Green Line — strategies for environmentally improved railway vehicles

In 2004 the Vienna University of Technology and Siemens Transportation Systems in Vienna launched a project, called Green Line, focused on optimizing the environmental performance of metro vehicles. Green Line should create design strategies for a new generation of environmentally sound transport vehicles based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). As a reference project the new metro train for Oslo has been chosen. The improvement potentials indicated by the LCA are discussed in this paper to increase the environmental performance of the train. The recommendations given are discussed considering feasibility studies and prospective trends.