Environmental Performance of Transportation - A Comparative Study

1. Environmental Performance of Transportation -A Comparative Study Annik Magerhom Fet Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Rederiforbundet 18.oktober 2000

2. Themes: • The project “Environmental Performance of Transportation - A Comparative Study” • The methodology • Case studies • Results • Problems and themes for further development

3. The project background: • Pre-project: “Life cycle Evaluation of ship transportation - Development of methodology and testing” which demonstrated that LCA is an appropriate method to identify and evaluate environmental impacts during the life cycle of a ship. See http://www.wbnorge.no/maritim/ for reports Conclusions from pre-project: • to evaluate the environmental performance of transport chains, both methodological development, relevant databases and evaluation aspects must be addressed in further work.

4. The goal of the project: • to establish models and guidelines for the documentation and comparison of environmental performance of different transport chains in a life cycle perspective. This requires: • simplification of the method of evaluating the environmental performance of transport chains, • a common set of environmental impact categories for the transport sector, and • guiding principles on how to allocate infrastructure activities to the environmental burden of the transport chain.

5. Working method

6. System description Chain System Sub-system

7. Impact categories Substances Climate change CO2 ,N2O, CH4 Acidification SO2,NOX,NH3 Toxic contamination Pb, TBT, other anti fouling paint (Cu based) Local Air Pollution (dust) Particles Photo oxidant formation NMVOC Noise Area exposed to more than 55dBA Eutrophication NH3,NOX Energy consumption MJ Land use m2 Environmental impact categories

8. Case studies Case 1: Paper transport Moss – Hamburg Case 2: Passenger transport Bodø – Svolvær Case 3: Frozen fish transport Ålesund – Paris They include transport means such as small air craft, cargo vessel, ferry, trailer and high speed light craft. In addition infrastructure like harbours, roads etc. are included.

9. Reports • Fet, Annik Magerholm (NTNU), Michelsen, Ottar (NTNU), Johnsen, Tommy (DNV) “Environmental performance of transportation - a comparative study”. IØT-Report 2000. • Johnsen, Tommy., 2000, “Environmental comparison of alternative systems for transport of paper, a case study”, Det Norske Veritas. • Johnsen, Tommy., 2000, “Environmental comparison of alternative systems for transport of passengers, a case study”, Det Norske Veritas. • Karlsen, Harry., 2000, “Transport of frozen fish between Ålesund and Paris, a case study”, Aalesund College. Student project work: • Wille, Lars Christer: “Miljøregnskap for skip / rederi”, Institutt for marint maskineri, NTNU, våren 2000. • Strømmen, Terje: ”Miljøanalyse for skipstransport”, Institutt for marint maskineri, NTNU, våren 2000.

10. Functional unit of transport chain A functional unit is a measure of the performance of the functional outputs. Its primary purpose is to provide a reference to which to relate the inputs and outputs. Functional units for transport chains are: ton/passengers per route described between point A and B.

11. Inventory principles 1. Describe the function of the transport chain. 2. Describe the transport chain and its combination of transport systems between point A and B. 3. Describe the transport system; the means and the infrastructure, the typical total route of the transport means, distances, time use, and if the transport means have multiple purposes, e.g. transport of passengers and cargo. 4. Decide level of operational profile; shall emissions be based on average figures or a detailed description of machinery load. 5. Describe the operational parameters for each transport sub-system, capacity and exploited capacity.

12. Calculation and allocation principles The contribution to the impact categories are calculated by a set of formulas given in the paper. • Exhaust emissions and particulates are calculated based on fuel consumption • Leakage of antifouling are calculated by leakage factors and wet surface area • Occupied land area is calculated by the actual area multiplied by a yearly fraction of the chains use of this area • The area exposed by noise pollution is calculated by multiplying the total area with the fraction reflecting the share of the total activity

13. Case 3: Transport of frozen fish

14. Impact category Substance Chain A Chain B Climate change CO2 84 kg 138 kg N2O 0,24 g 0,71 g CH4 1,5 g 4,4 g Acidification SO2 938 g 867 g NOX 1286 g 1802 g NH3 0,022 g 0,064 g Toxic contamination Pb (no data) (no data) TBT 0,064 g 0,034 Local Air Poll. Particles 24 g 70 g Photo ox. form. NMVOC 36,6 g 106 g Noise noise >55dBA 6321 m2h 21110 m2h Eutrophication NH3 0,022 g 0,064 g NOX 1286 g 1802 g Energy consumpt. MJ 930 MJ 1812 MJ Land use area-time 133,0 m2h 299,0 m2h Inventory results

15. Environmental impact assessment Characterisation:the total environmental impact within each impact category is the sum of each substance multiplied with its characterisation value: EP(j) = (Qi EF(j)i) Normalisation: Different valuation methods require different normalisation, but as a simplification the different impact categories are normalised against total Norwegian emissions or consumption.

16. Impact category Compound Value Characterisat. Contribution Normalisation Climate change CO2 1 N2O 320 CH4 25 EP(j) 55 598 000 000 Acidification SO2 1,00 NOX 0,70 NH3 1,88 EP(j) 237 448 000 Toxic contamin. Pb (to air) 160 TBT 250 Cu 2 EP(j) 8 453 000 Local air pollution particles 1 344 700 000 Photo oxidant form. NMVOC 1 24 800 000 Noise Area >55dBA 1 316639738623840 Eutrophication NH3 3,64 NOX 1,35 EP(j) 671 081 500 Energy consumption MJ 1 813 PJ Land use Area-time (m2h) 1 4.254.898.440.000 Characterisation and normalisation values

17. Normalised inventory results case 3

18. Normalised inventory case 3, corrected with geographic factors

19. Valuation • The Eco-indicator 99 • EPS • The ExternE Methodology • Valuation according to political goals • Valuation according to panel procedures • Valuation according to the recommendations in the OECD project on Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST)

20. Weighted results and interpretation According to political goals According to the EST-project

21. Results from case 1 According to political goals According to the EST-project

22. Results from case 2 According to political goals According to the EST-project According to the EPS-method

23. Results evaluation The interpretation of the results from Case 1 and Case 2 is not as clear as for Case 3 since non of the transport chains in these cases (airplane, high speed vessel, trailer, ship) shows the best environmental performance for all impact categories. This means that valuation is necessary if overall environmental performance for the transport chains is to be compared.

24. Discussions and conclusions • The models show how to compare the environmental performance of transport chains, but not how to optimise each chain • The study is limited to the operational phase of the transport systems, building and maintenance contribute most to local environmental impacts • The impact category toxic contamination (TBT, Pb, defrosting fluid etc.) is difficult to evaluate since local impacts are not included in some of the evaluation models. • Evaluation of land-use shows it contribute minimal to the total burden • Evaluation of noise exposure shows that noise should not be neglected as an important impact

25. Further work: • It seems that a simple weighting method e.g. by using the six indicators recommended in the OECD EST is sufficient (CO2,, NOX ,VOCs, particulates, noise and land-use) • Further research should focus on how to use these principles to evaluate and optimise alternative transport chains and standardise models of calculating the eco-efficiency of transport chains.