PODlLCA Project Data: Transportation distances, environmental impact factors and emissions of freight in the U.S. global supply chains

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 building sector LCA practice. To address this
gap, this dataset provides data-driven, regionally informed transportation
parameters for use in U.S.-based LCA modeling. 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
using USLCI data. For transportation modes not available in USLCI at the
time of dataset development, additional quantitative calculation methods
were applied and documented in associated research materials. This dataset
provides transportation distances, environmental impact factors and
emissions appropriate to support modeling of material transport in global
supply chains delivering goods to the United States. It combines publicly
available freight and trade datasets with life cycle inventory (LCI)
processes and research to generate multimodal transportation distance and
environmental impacts estimates for domestic and international transport
segments. The dataset includes route-level information linking origin
regions to U.S. destination states, transportation mode(s), distance
assumptions, and vehicle efficiency tiers. The dataset is organized to
support modeling transportation in LCA and supply chain analysis,
including applications in building and construction material transport,
procurement policy analysis, and scenario testing of transportation
assumptions when specific transportation data is not known. The data can
be reused to parameterize transportation modules, compare mode impacts,
evaluate sensitivity to distance, mode of transport and efficiency
assumptions, and support transparent, reproducible modeling of domestic
and global freight transportation impacts. This dataset was developed as
part of the Parametric Open Data for Life Cycle Assessment Project
(POD|LCA) Project which contains a suite of open-source methods, models,
data, and a variety of tools for screening-level (early-stage) building
sector life cycle assessments (LCAs). This dataset can be used to fill
data gaps in LCA studies and is being integrated into tools developed by
the POD|LCA project.