Coupling activity-based modeling and life cycle assessment: a proof-of-concept study on cross-border commuting in Luxembourg

Paul Baustert (Corresponding author), Tomás Navarrete Gutiérrez, Thomas Gibon, Laurent Chion, Tai Yu Ma, Gabriel Leite Mariante, Sylvain Klein, Philippe Gerber, Enrico Benetto

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)
99 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in 2010 the transport sector was responsible for 23% of the total energy-related CO2 emissions (6.7 GtCO2) worldwide. Policy makers in Luxembourg are well-aware of the challenges and are setting ambitious objectives at country level for the mid and long term. However, a framework to assess environmental impacts from a life cycle perspective on the scale of transport policy scenarios, rather than individual vehicles, is lacking. We present a novel framework linking activity-based modeling with life cycle assessment (LCA) and a proof-of-concept case study for the French cross-border commuters working in Luxembourg. Our framework allows for the evaluation of specific policies formulated on the trip level as well as aggregated evaluation of environmental impacts from a life cycle perspective. The results of our proof-of-concept-based case study suggest that only a combination of: (1) policy measures improving the speed and coverage of the public transport system; (2) policy measures fostering electric mobility; and (3) external factors such as de-carbonizing the electricity mix will allow to counteract the expected increase in impacts due to the increase of mobility needs of the growing commuting population in the long term.

Original languageEnglish
Article number4067
Number of pages24
JournalSustainability
Volume11
Issue number15
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2019

Funding

We acknowledge Fr?d?ric Schmitz for his work providing the survey data used to create the synthetic population, model parameter estimation, as well as the formal analysis of the data. The survey database relies on the work of the CABaC 2010-2013 research project (Construction and Analysis of a Knowledge Base on mobility habits and attitudes towards energy of cross-border workers in Luxembourg, FNR INTER/CNRS/09/01). We acknowledge Javier Bab? Almenar for his contribution to creating the spatial figures. This research was funded by Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg, grant C14/SR/8330766.

Keywords

  • Activity-based modeling
  • Life cycle assessment
  • Policy analysis
  • Sustainable mobility

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Coupling activity-based modeling and life cycle assessment: a proof-of-concept study on cross-border commuting in Luxembourg'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this