Exploiting the Scientific Literature for Performing Life Cycle Assessment about Transportation

Sustainability

Christian Spreafico¹  Davide Russo¹ 

[1] Department of Management Information and Production Engineering, University of Bergamo, 24044 Dalmine (Bg), Italy;

关键词: transportation impact;    electric transportation;    environmental impact;    life cycle assessment (LCA);   

DOI  :  10.3390/su12187548

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This paper provides an overview of the environmental impacts of different types of passenger transportation means (i.e., bicycles, motorcycles, cars, buses, trains, and airplanes). The method has been applied to the European scenario. The study was performed by using life cycle assessment in accordance with international standard ISO 14040/44 for assessing the CO₂ eq., SO₂, and PM₁₀ of the transportation means by exploiting data (i.e., vehicles features and environmental impacts) from 24 scientific papers from the literature that have been manually analyzed. The functional unit is defined as the impact per 1 passenger over 1 km. The study identified that planes are the most impacting for CO₂ eq. with up to 380 g/pkm, while cars are the most impacting for SO₂ with up to 1.78 g/pkm and PM₁₀ with 0.98 g/pkm. Electric and hybrid models proved to be significantly better than others, while buses are the most sustainable in general. Referring to the overall European scenario, cars constitute up to 95% of the overall impacts. By comparing some improvements for reducing the impacts, it emerged that the limitation of diesel cars along with the increase of buses and trains are the most effective. The provided outcomes may be useful for legislators, manufacturers, and users for favoring the choice of the transportation means in a more environmentally conscious way.

【 授权许可】

Unknown