Can rail transport-related contamination affect railway vegetation? A case study of a busy railway corridor in Poland

This article primarily aims to understand how the Light-Rail Transport (LRT) pricing and infrastructural innovations from a Chinese context have been adopted to the Addis-Ababa city context. Secondly, it wishes to show what were the economic, social, and environmental effects of these adapted innovations on passenger service delivery and Multi-National Corporations (MNCs), and what effects the resident’s proximity had on commercial activities along the LRT route. Thirdly, it identified re-adaptations to a more sustainable LRT with respect to the passengers, MNCs, and residents. This study has revealed economic, social, and environmental effects that may influence innovation adoption, such as the following: reduction in carbon emissions; fare evasion; inconvenience; affordability; less revenue; less proximity to commercial activities; and an increase in travel distances for pedestrians. A mixed method for a single case study was used, including semi-structured interviews with light-rail experts and a passenger survey. The results show that economic sustainability factors account for 12 out of 14 sustainability factors and 2 out of 14 social and environmental sustainability factors. The results are intended to be used as a decision support system for innovation adoption in other cities with similar context, in order to develop a sustainable approach to LRT planning.

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A Study for the Measurement of Environmental Impact Resulting From Railway Construction

2011 Joint Rail Conference ◽

10.1115/jrc2011-56006 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Yasutomo Morita ◽

Kenji Shimizu ◽

Hirokazu Kato ◽

Naoki Shibahara ◽

Toshihiro Yamasaki

Keyword(s):

Life Cycle ◽

Co2 Reduction ◽

Environmentally Friendly ◽

Rail Transport ◽

Transportation Mode ◽

Co2 Gas ◽

Low Emission ◽

Global Concern ◽

Whole Life Cycle

This study shows how to measure CO2 emissions caused by railways during its life span from construction to disposal. It is now a common global concern that CO2 reduction is vital for conserving the global environment. Amidst this growing awareness, rail transport has attracted significant attention as an environmentally-friendly transportation mode due to its low emission of CO2 gas. But in many studies the amount of CO2 is calculated only during operation and doesn’t include emissions during the phase of construction of related infrastructure and rolling stocks. Rail transport can not be a truly environmentally-friendly transportation mode if it isn’t proven to emit less gases compared with other modes during a modes whole life cycle. In this paper, we introduce the method to calculate CO2 emission from the construction of infrastructure with the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the result of a case study.

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Assessment of Static Resilience of Objects in the Rail Transport

Communications - Scientific letters of the University of Zilina ◽

10.26552/com.c.2021.3.f96-f108 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. F96-F108

Author(s):

Zdeněk Dvořák ◽

Nikola Chovančíková ◽

Katarína Hoterová ◽

Michal Szatmári

Keyword(s):

Adverse Events ◽

Critical Infrastructure ◽

Slovak Republic ◽

Rail Transport ◽

Internal Environment ◽

Specific Object ◽

Basic Functions ◽

Resilience Assessment

Resilience is the ability of an object to retain its basic functions in the case of adverse events from an external or internal environment. Adverse events can jeopardize the operation of an object or cause it to become completely inoperable. The assessment of static resilience should be dealt with mainly by objects that are included in local, regional, national, and international critical infrastructure. ritical infrastructure is the basis of today's modern functioning society. The paper is focused on design of the static resilience evaluation of objects in the rail transport. The proposed method of static resilience assessment is based on safety pillars and is applied in a case study to a specific object of the rail transport. This approach is original in the conditions of the Slovak Republic.

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The Assessment of Energy Efficiency versus Planning of Rail Freight Traffic: A Case Study on the Example of Poland

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14185629 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (18) ◽

pp. 5629

Author(s):

Piotr Gołębiowski ◽

Marianna Jacyna ◽

Andrzej Stańczak

Keyword(s):

Energy Efficiency ◽

Energy Consumption ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Rail Transport ◽

Rolling Stock ◽

Railway Network ◽

Rail Freight ◽

Freight Traffic ◽

Efficient Planning

The issues addressed by the article concern the assessment of energy efficiency in rail transport, resulting from the proper organization of rail traffic. The problems related to energy consumption and, thus, the negative impact of rail transport on the natural environment are highly significant in terms of the green deal concept, climate change and sustainable development. In this article, energy efficiency is investigated in the context of minimizing the energy consumption necessary to satisfy a specific transport requirement. The essence of this article is to present an approach to energy-efficient planning of rail freight traffic. This article aims to develop a method covers the allocation of railway vehicles dedicated to freight traffic (locomotives and railcars) to perform a defined transport task, taking into account the energy efficiency assessment of the solution, routing the train launched with regard to the accomplishment of the defined transport task on the railway network, and determining the conditions of transport for a defined transport task, taking into account the allocated rolling stock (locomotives and railcars) and the route. In this article, based on the presented state of knowledge, a decision-making model has been proposed, including the model’s parameters, the values being searched for, indicators for assessing the quality of the solution, as well as the limitations and boundary conditions of the problem. The function of minimizing the energy consumption necessary to transport a shipment within the railway network (determining the energy efficiency of the proposed solution) has been proposed as the criterion. In addition, a description of the proprietary method of selecting rolling stock for accomplishing tasks, based on the assessment of the energy efficiency of the solution and a case study illustrating the operation of the method on the example of the area of Poland, has been presented.

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The accessibility of rail transport to people with reduced mobility – case study

10.5592/co/cetra.2020.1168 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Marjana Petrović ◽

Matea Mikulčić ◽

Tomislav Josip Mlinarić

Keyword(s):

Rail Transport ◽

Rolling Stock ◽

Intellectual Deficiency ◽

Railway Stations ◽

High Concentrations ◽

Reduced Mobility ◽

The City ◽

Real State

The means of rail transport as well as other modes of transport primarily enable people to easily overcome certain distances over a period of time. This implies the need for it to be adapted to such specificities, together with other elements in places where high concentrations of passengers are exchanged. This paper deals with a common problem of accessibility of rail transport to people with reduced mobility (PRM). PRM refers to people whose mobility is reduced due to physical incapacity, an intellectual deficiency, age, illness or any other cause of disability when using transport. Therefore, a thorough analysis of accessibility of rail transport to this group of passengers will be conducted for the city of Zagreb according to certain indicators. The rail station is considered to be accessible if a PRM passenger can enter passenger terminal, consume services available there and if is able to get to the platform from where the train will depart. The rolling stock is accessible if a PRM passenger can buy a ticket, enter the train and have predicted and available space in the train. By determining the real state of accessibility to PRM passengers of all railway stations and used rolling stock in suburban rail transit in the city of Zagreb, measures will be proposed to increase accessibility to these passengers and thus facilitate their integration into society in this segment and increase their quality of life.

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