Life cycle sustainability assessment of emerging mobility technologies: Perspective, challenges, and future directions

Abstract

Emerging mobility technologies come with uncertainties in terms of their social, economic, and environmental impacts. Considering the potential impacts of emerging transportation systems, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) can be considered a practical framework to analyze environmental, economic, and social impacts of products and/or systems considering their life cycles. In this chapter, the importance of sustainability assessment of emerging mobility technologies is emphasized by conducting a systematic review of LCSA case studies in the mobility sector. We present a detailed analysis of papers based on the application area, reporting country, coverage of social/economic/environmental indicators, consideration of product, regional/national or global level impacts, presence of ripple or rebound effects, stakeholder involvement, and consideration of mechanisms (interconnection mechanisms, scenario analysis, uncertainty/sensitivity analysis). This chapter reveals important gaps in research and practice such as lack of integrated and macro-level modeling approaches, limited coverage of socio-economic indicators, underrepresented developing world, and limited coverage of end-of-life management strategies. We conclude that systemic use of LCSA is vital to explore trade-offs and inform sustainable development policies, initiatives, and decisions, and can provide insights at early design stages and later for managing and regulating emerging transportation technologies globally.