Contribution of hydrogen-based propulsion systems

5 Contribution of hydrogen-based propulsion systems 19.5.1 Introduction 

The discussions in the preceeding sections have shown the bandwidth of social problems of today s transport system. In the following, it will be discussed which of these impacts are affected by the introduction of hydrogen vehicles. Here, impacts may be positive or negative. 

Hydrogen vehicles have no effect on the development of congestion, land use due to transport infrastructure and accidents. Whereas the first two points are behind any discussion, some people argue that the introduction of hydrogen vehicles could increase the level of accidents because these propulsion systems produce less noise than internal combustion engines. Up to now there is no empirical evidence to confirm or reject this point. Further, this argumentation seems to be critical because -as the discussion in Section 19.3 has clearly shown - noise is a serious social problem of transportation and much better technical solutions may exist to reduce the level of accidents instead of producing a permanent level of noise. An example is the development of video-based assistant systems, which warn the driver of pedestrians and bikers. 

Positive impacts of hydrogen vehicles can be expected in impacts of climate changes, local emissions and noise. These impacts will be discussed in detail in the following sections. However, some new problems could be identified by the introduction of hydrogen as a fuel in the transport sector, which will be treated later on in this chapter. 

The large-scale deployment of hydrogen in the transport sector (cars, light-duty vehicles and city buses) has a significant impact on the reduction of atmospheric pollutant emissions. Emission reduction of pollutants is one of the main drivers for the introduction of hydrogen. These benefits are often mentioned. However, the number of quantitative analyses is limited. In the following, the results of the HyWays project (HyWays, 2007) will be presented. 

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