Inland transportation system planning by life-cycle impact assessment: a case study. 2nd report: single comparison index

A model to estimate and compare the ecological impact and economic feasibility of a land transportation system (trucks) and a marine transportation system (cargo ships) was developed and presented in a previous report.¹ Three different comparison indices—environmental, economic, and customer service—were used to evaluate and compare their ecological impacts and determine their economic superiority. In this article, a single comparison index is proposed and assessed for the two transportation systems. The estimates were made for nine different routes in Japan. A simple mathematical model of the whole methodology is given. The sensitivity of the weighting factors used in the comparison method was analyzed. The social cost saving in monetary terms through a modal shift is also presented. Received: February 15, 2001 / Accepted: September 19, 2001