Life cycle carbon emission of monorail transit and its comparison in operation stage with other city transit modes

¹ Dept. of Civil Engineering., Beijing Jiaotong University., Shangyuancun 3rd, Beijing, China, 100044
Corresponding author, Eryu Zhu, Professor of Bridge Department, Beijing Jiaotong University, Ph. D, China.

^* eyzhu@bjtu.edu.cn

Abstract

In this paper, carbon emissions of a monorail transit are calculated using the method of whole life cycle, which can be divided into four stages: material manufacturing stage, construction stage, operation stage and demolition stage. In the operation phase, the units are PKT (Passenger Kilometers Travelled) and VKT (Vehicle Kilometers Travelled), while in other three stages, the unit is 1 km. The results show that the carbon emissions from the 1km length monorail are 6271.204 tons. In addition, in the operation stage, it is found that the PKT index and VKT index of Chongqing monorail transportation are 0.07468 and 3.31933 respectively, far lower than those of subways in the same city. For PKT indicators of other rail transits, from small to large, they are light rail, tram, subway, APM and maglev. As for VKT indicators, from small to large, they are tram, light rail, subway, APM and maglev. The PKT index of Beijing subway is the lowest compared with that of other cities.