Freight Transportation and Its Effects on the Spatial Environment - Product-related transportation analysis

Stefanie Boege, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy

Keywords

Abstract

Freight transportation activity (the product of weight and distance), particularly on streets and roads, has increased greatly in recent decades. The geographic distances covered and the intensity of exchange within the economy have grown but the quantities being shipped have not increased at nearly the same rate as the distances.

The extended distances involved in freight transportation are decisive determinant factors for rising energy consumption and environmental and social impact. Even today capacity limits have become evident, signalled in the environmental field by the destruction of natural resources and in sociology by a deterioration in the quality of life.

A product-related transportation analysis model will, as far as possible, include all transportation processes over the life cycle of a product, concentrating on all stages of manufacturing. The analysis is oriented on manufacturers and consumers and shows the conditions and interdependencies associated with the production and consumption of products. The results illustrate the impacts due to transportation such as energy consumption, pollutant emissions and transportation intensity index for a product (the distance over which one unit of product is transported).

This concept has been applied to date in a dairy operation for a yoghurt production and for mushroom growers and reveals options for more environmentally sound, sustainable organization of freight transportation activities. It is remarkable that the so-called ?natural? or ?biological? products are often not environmental if the transportation distances are taken into account. Manufacturers? expectation to be able to buy anything, everywhere and at any time has direct consequences on freight shipment volumes and the number of kilometers covered by lorries. Increasing th!s type of demand aggravates the effects on the environment and on quality of life.