Allocating CO2 emissions to shipments in road freight transportation

Logistic activity, in particular transportation, produces green house gases (GHG). For different purposes GHG need to be allocated to objects. This paper studies how to allocate the GHG volume of a transportation process (delivery tour) to the single shipments moved by the process. First, it identifies classes of generic allocation schemes and presents 15 allocation methods. Second, since the majority of these methods has not been designed for allocating GHG, we apply and compare them in the short distance transport context within a numerical example. The aim is to study how the schemes perform according to criteria. We suggest using causality, efficiency, empty core robustness, symmetry, individual rationality, coalition stability, ease of application, and set robustness as appraisal criteria and attempt to mainstream the discussion by recommending selected allocation methods.