Alternative Road Vehicles, Electric Rail Systems, Short Flights: An Environmental Comparison

In a context of global warming, the energy-efficiency topic has never been as hot as it is now, especially as far as transportation is concerned. Road and rail transportation are both included in what currently is the main attempt to tackle climate change on a worldwide scale: the Kyoto protocol. The achievement of the objectives put forward in this international agreement might be reached thanks to the high energy efficiency of electric drives for both road and rail transportation. International aviation emissions however, have not been included in the targets of the Kyoto protocol. Nevertheless, as in some cases aviation competes with surface transport, the energy efficiencies and/or climate impacts of different alternative drives or transport modes for surface transport should be compared to (mainly short-haul and very short-haul) aviation.
In this paper the environmental relevance of a planned prohibition of very short-haul flights in Belgium is assessed. This is done through the case-study of an abandoned project to operate a 737-400 flight between the Belgian cities of Liège and Charleroi (75 km distance), before taking off to Casablanca, Morocco (approximately 2100 km from Charleroi). The emissions due to the Liège-Charleroi leg of the flight are compared to alternatives for passenger transport, such as road transport and rail transport. Concerning road transport, different alternatives (conventional, CNG, hybrid, electric drive cars and buses) will be considered. After an assessment of the different transfer possibilities, an evaluation of the most climate-friendly and energy efficient scenarios is performed. Moreover an estimation of the yearly CO2-equivalent savings is carried out.