es5060868_si_001.pdf (1.9 MB)
Combining Agent-Based Modeling and Life Cycle Assessment for the Evaluation of Mobility Policies
journal contribution
posted on 2015-02-03, 00:00 authored by Querini Florent, Benetto EnricoThis
article presents agent-based modeling (ABM) as a novel approach for
consequential life cycle assessment (C-LCA) of large scale policies,
more specifically mobility-related policies. The approach is validated
at the Luxembourgish level (as a first case study). The agent-based
model simulates the car market (sales, use, and dismantling) of the
population of users in the period 2013–2020, following the
implementation of different mobility policies and available electric
vehicles. The resulting changes in the car fleet composition as well
as the hourly uses of the vehicles are then used to derive consistent
LCA results, representing the consequences of the policies. Policies
will have significant environmental consequences: when using ReCiPe2008,
we observe a decrease of global warming, fossil depletion, acidification,
ozone depletion, and photochemical ozone formation and an increase
of metal depletion, ionizing radiations, marine eutrophication, and
particulate matter formation. The study clearly shows that the extrapolation
of LCA results for the circulating fleet at national scale following
the introduction of the policies from the LCAs of single vehicles
by simple up-scaling (using hypothetical deployment scenarios) would
be flawed. The inventory has to be directly conducted at full scale
and to this aim, ABM is indeed a promising approach, as it allows
identifying and quantifying emerging effects while modeling the Life
Cycle Inventory of vehicles at microscale through the concept of agents.