Assessment of Transport´s Impact on Health and Enviornment for Germany

Abstract

Transportation results in numerous pressures on the environment, among other effects. The nature of these pressures has been analysed and measurement methods, though partly imperfect, have been developed over past years. A broad consensus seems to have been reached on the enumeration or quantification of transport’s environmental pressures. ‘TERM – The transport and environment reporting mechanism’ of the European Environment Agency is an important example for developments at the pan-European level. However its thirty environmental indicators and seventy in total is not easy to handle. Furthermore the data basis they provide – accepting their partly sketchy nature – is only one step for an assessment, which is the basis for any decision making. This contribution proposes, first, to use only seven out of the thirty TERM indicators for a top level analysis of transport’s environmental and health impact. This would both strongly reduce data demand and increase transparency. Second, these indicators are further submitted to a qualitative assessment that is derived from life cycle analysis. The indicators and the respective impacts they represent are ranked by the three criteria ‘distance to target’, ‘specific contribution’ and ‘ecological relevance’. Third, by the so-called analytic hierarchy process transport’s most important environmental and health impacts are identified including related target conflicts; this method is applied here to transport indicators and the assessment criteria for the first time. The indicators, criteria and method are applied in a case study to transport in the South Western German state of Baden-Württemberg. A priority list of transport’s most important environmental impacts is thus identified.