Adapting rail and road networks to weather extremes: case studies for southern Germany and Austria

Doll, Claus; Trinks, Christian; Sedlacek, Norbert; Pelikan, Verena; Comes, Tina; Schultmann, Frank

doi:10.1007/s11069-013-0969-3

Cited by 53 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Thus, the assessment of land transport infrastructure exposure towards adverse climate events and related natural hazards is of great importance for Europe's economy, for its intermodal transport, its freight and logistics networks and for settlements in hazard-prone regions (Koetse and Rietveld, 2009;Doll et al, 2014). Therefore, information on current climate and its variability and on potential future climate changes is of prime importance for proactive planning and the development of adaptation strategies concerning ground transport's operation, maintenance, reinforcement and construction as well as for civil protection.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential future exposure of European land transport infrastructure to rainfall-induced landslides throughout the 21st century

Schlögl

Matulla

2018

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In the face of climate change, the assessment of land transport infrastructure exposure towards adverse climate events is of major importance for Europe's economic prosperity and social wellbeing. In this study, a climate index estimating rainfall patterns which trigger landslides in central Europe is analysed until the end of this century and compared to present-day conditions. The analysis of the potential future development of landslide risk is based on an ensemble of dynamically downscaled climate projections which are driven by the SRES A1B socio-economic scenario. Resulting regional-scale climate change projections across central Europe are concatenated with Europe's road and railway network. Results indicate overall increases of landslide occurrence. While flat terrain at low altitudes exhibits an increase of about 1 more potentially landslide-inducing rainfall period per year until the end of this century, higher elevated regions are more affected and show increases of up to 14 additional periods. This general spatial distribution emerges in the near future (2021-2050) but becomes more pronounced in the remote future (2071-2100). Since largest increases are to be found in Alsace, potential impacts of an increasing amount of landslides are discussed using the example of a case study covering the Black Forest mountain range in Baden-Württemberg by further enriching the climate information with additional geodata. The findings derived are suitable to support political decision makers and European authorities in transport, freight and logistics by offering detailed information on which parts of Europe's ground transport network are at particularly high risk concerning landslide activity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential future exposure of European land transport infrastructure to rainfall-induced landslides throughout the 21st century

Schlögl

Matulla

2018

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Reliable information about the exposure of road infrastructure networks to extreme weather events is of major concern for road authorities, governmental institutions and safety researchers all over the world (TRB, 2008;Koetse and Rietveld, 2009;Eisenack et al, 2011;Doll et al, 2013;UN-ECE, 2013;Meyer et al, 2014;Michaelides, 2014;Schweikert et al, 2014a, b;Matulla et al, 2017). In a changing climate (IPCC, 2012) and due to extensive soil sealing (Nestroy, 2006) the impacts of extreme weather events are likely to increase in both frequency and intensity (APCC, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme weather exposure identification for road networks – a comparative assessment of statistical methods

Schlögl

Laaha

2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The assessment of road infrastructure exposure to extreme weather events is of major importance for scientists and practitioners alike. In this study, we compare the different extreme value approaches and fitting methods with respect to their value for assessing the exposure of transport networks to extreme precipitation and temperature impacts. Based on an Austrian data set from 25 meteorological stations representing diverse meteorological conditions, we assess the added value of partial duration series (PDS) over the standardly used annual maxima series (AMS) in order to give recommendations for performing extreme value statistics of meteorological hazards. Results show the merits of the robust L-moment estimation, which yielded better results than maximum likelihood estimation in 62 % of all cases. At the same time, results question the general assumption of the threshold excess approach (employing PDS) being superior to the block maxima approach (employing AMS) due to information gain. For low return periods (non-extreme events) the PDS approach tends to overestimate return levels as compared to the AMS approach, whereas an opposite behavior was found for high return levels (extreme events). In extreme cases, an inappropriate threshold was shown to lead to considerable biases that may outperform the possible gain of information from including additional extreme events by far. This effect was visible from neither the square-root criterion nor standardly used graphical diagnosis (mean residual life plot) but rather from a direct comparison of AMS and PDS in combined quantile plots. We therefore recommend performing AMS and PDS approaches simultaneously in order to select the best-suited approach. This will make the analyses more robust, not only in cases where threshold selection and dependency introduces biases to the PDS approach but also in cases where the AMS contains non-extreme events that may introduce similar biases. For assessing the performance of extreme events we recommend the use of conditional performance measures that focus on rare events only in addition to standardly used unconditional indicators. The findings of the study directly address road and traffic management but can be transferred to a range of other environmental variables including meteorological and hydrological quantities.

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“…This has traditionally been a major focus in studies related to weather and railway traffic. A second stream of research addresses climate change and how that affects the railway system (including [7,8]). A third stream of research addresses how weather influences railway traffic performance in general.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating the effect of weather on punctuality of Norwegian railways: a case study of the Nordland Line

Zakeri

Olsson

2018

J. Mod. Transport.

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The overall punctuality of the railway system is of particular importance for customers in order to use trains as a means of public transport. Investigating the drivers of low punctuality of trains is an essential step for improving their punctuality. Severe weather conditions are assumed to be one of the drivers of delays and low punctuality of the transportation system. This paper addresses the extent to which the weather factors such as temperature, snow, precipitation and wind influence the punctuality of trains on the Norwegian railways. The data for the study are collected from the passenger trains on the Nordland Line. The study period is 10 years, from the beginning of 2007 to the end of 2016. Data are analysed on a daily and weekly basis, and correlation and regression analyses are used to perform the statistical analysis. The results show that extreme cold weather during the winters is a crucial influencing factor contributing to delays and low punctuality. We also found that the weather variable that best explains variations in punctuality of passenger trains on this line is snow depth.

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Adapting rail and road networks to weather extremes: case studies for southern Germany and Austria

Cited by 53 publications

References 18 publications

Potential future exposure of European land transport infrastructure to rainfall-induced landslides throughout the 21st century

Potential future exposure of European land transport infrastructure to rainfall-induced landslides throughout the 21st century

Extreme weather exposure identification for road networks – a comparative assessment of statistical methods

Investigating the effect of weather on punctuality of Norwegian railways: a case study of the Nordland Line

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