A data-driven method for quantifying the environmental impacts of freight transportation in construction for prospective LCA in the United States

Transportation in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modeling is commonly represented using simplified, one-size-fits-all assumptions. However, empirical freight data show that transportation distances and associated environmental impacts vary significantly depending on material type, transportation mode, and regional infrastructure conditions. These variations can lead to substantial differences in results and are not well captured in conventional LCA practice. To address this gap, this dataset provides data-driven, regionally informed transportation parameters for use in LCA modeling in the United States. Environmental impacts were evaluated in OpenLCA (version 2.5.0) using the US EPA ISO21930-LCIA-US (v0.1) LCIA method. The USLCI repository was used to obtain inventory data. For transportation modes not available in USLCI at the time of dataset development, additional quantitative calculation methods were applied and documented in the corresponding journal article. This dataset provides tra..., Evaluation of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results from life cycle inventory (LCI) data was conducted using the open-source LCA software OpenLCA (version 2.4.0). To demonstrate the methods and framework described in the associated journal article, the five core impact assessment categories required by ISO 21930:2017 were selected for evaluation: 100-year global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), ozone depletion potential (ODP), and photochemical oxidant creation potential (POCP). The US EPA ISO21930-LCIA-US (v0.1) LCIA method was used to evaluate these impact categories for product systems generated from Federal LCA Commons processes using OpenLCA. Please see the associated journal article for further details of the calculation and classification methods.
, # Data from: A data-driven method for quantifying the environmental impacts of freight transportation in construction for prospective LCA in the United States

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.80gb5mm46](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.80gb5mm46)

## Description of the data

The dataset provides plausible transportation distances, environmental impacts, and emissions under three scenarios (local, regional, and national), as well as point-to point instances. The inputs are material category, origin and destination states, scenario, mode of transportation and efficiency. Results include distance (km), environmental impacts (AP, EP, GWP, ODP, POCP ) and emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O) and electricity consumption (kWh) reported per tonne of transported material.

### File

transportation_dataset_domestic.csv

### Variables

* uuid: Universally Unique Identifier

- material type: Material category name based on Standard Classification of Transported Goods (SCTG)
- SCTG code: 2-digit SCTG code of the ship..., ,