TR2AIL: Tracking, Reflecting on and Reducing Air Travel

TR²AIL is designed for use by organizations seeking to:

• Track and report their travel emissions
• Promote reflection and dialogue about when and how to travel
• Understand the patterns in and drivers of travel choices
• Adopt strategies to reduce travel emissions.

TR²AIL data can be downloaded in various formats for calculating emissions to show total emissions of entire organizations and given departments, for example, or to indicate emissions per full-time-equivalent employee.

Captured data show where, why, and how far individuals travel, the purpose(s) of the trip, and the types of engagements undertaken on trips. These data can then be used to understand patterns in and drivers of travel choices in the organization. Gathering and reflecting on this knowledge are essential for organizations that are trying to travel “smarter” to achieve lower emissions and continue to meet their objectives.

A key strength of TR²AIL is its ability to inform discussions about emissions-reduction strategies and actions that can be taken to meet strategic aims. For example, users can draft their plans for trips to see how a given journey contributes to emissions, and how it can be adapted to reduce potential emissions. Individual users and their teams can assess travel plans and prioritize their most important trips accordingly. An integrated approvals function allows managers to provide feedback on submitted trips to encourage more sustainable choices and to leverage opportunities to optimize engagements. In these ways, the tool helps individual departments and entire organizations keep track of how they are progressing in their efforts to meet emissions-reduction targets.

These data can be used to examine emissions for sustainability reporting. Visualizations in the tool help with this task. Such visualizations can be valuable for related presentations and reports.

Since its launch in 2020, TR²AIL , has been successfully used for these purposes throughout SEI. In 2019, as part of our Environment Policy, SEI set an emissions reduction goal for work-related air travel. The goal is to reduce emissions by 25% per capita by 2024 compared to 2017 levels. TR²AIL is playing a central role in helping SEI to track progress on and achieve this goal.

Design and development

TR²AIL began in 2019 as a collaborative project led by SEI and involving partners Tranås Resebyrå, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation, to support organizational emissions tracking and reporting for business-related air travel within SEI. Quakefire were engaged to build TR²AIL . This work was funded by Vinnova.

Findings of this project are captured in a report, “Prepare for landing: practical tips on tracking, reporting and reducing business air travel emissions”. The report highlights the importance of a series of underpinning conditions: having reduction targets and indicators, providing decision support, gathering travel data, undertaking internal and external results reporting, and creating an environment that enables and encourages making a transition to reduce business travel emissions. Initially developed based on insights from this research, TR²AIL was further developed, tested and improved through an iterative process from 2019 to 2020. In the process, SEI engaged 50 members of its staff and 28 external stakeholders from similar organizations to test and offer feedback on early versions of the tool.

SEI began using TR²AIL in 2020, and the institute made its use a requirement for all air travel from its HQ and seven global centres in 2021. Since 2022, TR²AIL has been used to calculate and report SEI’s air travel emissions at the centre and global levels. Since embarking on the project SEI has presented TR²AIL to like-minded organizations in various fora and is part of a wider community exploring approaches and options for reducing air travel emissions in academia.

As a result of input from within SEI and feedback from interested external parties, a new, updated version of the tool has been developed, resulting in a robust, user-friendly and flexible tool that can be customized to fit the needs of various organizations. SEI is working in partnership with Quakefire to maintain and further develop the tool in response to feedback from colleagues and partners, and to make TR²AIL accessible to other organizations.

How TR²AIL works

Planning future travel and recording past trips: Individuals traveling anywhere worldwide can use the tool to support planning and approval for travel by entering information about proposed trips before they occur, or to record details about emissions by entering information after a trip takes place. Trips can be recorded for those who are not employees, but whose travel relates to the work of the organization and its emissions footprint. For example, one could calculate the air travel-related emissions associated with hosting an in-person event.

Creating targets and enabling tracking: TR²AIL’s user dashboard enables users to set their own emissions target limit. It presents visualizations that show trajectories of how users are faring in terms of their targeted limits, the amount that has been used to date, and the remaining emissions in that budget. Departmental and organizational targets can be set and monitored by administrators, who can access trip data to understand how and where travel emissions are generated and the reasons for the trips. Additional visualizations enable individual users to see their contribution towards these targets set by their department and organization.

Fostering planning and reflection: When providing information about a trip, users are prompted to provide inputs that encourage them to reflect on their need to travel and value added from the trip. For example, users are encouraged to include information about primary and secondary reasons for travel, and likelihood of having meetings and in-person engagements with different actors relevant to their work. Trips can be saved as a draft for planning purposes – to explore how best to utilize an emissions budget, for example. They can also be submitted – either for approval or as the record of a confirmed trip.

Integrating with travel approval systems: TR²AIL’s optional and highly flexible travel approvals process can involve multiple approvers at multiple levels. Approvers can be set for each user. The user can also assign different approvers for different trips, for example when these are connected with different projects. Any approvers have the option to ask the user to modify or cancel the trip. For example, users could be prompted to consider more sustainable modes of transportation (trains instead of planes) or to better leverage the trip by taking on additional engagements at the destination.

Calculating emissions: Greenhouse gas emissions calculated in TR²AIL use the Travel and Climate Calculator developed by Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden (Larsson & Kamb, 2019). Calculations include additional emissions associated with the take-off phase of air travel, and emissions that occur during production of fuel. Calculations use the Global Warming Potential (GWP) index, which aims to account for the future climate impact of current emissions. Pathways between airports are calculated along a great circle distance. No allowances are currently made for holding patterns as these vary significantly between flights.

Customizing for users (transferability): Various features of the tool can be customized to meet the needs of the organization. For example, TR²AIL can be tailored to address organization-relevant tags for primary and secondary reasons for travel; to incorporate information on meetings and engagements; and to set up default approvals, organization structures and administrative permissions. More advanced customization options are available, including the provision of a dedicated subdomain of TR²AIL .org that uses organizational colours and branding, and the development and provision of additional, bespoke features to meet other travel needs of the organization.

Making the tool accessible: TR²AIL is an online tool. It can be accessed and used via a web browser. Users can create their own profiles using their choice of email address. The tool is integrated with Microsoft Office 365, enabling users to login automatically using their account details. Other single sign-on (SSO) integrations are possible and are being explored (e.g., with Google and Shibboleth).

Licensing: TR²AIL is free for use for individuals, and it is available at low cost to organizations via a license scheme. The license fees are based on the costs of providing basic maintenance and server hosting. License revenues help support the development of new features, which will take into account input from users. All major developments will be available to all users. Interested organizations can reach out to discuss potential costs using this form.

Copyright and intellectual property (IP): SEI holds the copyright to TR²AIL . TR²AIL IP is owned by Quakefire.

Quality assurance: The methods used in TR²AIL to calculate greenhouse gas emissions from air travel use calculation formulae and factors from well-regarded peer-reviewed scientific literature. These methods are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that they are based on the latest science.

Citing TR2AIL

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Several developments are in the pipeline. They include:

• Incorporating additional modes of travel, including train travel.
• Creating methods for travel agents to use and integrate information with clients’ travel.
• Providing a way to link trips to projects.
• Offering ways to plan travel to select the optimal meeting locations.

SEI has a long history of developing tools that are tailored to meet users’ needs; collaborating partners can request additional developments, and we can begin to work to address these issues. Register your interest.