Train vs plane
Train travel is widely thought of as the environmentally friendly alternative to flying, but is it really all that green? Paul Horrell investigates
Green travellers are rail travellers - whenever a politician wants to paint himself or herself green, the answer is a photo-call on the station platform. Members of the environmental organisation Friends of the Earth were recently aboard the first high-speed train from London’s St Pancras to Paris.
And certainly, by the same token, the often-used alternative, short-haul air travel, is extremely carbon-intensive - but how much worse is it really? Exact figures are surprisingly hard to find and comparisons are controversial.
But whatever the precision of the numbers, it’s safe to assume that rail is a lower-carbon option than air - the question is by how much.
SNCF carbon emissions calculator
The national railway of France, SNCF, recently launched an ‘ecocomparateur’ web tool and although it is in French it’s still pretty easy to use. You enter departure and destination towns, and it searches available rail journeys and flights, and road distances. It then returns times, costs and CO2 outputs for French rail, conventional and low-cost air travel if available, and also car.
Using the ecocomparateur, a Paris to Nice journey returns 5kg CO2 for the TGV train, 121kg for the Air France plane, 101kg for the Easyjet plane. Note that the ecocomparateur bumps up the airline figure to account for ‘radiative forcing’. One kilo of CO2 released at high level has the same warming effect as 2kg released at ground level.
The ecocomparateur caused uproar at Air France and the airline went to court to get the calculator taken down. It didn’t succeed, but SNCF modified some parameters. Meanwhile, Air France launched its own CO2 calculator, which returns 79kg for the plane. It doesn’t give rail or road results.
Both SNCF and Air France have devised their calculators with co-operation from (ADEME), the French Government Environment and Energy Management Agency.
But an interesting thing happens when you plug London to Paris into the SNCF calculator - the train figures are closer to the airlines’. It’s 12kg vs 57kg - this is because TGV trains run on nuclear electricity - SNCF’s assumptions are based on the fact that fossil fuel is used outside of France.
Carbon advantage
Unfortunately, the carbon cost of nuclear electricity is widely disputed. There are few agreed figures on the CO2 released by building the power stations, mining and refining the fissile material, and disposing of spent fuel. Even so, it’s safe to assume the train is still clear favourite.
And even with British high-fossil-fuel electricity or diesel trains, other studies have shown an advantage in rail. UK high-speed rail travel generates between 80 and 165g of CO2 per passenger kilometre.
Short-haul air travel is around 170 to 240g/km, which, multiplied by the radiative forcing effect, comes to the equivalent of 330 to 460g/km. (Figures from the Aviation Environment Federation.)
So, on the 410 mile (660 km) journey from London to Edinburgh, every train passenger makes 53-109kg of CO2. That’s 218-304kg equivalent climate effect by plane.
Train versus car
Actually, for domestic journeys at quiet times, even the train might not be the winner. An efficient Ford Focus-sized diesel car might get along motorways at about 50mpg, which is 150g/km. That’s 99 kg for the car for that London to Edinburgh trip if the driver takes three passengers, it works out as under 38g/km per person (or just 25 kg per head for the journey).
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