FHWA Webinar: Measuring the Lifecycle Impacts of Freight Transportation Emissions

Freight transportation activities often generate significant emissions, both gas and particulate, that negatively impact air quality.  Both governments, through implementing regulations that require reduced emissions to protect the public good, and freight transportation operators, through meeting the regulatory requirements and implementing innovative approaches that increase fuel and energy efficiency and decrease emissions while also lowering costs, have made significant strides in recent years to cut gas and particulate emissions and diminish freight transportation’s impacts on air quality.  However, with freight volumes continuing to grow, particularly when the U.S. and global economies grow, minimizing freight transportation’s impact on air quality remains a challenge.  Additionally, though many infrastructure and operational projects that are implemented can provide shorter-term air quality benefits, it is sometimes unclear what the lifecycle-length air quality impacts are for many freight transportation projects.  Getting a better handle on the lifecycle impacts of gas and particulate emissions will help both public and private sector organizations more clearly understand the true benefits and costs of transportation projects from both an air quality and overall transportation perspective.

This Federal Highway Administration webinar will examine how the lifecycle impacts of freight transportation emissions for infrastructure, operational, and other types of transportation projects can be more comprehensively measured and assessed.

Topics and Presenters:

Measuring the Lifecycle Impacts of Freight Transportation Emissions – Overview

This presentation will discuss some of the various ways the lifecycle of freight transportation-related emissions can be measured and assessed.

SPEAKER:

• Mike Chester, Arizona State University

FHWA Infrastructure Carbon Estimator Tool

This presentation will discuss the recently-developed FHWA Infrastructure Carbon Estimator Tool, which attempts to more comprehensively measure the lifecycle emissions impacts of various larger and smaller-scale transportation projects.

SPEAKERS:

• John Davies, FHWA Office of Natural Environment
• Jeff Houk, FHWA Resource Center
• Frank Galavan, ICF International

Freight Vehicles Lifecycle Emissions Assessment

This presentation will examine various ways the lifecycle of freight vehicle emissions can be measured and mitigated.

SPEAKER:

• Chris Porter, Cambridge Systematics