airport_footprint {footprint}

Calculate flight emissions based on airport code pairs

Description

A function that calculates emissions per flight based on pairs of three-letter airport codes, flight classes, and emissions metrics. Emissions are returned in kilograms of the chosen metric.

Usage

airport_footprint(departure, arrival, flightClass = "Unknown", output = "co2e")

Arguments

departure

a character vector naming one or more three-letter IATA (International Air Transport Association) airport codes for outbound destination

arrival

a character vector naming one or more three-letter IATA (International Air Transport Association) airport codes for inbound destination

flightClass

a character vector naming one or more flight class categories. Must be of the following "Unknown" "Economy", "Economy+", "Business" or "First". If no argument is included, "Unknown" is the default and represents the average passenger.

output

a single character argument naming the emissions metric of the output. For metrics that include radiative forcing, one of

• "co2e" (carbon dioxide equivalent with radiative forcing) - default

• "co2" (carbon dioxide with radiative forcing)

• "ch4" (methane with radiative forcing)

• "n2o" (nitrous oxide with radiative forcing)

• Metrics without radiative forcing: "co2e_norf", "co2_norf", "ch4_norf", or "n2o_norf".

Details

Distances between airports are based on the Haversine great-circle distane formula, which assumes a spherical earth. They are calculated using the airportr package. The carbon footprint estimates are derived from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (UK) 2019 Greenhouse Gas Conversion Factors for Business Travel (air): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greenhouse-gas-reporting-conversion-factors-2019

Value

a numeric value expressed in kilograms of chosen metric

Examples

# Calculations based on individual flights
airport_footprint("LAX", "LHR")
airport_footprint("LAX", "LHR", "First")
airport_footprint("LAX", "LHR", "First", "ch4")
airport_footprint("LAX", "LHR", output = "ch4")

# Calculations based on a data frame of flights
library(dplyr)
library(tibble)

travel_data <- tribble(~name, ~from, ~to, ~class,
                      "Mike", "LAX", "PUS", "Economy",
                      "Will", "LGA", "LHR", "Economy+",
                      "Elle", "TYS", "TPA", "Business")

travel_data %>%
   rowwise() %>%
   mutate(emissions = airport_footprint(from, to,
                                        flightClass = class,
                                        output="co2e"))