Abstract
Purpose
A major task concerning the greening of freight transportation is to influence the process of choosing an appropriate transport solution for a shipment. This paper presents the results of a detailed environmental benchmark study of freight transport chains recorded during a shipper survey administered in Switzerland in 2008.
Materials and methods
For the environmental evaluation, life cycle assessment was applied and enhanced with a new method for integrating damage to human health caused by traffic accidents based on the disability adjusted life year concept.
Results and discussion
The results show that in land-based transport, road generally has a lower environmental performance compared to intermodal and rail-only transport. Exceptions exist, e.g. for long pre- and post-haulage distances in intermodal transport or for very low train-load factors. The most relevant environmental interventions to pay attention to are, according to the methods applied, emissions of CO2, NOx and particulates as well as accident damages.
Conclusions
Rail transport is often, but not always, environmentally preferable than truck transport. Accident damages to human health should be included in each benchmark study. For practical application, a simplified benchmark methodology is proposed requiring a reduced level of detail for the input data.
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Acknowledgments
The work presented in this paper is part of a dissertation project, which was funded by and realised at ETH Zurich—IVT. The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. U. Weidmann, chair for transportation systems, for his financial and scientific support of this project. Special thanks also to Christopher Mutel for his technical support and methodological help with the ecoinvent database, and to Michael Curran for his critical review.
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Fries, N., Hellweg, S. LCA of land-based freight transportation: facilitating practical application and including accidents in LCIA. Int J Life Cycle Assess 19, 546–557 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-013-0657-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-013-0657-2