Determination of railway transport in turkey via life cycle assessment and life cycle cost methods

In this thesis, in order to provide input to decision makers in our country, the environmental impacts of railway transportation systems and the economic assessment of these impacts were carried out by using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) methods. LCA analysis was performed based on CML baseline 2000 method for selected impact categories (abiotic depletion, acidification, eutrophication, global warming, toxicity, ozone depletion and photochemical oxidation) by using licensed SimaPro 7.3.3. In LCC analysis was carried out creating to a new economic method for internal (energy, materials, transport) cost, and external cost (pollutant, accident, noise) categories by using the same software. According to findings obtained, the environmental of High Speed Train (HST) was caused by 58% infrastructure components and 42% operation components. The infrastructure components and operation components Conventional Railways (CR) caused 39%, 61% respectively. And also, the environmental impacts in freight transportation CR, caused by 25 percent of infrastructure components and 75 percent of operation components. Conclusions, in the determination of railway transportation strategies, it should be taken consider both environmental impacts and externalities cost. And also, for sustainable transportation strategy, it should be taken preventions to minimize both the environmental impacts and costs in this thesis.