The Impact of active mobility on human health

A life cycle assessment of urban transportation

Abstract

Sustainable mobility, through electric mobility and active mobility, emerges as an alternative to promote transport with lower or even zero emissions of some pollutants into the atmosphere. However, based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), there are still gaps regarding the atmospheric concentrations generated by the useful life of electric vehicles, specifically in the production and disposal stages of the batteries used by these vehicles. While active mobility, a concept little studied as an aggregator and a challenge to urban mobility, in addition to its environmental impact is still unclear. The objective of the article is to evaluate and analyze the impact on human health from motorized and electric transport in comparison to active mobility. Four model scenarios are proposed that use data from LCA studies with metrics on atmospheric concentrations in NOx-eq, PM2.5-eq and SO2-eq in reference to urban mobility. As a result, an inventory of emissions from each type of urban transport in a 1km per day route, where, of the scenarios evaluated, the introduction of active mobility reduced the metrics of atmospheric concentrations by up to 40%. The study shows active mobility as the most effective key strategy for reducing impacts on human health.