The aim of this study is to help policy makers make decisions that can reverse the current trend. Using a life-cycle approach, it provides elements for comparing the performance of means of transport for home-work commuting and last-mile freight delivery in urban areas in terms of carbon footprint and resource consumption (CLCC and critical CLCC indicators).

In addition, the integration of LCA and externalities provides an estimate of the external costs of technology options by offering, for the first time, a reading of the results by life cycle phase. For pedal assisted vehicles, the impact of food consumption resulting from the rider’s muscular effort (food energy vector) is assessed.

The results obtained show that for home-work travel, micromobility vehicles are always the best option in terms of decarbonization, followed by electric cars. The e-bike is second only to the scooter because of the contribution of the food supply chain. However, in terms of total external costs, the electric scooter is the worst performer due to its high accident rate. Among cars, electric cars are the best and gasoline cars are the worst. For cars, most of the external environmental costs are related to the use phase of the vehicles, with a significant contribution from noise. The benefits of active mobility are greater than the external environmental costs of the e-bike.

Similar results are obtained for last-mile logistics, where the ecargobike is consistently the best option, followed by the electric van. For the ecargobike, most of the external environmental costs come from the vehicle and battery production phase, while for the vans the contribution comes from the use phase.

With respect to the CLCC indicator, electric vehicles, while advantageous in terms of resource consumption, are problematic in terms of the consumption of critical resources, the availability of which could be the main obstacle to the diffusion of these vehicles in the coming years.