Publication
Title
The environmental impact of container transport compared to road transport : case study in the Antwerp harbor region and some general extrapolations
Author
Abstract
Purpose Increasing mobility demands and growing industrial tissue come with a burden for the environment. Inventive solutions are necessary to address this challenge. This paper compares the environmental impact of two alternative container transportation methods over a 25-year time period for a specific trajectory and transport volume in the Antwerp harbor. One is a pipeline concept; the other a road concept to link the Deurganck dock with the right bank in order to transport 2 million containers per year. Materials and methods With a detailed bill of material and the use of the Ecolizer method, a Monte Carlo simulation was performed to calculate the environmental impact in terms of ECOPOINTS on a life cycle perspective. Results and discussion The results remark that in 94% of the cases the pipeline concept has less than half of the environmental impact of the road concept. Furthermore, in both concepts the operational phase is the largest contributor to the total environmental impact. Conclusions The pipeline concept results suggest a much lower total environmental impact over a road concept if a large enough volume of containers can effectively be transported. Some considerations have to be given to the used electricity mix, the applied
Language
English
Source (journal)
The International journal of life cycle assessment. - -
Publication
2011
ISSN
0948-3349 [print]
1614-7502 [online]
DOI
10.1007/S11367-011-0326-2
Volume/pages
16 :9 (2011) , p. 886-896
ISI
000296011400005
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 09.09.2011
Last edited 15.11.2022
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