The Fuel and Emissions Calculator (FEC) was originally developed to help public transit agencies choose between alternative transit vehicles, including a variety of existing and anticipated electric vehicle options. The calculator makes it easier for transit agencies to assess and compare the performance of alternative vehicle technologies on the basis of purchasing, operating and maintenance costs, including energy/fuel efficiency, and the ability to reduce GHG emissions. To provide a more complete analysis of alternative fleet vehicles, the calculator also provides support for user inputs related to the reduction of criteria air pollutants that contribute indirectly to global warming, and to reduced roadway (breathing zone) air pollutants. Attention was given to electric drive vehicles, including vehicles making use of wheel hub motor units, to enable transit agencies to assess the benefits of these vehicles as candidates for their vehicle fleets. The spreadsheet-based calculator is made available through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) free of any charge to public agencies world-wide, with no proprietary rights attached to its distribution. The latest version of FEC is released on May 2, 2016.

Figure 1. Work Flow of FEC

Current vehicle and propulsion systems in FEC include:

• Buses and Vans: Conventional ICE, CNG/LNG, All-electric, Hybrid-electric, Plug-in hybrids and Fuel-cell electric vehicles.
• Rails: All-electric rail and diesel-electric rail.

In order to serve more users with a variety of research purposes, the web-based FEC and FEC for other vehicle types (heavy-duty truck, passenger car, etc.) are under development. The web-based FEC facilitate emission analysis on multiple platforms such as computers with Linux system, tablets and cell phones. The separate excel sheets of FEC provide users the functionality to estimate emissions for a single vehicle type with customized input provided. Also, the cost-effectiveness module in FEC will be updated with latest data source and advanced estimation methodology. This module will be added all the FEC tools in the near future.