Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Keywords: Life cycle assessment, Environmental impact, Transport infrastructure provision, Eco-efficiency
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a systematic LCA application for evaluating the environmental impacts of public transport
systems in the planning phases. System Life Cycle Environmental Load (SyLCEL) approach considers the fact that both
vehicle production and infrastructure construction stages of the transport systems should be examined since they generate
environmental load throughout the whole lifecycle. Subsequently, an eco-efficiency indicator is defined by incorporating the
performances and several types of environmental load of the given transport systems, employing the LIME (Life-cycle
Impact assessment Method based on Endpoint modeling). Finally for an elaborate discussion of the real cases, the proposed
approach is further applied to various medium capacity public transport systems (LRT, BRT, etc.).
INTRODUCTION
The impacts of passenger transport on
Infrastructure
Lifetime of infrastructure
Construction
Disposal
SyLCEL
However, ample evidence exists that they further add to the 0 1 In-service
Year
environmetal load throughout their construction phases, Travel
Vehicles
Production
Production
Production
quantitatively and individually the environmental load of Fig.1 System Life Cycle Environmental Load (SyLCEL)
for a transport system
each life stage of construction of facilities and production
of vehicles (material procurement and transport; Infrastructure
construction and operating; renewal) on human kind and
ecologic system. Therefore, LCA is an appropriate to Main body Incidental structure
employ for conducting early-stage environmental
assessment of providing passenger transport faciilties.
Elevated Tunnel Soil Railway Contact line Signal Station
For that reason, this paper proposes a general bridge structure communication
methodolgy on the basis of LCA framework for evaluating
environmental impacts of the passenger transport systems Fig.2 Decomposition of infrastructure
and further applies to given medium capacity transport for a transport system
systems such as AGT (Automated Guideway Transit); LRT
(Light Rail Transit); GWB (Guide Way Bus; See Photo 1),
BRT (Bus Rapid Transit; See Photo 2). The estimation is METHODOLOGY
not limitied to carbon dioxide (CO2) and considers the Each of the transport systems consists of three
estimation and integration of a number of different main parts, the track system, other infrastructural elements
environmetal load relevant parameters. Notably, the and the rolling stock. The environmental effects through
sensitivity analysis for the passenger demand enables the their whole life cycle are evaluated by SyLCEL (System
minimisation of environmental load by seeking for the best Life Cycle Environment Load) concept as depicted in Fig.
alternative mode for different level of demands. 1. Each of these elements is further divided into three life
stages of construction/production, operating/use (including
maintanance and repair), and disposal. In order to estimate
H.Kato, N.Shibahara, Y.Watanabe Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on EcoBalance
SyLC-CO2[g-CO2/personkm]
vehicle production
Table 1 gives the basic installation values for operation
300
attached structure
each alternative passenger transport mode, examined. infrastructure
Estimated contaminants are carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen 200
INVENTORY ANALYSIS
Infrastructure construction stage 1.2
NOX
[Yen/personkm]
The amount of embodied CO2 emissions for 1.0 SOX
the construction stage is; 8,470[t-CO2/km] for GWB, 0.8 CO2
9,940[t-CO2/km] for AGT, 11,800[t-CO2/km] for railway. 0.6
[g-CO2 /personkm]
persons/day the smallest value of SyLC-CO2 is for LRT; 500 GWB
SyLC-CO2
BRT
per person-kilometer, other that those arising from 1,000 10,000 30,000 100,000
operating stage, approach to zero. In this case, the Demand [person/day]
[personkm2/g-CO2h]
firmly decreases until the demand reaches 20,000 LRT
Eco-efficiency
0.15
persons/day. The environmental load is also very likely to a AGT
have decrease in the environmental load even for GWB
0.10 BRT
which has the largest load (Fig. 4). Since almost the whole
environmental load by BRT is generated during operating GWB
0.05
stage, SyLC-CO2 does not vary for an increase in passenger
demand. 0.00
0 5,000 10,000 15,000
Evaluation by an eco-efficiency indicator Demand [person/day]
Eco-efficiency by SyLC-CO2 are estimated for
Fig.6 Sensitivity analysis for eco-efficiency by demand
each alternative mode and the results are presented in Fig. 6.
Highest eco-effiency values, derived for different ranges of
demand are: LRT with the passenger demand less than findings of the impact assessment were cosistent with the
12,000 persons/day; and railway for high passenger fact that not only the CO2 emissions, sharing a very large
demand. For every value of passenger demand, the eco- proportion, but also SOX and NOX emissions contributed to
efficiency of GWB is below than that of either AGT or environmental load to a large extent. Considering the eco-
railway. efficiency which is given by the travel speed and capacity
The exchange point of the ranking between BRT for each alternative mode, high-capacity and high-speed
and GWB is at 150,000 persons/day for SyLC-CO2 per medium demand passenger transport modes were found to
person-kilometer and at 14,000 persons/day for eco have a better performance. Finally it can be concluded that
efficiency. This is the consequence of 1.67 times higher proposed method, considering also the passenger demand
scheduled travel speed for GWB than BRT that is SyLCEL level, proved its suitability for environmental performance
value per person-kilometer is 1.67 time more than the BRT of passenger transport systems.
at the turning point where the assumed passenger demand is
14,000 persons/day. Upon comparing AGT to railway, REFERENCES
break-even point for SyLCEL per person-kilometer is [1] Kato H., Shibahara N., Osada M., Hayashi Y.: A life
100,000 persons/day and for eco-efficiency a much smaller cycle assessment for evaluating environmental impacts
amount of demand, 12,000 persons/day. of inter-regional high-speed mass transit projects,
Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation
CONCLUSION Studies, Vol.6, pp.3211-3224, (2005)
On the purpose of exploring the environmental
impacts of passenger transport systems, a systematic [2] Tsujimura T.: Shinkansen 0 series / 300 series,
approach based on the LCA framework was offered for a Interpretation of LCA findings, LCA forum seminar in
comprehensive evaluation in the planning phase. This was Japan., (2001), in Japanese.
further applied to real cases of medium capacity alternative
transport modes (AGT, LRT, GWB, BRT) to suggest the
passenger transport mode with least environmental load per
person-kilometer throughout its whole lifecycle. The