Milieu-effecten van ondergronds goederentransport: Inventarisatie van huidige effecten en verkenning van ontwikkelingen op de middellange termijn

This report describes the results of a research on the current and possible future environmental effects of different forms of automated underground freight transport in the Netherlands. The transport methods that are examined are: traditional and extra-traditional pipelines, pneumatic and hydraulic capsule pipelines, and systems using rail-guided vehicles, automatic guided vehicles or dual mode vehicles. Most attention has been given to the traditional pipelines and to the underground logistic systems that make use of automatic guided vehicles. The environmental effects that have been determined are the emissions of CO2, NOx, SO2, VOC and PM10, noise nuisance, visual nuisance and the use of space. First of all a literature research is executed on the state-of-the-art of the diverse forms of underground freight transport and of the methods to build infrastructure underground. After that the extent of the existing Dutch pipeline network is determined and an overview is given of possible future applications of the different forms of underground freight transport. On the basis of literature and of supplementary calculations the direct and indirect energy use and the environmental effects of underground freight transport are being studied. Finally a case study is performed to determine the total effect on the energy use and the emissions of the underground logistic system (ULS) Utrecht, an existing network concept for underground freight transport. From the research most types of underground freight transport appear to have low direct energy intensities. For traditional, extra-traditional and capsule pipelines the indirect energy use is also low. ULS in contrary have a very high indirect energy use that increases for larger tube diameters. The ULS Utrecht is expected to result in an increase in the total energy use and emissions for all the alternatives under discussion