
Climate resilient railway infrastructure: A System Innovation Approach
The project application aims to develop system-level innovation roadmap and plan toward resilience railway infrastructure in continuation of two relevant projects, namely “CliMaint” and “AdaptUrbanRail”.
The objective of the project is to identify and analyse obstacles, shortcomings and suggest appropriate measures to accelerate the implementation, upscaling and dissemination of innovation solutions of these two projects.
Future transport infrastructure is expected to be more interconnected and complex leading to different types of vulnerabilities affected by changes in the climate conditions, for instance extreme temperature, and precipitation. Climate change and its associated impacts will be continued for many decades and even centuries, regardless of the success of global initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions3. Hence there is a need for resilience systems for transport networks dealing with vulnerabilities affected by changes in climate conditions. Considering the shift to resilience means that building and operating resilient should, not only account for the preventing disruptions, but also account for restoration and recovery from disruptions and adaptation to the future events.
One solution is the integration of climate change modelling with current and future design, construction, operation and maintenance of railway infrastructure to achieve robust railway operation. For instance, increased snow volume requires greater maintenance activity/cost and better logistics. In addition, risks for extreme rain means a threat to the stability and integrity of the rail embankment and there is a need to identify the vulnerable area with poor operation and maintenance of drainage system under the railway embankment.
Trafikverket and other stakeholders aim to integrate climate factors and its impacts within the current operation and maintenance plan (strategy, procurement strategy, tools and activities). This ambition entails development of Decision Support System (DSS) to map climate risks and identify the vulnerabilities imposed by climate change on operation and maintenance of railway. This will enable implementation of appropriate climate adaptation measures and actions.
The two above projects complement each other and develop an innovative and collaborative platform and process to reduce the impact of climate change on the railway network.
WP1: Project management and Dissemination
Extent: 150 hours
Responsible party: JVTC
Participating parties: All Partners
This WP consists of the project management, internal and external follow-ups, coordination of tasks, alignment of outcomes, and the establishment of a proper quality system to ensures the objectives of the project. Dissemination activities included but not limited to updating the project’s social media and, producing informative materials, organizing seminars, publishing scientific articles in conferences/ journal. JVTC platform will be used for disseminating knowledge outside the project within the railway industry.
Tasks:
T1.1: Project initiation project coordination, organize meetings and workshops, (M1 – M9)
T1.2: Utilizing JVTC platform for disseminating knowledge at TrV, Underhållsmässan,Jönköpin (M3 –M9)
T1.3: Project termination, publication, and final reporting (M6 – M9)
Deliverables:
D1.1: Mid-project report and final project result (M 6 and 9)
D1.2: Outreach and dissemination activities including (website, social media, poster, etc.) (M9)
WP2: Business model, Procurement's process, Barrier-enabler analysis
Extent: 220 hours
Responsible party: LTU
Participating parties: InfraNord, Trafikverket
For identifying and mapping barriers, in-depth interviews with stakeholders and end users will be performed (for instance, gathering suggestions for improvement and development from the contractor). In addition to the business model needs from supplier perspective, we also intend to capture the customer perspective on business model readiness. Thus, we investigate the TRV procurement process, which will allow us to take into account contractual and revenue model risks towards achieving the project's full implementation. Thus, a multi-actor view will lead to deepen understanding about TRV and maintenance entrepreneurs’ business models. The following task will be explored to achieve the WP3 objective.
Tasks:
T3.1: Conduct a Baseline description of current business models, procurement methods and procedures, pricing models, including mapping of stakeholders and end users. (M1-M6)
T3.2: Barrier-enabler analysis concerning introduction of new business models (M3-M8)
T3.3: Develop sustainable business model with incentives to support value co-creation for stakeholders and customers. (M3-M8)
Deliverables:
D3.1: Barrier-enabler analyses report for business models-procurement (M8)
WP3: Exploring bottlenecks of Policy and regulations and its upgradation needs
Extent: 220 hours
Responsible party: InfraNord
Participating parties: Trafikverket, LTU, JVTC, SMHI
This WP investigates the shortcoming related to existing rules, regulations and standards. For instance, regulations for planning and design of new or replacement infrastructure without due consideration to climate change factors. Failing to take expected future conditions into account could make a huge investment completely worthless. Several key theories (such as top-down and bottom-up approaches and lessons of policy implementation will be investigated.
Tasks:
T5.1: SoA of current policy, laws and regulation and upgradation towards climate change (M1-M6)
T5.2: Hindering rules and procurement processes (M3-M8)
Deliverables:
D5.1; Barrier-enabler analysis in relation to policy and regulations and its upgradation needs(M9)
WP4: Study the impact of Behaviour, culture and values on CliMaint-AdaptUrbanRail innovation
Extent:220 hours
Responsible party: LTU
Participating parties: All Partners
This WP aims at identifying the user’s corporate values, needs, motivations, expectations in three levels, i.e., individual level, organizational level and societal level. This WP also analyses social and behavioural barriers in relation to the CliMaint & AdaptUrbanRail development processes (exploration, design, test and evaluation, implementation, adoption). These barriers may include but not limited to conflicting Expectations, Negative Past experiences, and lack of engagement to take responsibility.
Tasks:
T6.1: Stakeholders current corporate cultures and their acceptancy for change (M1-M8)
T6.2: Co-creation methods and techniques to create sustainable value (M1-M8)
T6.3: Social and behavioural barriers for the adaptation of new innovative solution (M3-M8)
Deliverables:
D6.1: Social and behavioural barriers- enabler analyses for the adaptation of new innovative solution (M9)
WP5: Exploring bottlenecks and potential improvements
Exploring bottlenecks and potential improvements of “Technology, product and process” and “infrastructure”
Extent: 220 hours
Responsible party: TRV,
Participating parties: Trafikverket, Infranord, BnearIT
In this WP, CliMaint and AdaptUrbanRail solutions will be assessed in terms of the “Technology, products and processes” and “infrastructure” pillars. This will be done based on the specifications and standards for system innovation available within Trafikverket. Experiences from the development and use of different types of platforms for the operation and maintenance of the railway network will be utilised in the assessment. Measures such as compatibility, accessibility, functionality & usability will be investigated for integration purposes. The DSS created by CliMaint and AdaptUrbanRail is very important as Trafikverket is interested in integrating climate models with the planning of operation and maintenance of railway infrastructure for short- and long-term time horizons.
Tasks:
T5.1: Barrier analysis of the projects in terms of “Technology, products and processes” (M1 – M6)
T5.2: Barrier-enabler analysis concerning IT and physical infrastructure (M3-M8)
Deliverables:
D5.1: Barrier-enabler analyses and potential enabling measure for “Technology, products and processes” and “infrastructure” pillars (M8)
WP6: Innovation roadmap and plan for implementation, upscaling, and replication
Extent: 220 hours
Responsible party: Bnear IT
Participating parties: All Partners
Description of activities, equipment and methods:
This WP aim to integrate the outcomes of all the previous WPs (System Innovation pillars) in order to boost implementation, up scaling, and replication of CliMaint-AdaptUranRail innovation. To design road map and plan to extend the concepts developed during these two projects to a system innovation perspective, the project will involve and engage related stakeholders in an iterative working process when investigating the innovation´s effect within the system pillars. A number of workshops during the process will be arranged inviting stakeholders and end-users for developing the roadmap.
Tasks:
T6.1: Challenges of up-scaling and fostering replication (M5-M9)
Deliverables:
D6.1: Roadmap and plan for implementation, upscaling, replication, and business integration (M9)
Partners
Experts from Trafikverket and other partners were consulted during the concept development of the project. The present and future challenges of climate change within Trafikverket have been identified with experts during consultation and addressed in this proposal.
Luleå University of Technology: Expert in operation and maintenance engineering and also benefits from its extensive living lab (Botnia Living Lab) experience to bring together diverse stakeholders and users in online or offline settings.
SMHI - The long-term experience from Swedish Metrological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) is a solid backbone which the project counts on climate competence.
Trafikverket TRV - (railway infrastructure manager) – provides knowledge and experience on present state of infrastructure management as related to climate change for the assurance of the anticipated pillars of system innovation.
InfraNord- (railway maintenance entrepreneur) - provides field experience on transport infrastructure operation and maintenance which will help to understand the five pillars of system innovation.
Järnvägstekniskt Centrum (JVTC) will act as bridge between LTU and different stakeholders. In ePilot Project (EU), Veronica Jägare and Ulla Juntti contributed to successful achievement system level innovation. This project can learn from their previous success in the same context.
Bnear IT is an active SME in Luleå with experience in System Integration, data analyses, AI. Support will be provided for barrier- enabler analyses connected to different pillars.
Municipalities: Stockholm, Luleå, Boden, and Kungsbacka will support the project.
Contact
Amir Garmabaki
- Associate Professor
- 0920-493429
- amir.garmabaki@ltu.se
- Amir Garmabaki
Updated: