The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has updated its Travel Impact Model (TIM) to better calculate emissions data linked to passenger flights.
Published by Google in 2022, the model is used to estimate flight emissions at the individual passenger level, and is currently used to display emissions data on platforms such as Sabre, Booking.com, Expedia, and Skyscanner, as well as for Google Flights. Amadeus and Travelport have also committed to using the model “in the near future”, according to the TIM website.
The ICCT this week agreed to expand the scope of the TIM to include all 6 Kyoto greenhouse gases, “especially CO2, CH4 and N2O”, in order to “accommodate changes that include climate effects beyond just CO2 emissions”. Going forward the council said model outputs will be labelled as CO2 equivalent (CO2e).
The model will now also integrate belly cargo, using an assumed mass of 100 kg per passenger (including baggage) and 50 kg per seat, and reflect the climate effects resulting from the production and transportation of aviation fuels, commonly referred to as well-to-tank (WTT) emissions.
The TIM will follow recommendations from ISO and the International Civil Aviation Organization’s CORSIA programme to calculate these WTT emissions, according to the council.
The ICCT said changes to the model will be “reflected soon” in the emissions estimates on platforms using the TIM.
“These changes are an important step in making the TIM more comprehensive and future-proof,” said Dan Rutherford, the ICCT’s Aviation Director and head of the TIM secretariat.
“The advisory committee will continue work in 2024 to provide even more consistent and transparent emissions estimates to travellers.”