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Sustainable Personal Transport Modes in a Life Cycle Perspective-Public or Private?
KTH Royal Inst Technol Stockholm, Sch Architecture & Built Environm, Dept Sustainable Dev Environm Sci & Engn SEED, Teknikringen 10B, S-10044 Stockholm, Sweden..ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2459-0311
Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Service Research Center (from 2013). Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Department of Social and Psychological Studies (from 2013).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6570-6181
Ecoloop AB, S-11646 Stockholm, Sweden..
2019 (English)In: Sustainability, E-ISSN 2071-1050, Vol. 11, no 24, article id 7092Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Life cycle-based studies endorse public transport to cause lower environmental pressures compared to a private car. However, a private car can cause lower environmental pressure when a public vehicle (bus or train) runs on a lower occupancy during an off-peak hour. This fact should be the basis for a more profound debate regarding public versus private transport. Many transport interventions are striving to reduce the number of car transports. To reach this goal, passengers need attractive alternatives to their reduced number of car travels (i.e., attractive public transport). This study aimed to develop a model allowing us to estimate potential environmental gains by changing travel behavior. A passenger travel model was developed based on life cycle inventories (LCI) of different travel modes to calculate environmental footprints. The model was applied in an intervention of public transport through temporary free public transport. The intervention was successful in significantly reducing the number of car transports (12%). However, total passenger kilometer travelled (PKT) increased substantially more, mainly by bus, but also train, bicycle and walking. The total energy, carbon and nitrogen oxide footprints were slightly increased after the intervention. If the commuters were assumed to travel during peak hours or the number of public transports were not affected by the increased number of commuters, the overall environmental footprints decreased. Our conclusions are that transport interventions are very complex. They may result in desired changes, but also in altered travel behavior, increasing overall impact. Thus, a very broad evaluation of all transport modes as well as potential positive social influences of the transport intervention will be necessary.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2019. Vol. 11, no 24, article id 7092
Keywords [en]
life cycle assessment, environmental footprints, public transport, transport interventions, sustainable transport
National Category
Economics and Business Psychology
Research subject
Psychology; Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-76939DOI: 10.3390/su11247092ISI: 000506899000195OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-76939DiVA, id: diva2:1394975
Available from: 2020-02-20 Created: 2020-02-20 Last updated: 2022-05-18Bibliographically approved

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Olsson, Lars E.

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