Is taking the train or bus more sustainable? When you calculate the emissions per person for bus travel and train travel, you make an assumption about a certain occupancy rate. Exactly which occupancy rate is assumed differs between different studies, but buses are assumed to have a higher occupancy rate than trains. Occupancy rate means the proportion of available seats used by passengers. If more people choose to travel by train, the average occupancy will increase, and then the emissions per person and kilometers will be lower.
Train
Rail transport is among the least environmentally damaging in terms of emissions. Just walking, cycling, and sailing are better. On one train you can fit as many passengers as on six buses or 140 cars and a freight train can handle as much cargo as 30 trucks. An important factor for trains to be environmentally friendly is that the locomotive is powered by electricity from fossil-free sources. Today, 90% of Sweden’s railway network runs on electricity. 5% of Sweden’s trains run on diesel locomotives, mainly freight trains. However, one rarely counts on the environmental impact that the construction and maintenance of the infrastructure constitutes. Producing the steel for the rails requires a lot of energy and very large amounts of fossil fuels are required during production.
- At the forefront of environmentally friendly train travel are Sweden, Finland, Norway, France, Switzerland, and Austria.
- In Germany, Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance trains run on 100% renewable electricity since 2018. With the help of this initiative, the German trains ran on 57% renewable energy in 2018. The corresponding figure the year before was 47%.
- In the rest of Europe, the proportion of trains running on diesel is bigger, although electric power dominates in most countries. In Denmark, where a large part of Sweden´s train travels go or pass through, two thirds of the traffic operate on diesel.
- Some countries have trains that are powered by electricity from coal-fired power plants.
- Noise that disturbs the environment and vibration damage to surrounding buildings is still a problem caused by train traffic. Here, the municipality, as for car traffic, has a supervisory responsibility according to the Environmental Code.
Calculate the trains emissions
When you calculate the emissions per person for bus travel and train travel, you make an assumption about a certain occupancy rate. Exactly which occupancy rate is assumed differs between different studies, but buses are assumed to have a higher occupancy rate than trains. Occupancy rate means the proportion of available seats used by passengers. If more people choose to travel by train, the average occupancy will increase, and then the emissions per person and kilometers will be lower.
Is the train or bus more sustainable?
It is not certain that bus is a better option than train, although there are a lot of articles which put forward this thesis. Even if trains in some cases may cause higher emissions of greenhouse gases per person than a bus, there are other factors where the train performs better. For example, trains have lower emissions of nitrogen dioxide and respirable dust than buses. The wheels of a bus also cause a lot of microplastic emissions in nature.
Page updated 2021.
