Sustainable transport : Transfer from road to railway

Road transports stand for a great part of Sweden’s total CO2-emissions. Transports are expected to increase over the coming years, and with those the emissions. A greater environmental awareness leads to increased demands for environmentally friendly transport. The aim of this thesis is to study the consequences of changing transportation modes from road to railway. The thesis contains three major parts; a literature study, a case study and analysis with the national freight system Samgods. The literature study intends to give the reader an insight in the potentials as well the obstacles of the railway. Environmental aspects are discussed as well as political views, both positive and negative. Socioeconomic and more company specific incentives that would lead to more transfers from road to railway are presented and discussed. A case study including two companies, Swep and KappAhl, both with relations which transfer potentials they wish to be examined. Differences in costs for today’s truck transportation are calculated and compared to train transportations. The Swedish national freight system, Samgods, is used to examine the distance relationships between closest terminals and final destinations and how intermodal solutions would be designed and the economic consequences thereof. The environmental impacts are calculated for each relation for both companies to present the saving that can be made if the transportation mode is changed, and also to show the companies their environmental impact today at a specific relation. The result of this thesis is that KappAhl would make a great saving when it comes to the CO2-emissions. If they are willing to increase transportation costs with 4.5 % they could reduce their CO2-emissions with 95 % by using the railway instead of only road transportations. For Swep, the comparison between today’s transportation costs and a future cost for railway transport could not be implemented due to non suitable transportation solutions in Samgods. The environmental impact, however, was calculated for today’s transportations and a future railway solution. The result was a great saving for each of the calculated emission types. The analysis made with Samgods showed that freight transported with container is less sensitive to the distance to nearest terminal than freight transported without container. Furthermore, according to Samgods it is cost-effective to transport freight with combined transport if the distance to the final destination is more than 4.6 times the distance to the nearest terminal. The corresponding value for transports without container is 6.9 times. The relationship between nearest terminal and final destination is applicable for distances from 60 km to 300 km from the final destination