Carbon footprint effects of shifting from flights to night trains for Swedish tourism

Abstract

Changes in travel behaviour are needed to tackle the climate impact associated with long-distance flights, including a switch to sustainable transport modes. In this paper, we analyse scenarios of carbon footprint reduction associated with a switch from flights to night trains for holidays in Europe for the case of Sweden, including outbound, inbound and domestic tourism. We use a prospective lifecycle assessment framework combined with results from a stated preference experiment to determine the impact of future mode shift behaviours. Our results indicate that a mode shift could be triggered by progressive night train policies resulting in (i) fewer transfers and (ii) price levels similar to those of flights. The shifts from flights to night trains could result in 9% lower cumulative carbon footprint in relation to a baseline travel demand scenario for the period 2025–2050. Decarbonization of long-distance travel in line with the Paris Agreement would likely require a combination of many different types of measures including a shift to low-carbon fuels.