The present work had as goal to study the energy flows about routes for soybean transport, at the Brazil middle-west region, from Rio Verde (GO) to Santos (SP). Two routes for analysis had been selected: a multimodality way (highway, railway and waterway modals), and one modality way (highway modal). The conversion of physical and operational factors in energetic unities was obtained in literature, by means energy coefficients. Initially, comparing the results obtained into multimodal way (route-1), the highway transport presented the largest energy expense specific (0.50 MJ km-1 t-1), followed by railway (0.42 MJ km-1 t-1) and, finally, the waterway (0.22 MJ km-1 t-1 ). For route-2 (one modal transport), the results indicated 0.50 MJ km-1 t-1 by the highway. Comparing the analyzed routes, the total specific energy spends by the route-2 (0.50 MJ km-1 t-1 ) it was greater than that one by route-1 (0.34 MJ km-1 t-1).
multimodal transport; highway; railway; waterway; soybean transport; energy analysis
