Train: DEFRA 🇬🇧

💡 High-Level Description:

DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) provides essential conversion factors and guidelines for calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across various sectors, including passenger rail services. As one of the main references for emissions reporting in the UK, DEFRA’s methodology ensures consistency, transparency, and accuracy when assessing the environmental impact of train travel.

The methodology focuses on direct emissions from train fuel combustion and indirect emissions associated with electricity consumption. DEFRA distinguishes between electric and diesel-powered trains, accounting for varying levels of emissions based on fuel type, train type (e.g., national, international, light rail), and distance traveled. DEFRA's framework is widely used in corporate GHG reporting, providing essential data for understanding the carbon impact of train travel and supporting efforts to reduce emissions.

API Request

{
  "expand": [
    "items"
  ],
  "items": [
    {
      "type": "train",
      "external_reference": "test_1",
      "origin": "BER",
      "destination": "FRA",
      "number_of_travelers": 3,
      "train_type": "light",
      "methodology": "DEFRA",
      "energy_scope": "ttw"
    }
  ]
}

API Request Items

• "type": "train" (required)

• "methodology": "ADEME" (required)

• "external_reference": A unique identifier that helps you link the resulting emissions to the requested item. Especially useful if multiple items are requested since SQUAKE cannot guarantee to keep the same order. The maximum length is 128 characters.

• "number_of_travelers": Minimum value is 1. The default value is 1.

• "origin": SQUAKE will try to resolve the origin/destination regardless of its format. Ideally, for addresses use the Post standard, for airports use IATA/ICAO code (format: ^[A-Z]{3,4}$, e.g., "MUC"), for other locations used in trade and transportation use UN/LOCODE codes (format: ^[A-Z]{2}\W?[A-Z2-9]{3}$, e.g., "DEHAM"). You can also pass lat/long (format: ^[-+]?\d{1,3}\.\d{1,10}\s?,\s?[-+]?\d{1,3}\.\d{1,10}$, e.g., "+40.712,-74.006").

• "destination": SQUAKE will try to resolve the origin/destination regardless of its format. Ideally, for addresses use the Post standard, for airports use IATA/ICAO code (format: ^[A-Z]{3,4}$, e.g., "MUC"), for other locations used in trade and transportation use UN/LOCODE codes (format: ^[A-Z]{2}\W?[A-Z2-9]{3}$, e.g., "DEHAM"). You can also pass lat/long (format: ^[-+]?\d{1,3}\.\d{1,10}\s?,\s?[-+]?\d{1,3}\.\d{1,10}$, e.g., "+40.712,-74.006").

• "distance_in_km": Prioritized over origin and destination. If you don't have a distance_in_km, you can use origin and destination and the distance will be automatically resolved. If you pass both distance_in_km and origin/destination, then distance_in_km will be used.

• "train_type": DEFRA defaults to national and considers only national, international, light, tram and underground.

• "energy_scope": Values are ttw or wtw. Default value is wtw.

• Default Values

  • "train_type": "national"

  • "energy_scope": "wtw"

Sample API Response

{
    "carbon_quantity": 6669,
    "carbon_unit": "gram",
    "items": [
        {
            "carbon_quantity": 6669,
            "carbon_unit": "gram",
            "external_reference": "test_2",
            "type": "train",
            "methodology": "DEFRA",
            "distance": 435.0,
            "distance_unit": "kilometer"
        }
    ]
}

Bibliography

• Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA). (2024). Government Greenhouse Gas Conversion Factors for Company Reporting. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greenhouse-gas-reporting-conversion-factors-2024

• UK Office of Rail and Road (2020). National Rail Trends. Retrieved from https://orr.gov.uk/statistics

• Eurostar GHG Methodology Report (2019). Conversion Factors for Eurostar Services. Retrieved from https://eurostar.com/ghg-methodology