Comparison of transportation modes from an environmental perspective : a case study of transportation of fish food from Denmark to mid Sweden

Abstract: Outside Strömsund, a community in the county of Jämtland in Sweden, there are plans to start a fish farm. This fish farm would require transports of 3000 tones fish food from the factory in Brande, Denmark to Strömsund each year.The purpose of this thesis is to study different modes of transportation of the fish food from Brande in Denmark to the sites of the farms in order to establish the best option of transportation from an environmental and economic perspective.This thesis contains an environmental impact analysis, which considers global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential and photochemical potential. The transportation modes truck and train are analyzed using several different scenarios. The results show that all scenarios using train as transportation mode is preferable from an environmental point of view, regardless of which category of environmental impacts that are considered. The sensitivity analysis carried out gave the same results as the environmental impact analysis; despite variations in sensitive parameters, train is the environmentally preferable mode of transportation.The cost analysis presented in the thesis shows that two of the three train scenarios give a decrease in cost compared to truck while one scenario gives an increase in cost. However, the variations in cost are so small that no real conclusion can be drawn to establish the economical preferable mode of transportation.The conclusion drawn from this thesis is that train is the best mode of transportation from an environmental viewpoint and there is no additional monetary cost connected to this choice of transportation mode. With this in mind it is suggested that when choosing the mode of transportation the possibility of using train for transports should always be investigated.