The European Energy and Climate policies are contributing to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in all sectors excluding transport and, thereby, the achievement of climate neutrality cannot ignore decisive interventions in this sector, among which stands out the electrification of vehicles. Particularly in urban areas, the electrification of local public transport (LPT) can lead to high benefits, especially if coupled with increasingly decarbonized electricity mixes.

However, it is necessary to evaluate whether the absence of tailpipe emissions does not lead to a transfer of impacts to other life cycle phases. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, with its “cradle-to-grave” approach, is the main tool for such assessments.

This study investigates environmental (Environmental Footprint method) and economic (Commodity Life Cycle Costing indicator) performances of different modes of urban transport, both for passengers (buses, private cars and micro mobility) and for goods (vans and ecargobikes) making use of experimental activities focused on micro mobility and aimed at identifying the materials used for batteries and electric motors production and energy consumption in the use phase.

For passengers’ home-work commuting, micro mobility represents the best alternative for all the impact categories (with a 90% reduction in Climate Change emissions if compared with traditional cars) except for Resource Use mineral and Metals, where they perform worse than urban diesel buses. Buses are preferable to cars, regardless of the engine, confirming how the actions aimed at introducing electric vehicles into LPT fleets go in the direction of achieving climate neutrality objectives.

The modal shift from diesel cars to electric buses and from electric cars to electric buses leads to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 84 and 53% respectively. Furthermore, micro mobility and LPT represent a valid choice for critical row materials consumption, given that their availability could be the main obstacle to the spread of electric vehicles.

Regarding last mile delivery, the cargobike is the best option for all the impact categories, with savings ranging from more than 50% in the case of Climate Change to around 20% for Resource Use Minerals and Metals, if compared to a diesel van. Since this solution appears to be feasible mostly in the historic town centres, in areas with lower urban density it will be necessary to combine cargo bikes with electric vans, which represent the second-best option.

Finally, the activity highlighted the importance of using primary data. In the future, it could be useful to introduce similar analyses also for cars and buses.

The document is available on the site in Italian