Train vs Plane - C02 emissions at a glance
A recent sceptical discussion about the green credentials of train travel vs Air travel made me decide to have a look into some of the data out there.
As with calculating the “carbon footprint” of anything in this ever complex world it’s unlikely that you will ever get an infallible set of data but by using the rule of mode I think we can get close.
1) Eurostar/Watkiss study assured by Bureau Veritas April 2009. View our main assurance statement
6.6kg CO2 per passenger: Return travel by Eurostar from St Pancras International to Paris Gare du Nord.
102.8kg CO2 per passenger: Return flight from London Luton to Paris Charles de Gaulle.
A journey between London, Paris and Brussels by Eurostar generates just one tenth of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO_2 ) of flying.
http://www.eurostar.com/pdf/treadlightly/Executive_Summary.pdf
2) ATOC White paper on C02 emissions of travel.
Within the UK only
Table 2. Estimates of carbon dioxide emissions by mode and change since 1995/6
Mode Emissions Percentage
gCO2/pkm* change since
1995/6
Passenger rail – diesel 74 -16%
Passenger rail – electric 54 -26%
Passenger rail – overall 61 -22%
Car and taxi 106 -8%
Domestic air 231 +5%
Source: NAEI, TSGB (for car and taxi, domestic air) and National Rail Trends, NAEI, DUKES, ATOC data
(rail)3
*
2005/6 figures for rail, 2004 figures for car/air (latest available).
http://www.atoc-comms.org/admin/userfiles/Baseline%20statement%20-%20FINAL%20-%20Print%20version.pdf
(gC02/pkm = grams of C02 / passengers per kilometre )
3) Airline data
As would be reasonable to assume, the individual efficiency of each kind of journey does change, with the longer journeys being the most efficient. Average carbon emissions for long haul flights do reduce to around 87g/pkm
But we are talking distances of > 1,694km which is currently a good 376km longer than the worlds longest express railway (Beijing-Shanghai high-speed due to open in 2010)
pg16 http://omega.mmu.ac.uk/Short-Course-Presentations/03%20Business%20Travel.pdf smallest figure of 87g/pkm
pg3/6/7 http://www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/events/nectar/miyoshi_pres.pdf averages from 87g/pkm to 299g/pkm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing-Shanghai_Express_Railway 1,318km
There are quite a lot of other supporting white papers and articles but these two had the best amount of detail and explanation of how3
Clearly within UK does not perform nearly as well as the Eurostar on it’s own who have been pro-actively trying to reduce their emissions and probably have a better occupancy rate but all the data I’ve found supported a significant reduction in c02 emissions versus any type of Air travel.
Relevant links:
http://www.eurostar.co.uk
http://www.raileurope.co.uk
http://www.chooseclimate.org/flying/mapcalc.html