Environmental assessment of passenger transportation should include infrastructure and supply chains
Open accessAbstract
To appropriately mitigate environmental impacts from transportation, it is necessary for decision makers to consider the life-cycle energy use and emissions. Most current decision-making relies on analysis at the tailpipe, ignoring vehicle production, infrastructure provision, and fuel production required for support. We present results of a comprehensive life-cycle energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and selected criteria air pollutant emissions inventory for automobiles, buses, trains, and airplanes in the US, including vehicles, infrastructure, fuel production, and supply chains. We find that total life-cycle energy inputs and greenhouse gas emissions contribute an additional 63% for onroad, 155% for rail, and 31% for air systems over vehicle tailpipe operation. Inventorying criteria air pollutants shows that vehicle non-operational components often dominate total emissions. Life-cycle criteria air pollutant emissions are between 1.1 and 800 times larger than vehicle operation. Ranges in passenger occupancy can easily change the relative performance of modes.
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Direct emissions of vehicles account only for two thirds of road transport related emissions in the US; the rest are mainly associated with fuel production, vehicle manufacturing and maintenance, and construction, operation and maintenance of road infrastructure.
“In reality, direct emissions of vehicles account only for two thirds of road transport related emissions in the US, the rest are mainly associated with fuel production, vehicle manufacturing and maintenance, and construction, operation and maintenance of road infrastructure [126].”
From Material efficiency strategies to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings, vehicles, and electronics—a review (2019) · cites this paper as [126]
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Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Chester M V 2008 Life-cycle environmental inventory of passenger transportation modes in the United States PhD Dissertation University of California, Berkeley, CA, available online at http://repositories.cdlib.org/its/ds/ UCB-ITS-DS-2008-1/
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- Authors
- Chester, M. V., & Horvath, A.
- Affiliations
- University of California System (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Corresponding author
- Horvath, Arpad
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2009-04
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 024008
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2141038518
- Cited by
- 592
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 29 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 67 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 33 · 2016: 36 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 41 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 18.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- University of California Transportation Center
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Vehicle emissions and performance
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Energy, Environment, and Transportation Policies
- Keywords
- passenger transport, life cycle energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, criteria pollutants, transport infrastructure, fuel production, vehicle manufacturing emissions, railways, aviation, bus transit, passenger occupancy, mode comparison, environmental impact assessment
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