Umweltwirkungen des Fahrwegs als Unterstützung für strategische Entscheidungsprozesse.

The present paper discusses the application of Life Cycle Assessment on three different types of rail track (ballasted track with wooden sleepers, concrete sleepers and concrete sleepers with under sleeper pads) used within the Austrian rail network. A comparison is carried out between the environmental impacts of these superstructure configurations throughout their whole life cycle. This includes production, installation, removal and maintenance as well as disposal. The functional unit is defined as the “provision of 1 km double track for a year". Additional parameters are determined to ensure a reasonable comparability. The results show that the prolongation of service life caused by under sleeper pads reduces the environmental impact per year significantly. Thus, this type of superstructure can be considered the most environmentally friendly, whereas wooden track shows the highest environmental impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]