Greenhouse gas considerations in rail infrastructure in the UK

Abstract

Transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions account for an increasing proportion of total emissions in the UK and globally. The provision of rail transit is popularly proposed to reduce transport GHG emissions, but the provision of new infrastructure is itself GHG intensive. Understanding of the GHG emissions impact of rail projects is limited and very few longitudinal studies have been carried out. Existing assessments are often limited both in their scope and the factors considered. A holistic understanding of GHG impacts must include an assessment of capital GHG emissions, operational energy and maintenance as well as an assessment of ridership mode shift and mode share impacts and the relationship between transit infrastructure and land use. This paper explores rail infrastructure projects and their associated GHG emissions. Guidance is given on the aspects of rail planning, design and construction that must be considered to more fully understand the associated GHG impacts.

Re-thinking UK transport emissions – getting to the 2050 targets

“…■ Standardisation of the boundaries of life-cycle assessments (as discussed by Saxe et al (2015) for rail) -this is now possible following the recent publication of PAS 2080 (BSI, 2016). ■ A coherent national strategic plan or 'roadmap' for transport for the next 35 years to 2050, setting out the main transformational projects that will be required and identifying a bespoke funding mechanism, recognising that each large transport project will take over half of that period to bring to fruition.…”

“…Figure 4 comes with some caveats that are extremely important when considering the sustainability of mass-transit systems, requiring a holistic understanding of each transport mode and its sensitivity. Ridership and urban form will have a major impact on the capital carbon and cost of rail (Saxe et al, 2015).…”

The importance of spatio-temporal infrastructure assessment: Evidence for 5G from the Oxford–Cambridge Arc

“…Infrastructure assessment provides a comprehensive overview of the future supply and demand of energy, transport, digital, water and waste services under different potential scenarios (Chester & Allenby, 2019; E.J. Oughton and T. Russell Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 83 (2020) 101515 Garcia et al, 2019;Hall et al, 2016;Saxe, Casey, Guthrie, Soga, & Cruickshank, 2015;Saxe, Miller, & Guthrie, 2017). This is essential evidence for making effective policy decisions given the huge challenges faced in delivering the infrastructure needed over coming decades.…”

Exploring the Development of a BIM-Enabled Process Framework for LCA of Rail Tracks

“…Further, there are limited studies which attempt to automate LCA workflow processes with data exchanges using an open BIM platform. Some significant problems with the state-of-the-art in the process of quantifying greenhouse gas emissions of a rail system over its life cycle are: the high inconsistencies in different approaches (Ortega et al 2018;Cuenot 2016), data unavailability (Saxe et al 2016;Esters and Marinov 2014), and process complexity (Anton and Diaz 2014). This problem has led to the development of varying LCA methodologies and approaches which are well documented in literature (Cuenot 2016).…”