculating on behalf of a specific Auditable entity; otherwise omit.

API Request Items

"type": "train" (required)
"methodology": "CO2-EMISSIEFACTOREN-NL" (required)
"methodology_version": Factor year, one of 2020, 2021, 2023, 2025, 2026, or latest. Optional. If omitted, the year is derived from the trip/activity start date, defaulting to the latest supported year when no date is available.
"external_reference": A unique identifier linking results to the requested item. Max length: 128 chars.
"number_of_travelers": Minimum 1. Default: 1.
"origin": Origin location (see Origin/Destination Formats below).
"destination": Destination location (see Origin/Destination Formats below).
"distance_in_km": If provided, this value is prioritized over origin/destination. If both are present, distance_in_km is used.
"train_type": One of average, international. Default: average.
"fuel_type": One of diesel, electricity, average. Default: average.
"energy_scope": Well-to-wheel scope selector. One of ttw or wtw. Default: wtw.
"audit": boolean (optional). Set to true to create immutable audit records for finalized calculations. Must be enabled for your account.

Default Values

{
  "train_type": "average",
  "fuel_type": "average",
  "energy_scope": "wtw",
  "number_of_travelers": 1,
  "methodology_version": "latest"
}

Note: If your integration assumes train_type: intercity as a product-level alias, map it to the dataset’s available categories (average or international) according to your business rules.

Origin/Destination Formats (Enriched)

SQUAKE will try to resolve the origin/destination regardless of its format. Ideally:

Addresses: Use the Post standard.
Airports: Use IATA/ICAO code (regex: ^[A-Z]{3,4}$, e.g., "MUC").
Ports/Trade locations: Use UN/LOCODE (regex: ^[A-Z]{2}\W?[A-Z2-9]{3}$, e.g., "DEHAM").
Coordinates: Pass latitude/longitude (regex: ^[-+]?\d{1,3}\.\d{1,10}\s?,\s?[-+]?\d{1,3}\.\d{1,10}$, e.g., "+40.712,-74.006").

UIC and Provider Codes for Trains

UIC code is also a valid format for trains. If the value is not valid, the system will fallback to general, non-journey-specific emission data.
When you want to use a UIC or provider code, use the following format:
- <provider>:<uic_code> (e.g., sncf:FRAAA)
Possible provider prefixes:
- uic
- uic8_sncf
- sncf
- sncf_tvs
- entur
- db
- busbud
- distribusion
- flixbus
- cff
- leoexpress
- obb
- trenitalia
- trenitalia_rtvt
- trenord
- ntv_rtiv
- ntv
- hkx
- renfe
- atoc
- benerail
- westbahn

Examples

// Using UIC/provider code
{
  "type": "train",
  "methodology": "CO2-EMISSIEFACTOREN-NL",
  "origin": "db:8011160",        // Berlin Hbf (example code structure)
  "destination": "db:8000105",   // Frankfurt (Main) Hbf (example code structure)
  "number_of_travelers": 1,
  "energy_scope": "wtw"
}

// Using UN/LOCODEs (for multimodal contexts)
{
  "type": "train",
  "methodology": "CO2-EMISSIEFACTOREN-NL",
  "origin": "NLAMS",             // Amsterdam (city/port code example)
  "destination": "DEBER",        // Berlin (city code example)
  "number_of_travelers": 1
}

// Using coordinates
{
  "type": "train",
  "methodology": "CO2-EMISSIEFACTOREN-NL",
  "origin": "+52.379,4.900",     // Amsterdam
  "destination": "+52.525,13.369",// Berlin
  "number_of_travelers": 1
}

Notes
If both origin/destination and distance_in_km are provided, distance_in_km is used for emissions.
Invalid, unsupported, or unresolvable location codes will trigger a fallback to generic (non-journey-specific) factors consistent with the CO2‑emissiefactoren methodology.

Sample API Response

{
  "carbon_quantity": 10132,
  "carbon_unit": "gram",
  "items": [
    {
      "carbon_quantity": 10132,
      "carbon_unit": "gram",
      "external_reference": "test",
      "type": "train",
      "methodology": "CO2-EMISSIEFACTOREN-NL",
      "distance": 596.0,
      "distance_unit": "kilometer"
    }
  ]
}

Bibliography

Lijst emissiefactoren (2025). CO₂-emissiefactoren. https://www.co2emissiefactoren.nl/
Milieu Centraal (n.a.). https://www.milieucentraal.nl/

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