Environment Impact of Freight Transportation in China

Transportation is an important part of industrial production systems, with serious energy consumption and environmental pollution. In this study, environment impact of road transportation, river freight in the Yangtze River, and railway transportation was established and analyzed by life cycle assessment method. The analysis results show that CO2 is the largest emission of pollutants for freight transport in China. abiotic depletion potential (ADP) of electric locomotives significantly lower than the other five kinds of shipping methods, only 3.2% of diesel locomotive, 3.9% of the Yangtze barges fleet; 1.2% of the Yangtze Cargo vessel, 0.2% of heavy-duty trucks and 0.1% of light-duty trucks. The results show that accomplishing the same cargo turnover, light-duty truck has the largest environmental impact, while the Electric locomotive freight has the minimum environmental impact. Although the environmental impact of river freight transport is greater than rail transport, but it is far less than road transport.

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