Impacts of the Brazilian railways infrastructure projects on GHG emissions, energy consumption and freight costs of grain transportation: a mathematical model.

The Brazilian Government and railway operators are announcing investments in important railways transport projects. The perspective is to implement the planned infrastructure in the next decade, through public-private partnerships. These new transport alternatives will affect the cost-competitiveness, the CO₂ emission and the energy consumption of transportation in the main agriculture export corridors.

Our main objective is to investigate and recommend the optimum configuration of the Brazilian network transporting soybean and corn from producing regions to export facilities, considering a multicriteria approach that incorporates freight costs, CO₂ emission and energy consumption impacts. We develop a mathematical modeling aiming to simulate firstly the soybean and corn current freight transport system, and secondly the impacts resultant of the introduction of the proposed infrastructure projects. We considered the following five railway projects in the second analysis: Ferrogrão; Norte-Sul between Palmas (TO) and Estrela d`Oeste (SP); Integração Oeste-Leste; Nova Transnordestina; and Ferronorte between Rondonópolis (MT) and Cuiabá (MT). Through a trade-off analysis, we identify the infrastructures that present the best cost-effectiveness in reducing CO₂ emissions and energy consumption.

First results are indicating that the future railway Ferrogrão presents the highest potential for CO₂ emission reduction (around 15%).