Green wheels will make the difference

Bas Bollinger is Business Development Director Rail, leading the development of international rail business for the ARCADIS group. He has worked with the company for over 15 years in various positions. After being Project Manager for the Betuweroute and Director of the Infrastructure Civil Engineering department in the Netherlands, he worked in Brazil to develop ARCADIS’ position in the rail market.

The railway sector is constantly searching for new technologies and better performance. For many decades, the main reason has been the improvement of services to the community: providing better transport and logistics. Servicing the rail sector for over 60 years, ARCADIS constantly joins this search by developing new ways for further optimising the existing rail system and network expansion projects.

Technologies like ETCS are a clear example. Despite the hurdles that need to be overcome, as with all new technologies, there’s no doubt that this will boost the European rail services and as a consequence create additional demand. In addition, network capacity is increased and travel times are reduced. Of course, integrating these into existing situations brings major challenges. We have seen this with the backbone of the rail network in the Netherlands – the Amsterdam-Utrecht corridor. ERTMS is being implemented in phases, without interrupting the services and maintaining the functionalities of the existing signalling system. This required a lot of creative thinking. Another example is the ‘Green Wave concept’ which we developed jointly with Alstom and NS and which made us win the Railforum Innovationcup 2007. This system helps the train driver to adjust his speed anticipating the position of the train ahead of him. Less acceleration and deceleration is necessary, which reduces the energy consumption without any impact on the travel time.

In the last decades of the past century, environmental impact became increasingly important in the decision making process. National governments established legislation which forced decision makers to not only focus on the best solutions from the project perspective. Alternatives had to be developed and evaluated, guided by criteria that should lead to the least impact on the immediate environment or at least to the best overall solution. Especially in larger projects like the Betuweroute, with many stakeholders involved, this led to intensive processes and procedures. Nowadays everyone is used to it – it’s become a part of the normal process. Also, investments in solutions to minimise the impact on ecology are nowadays widely accepted; for instance the damping mats and fauna passage solutions in the line Warsaw-Łódź in Poland.

We’ve entered a new era. Nowadays we are no longer only talking about the impact on the immediate environment, but also about the effects on sustainability in the broadest sense. It’s about the long-term consequences for the planet. For preliminary studies in France for instance, we see the carbon impact assessment of the project alternatives being defined as a standard part of the scope. This is not a surprise if you consider the responsibility of a public entity like an infrastructure manager.

And it goes beyond that, which will become clearer each day in the near future. Organisations do not only take their responsibilities in managing impact. Both public and private entities are also looking for ways to contribute to reduce impacts. A good example is the Carbon Calculator that we have developed for the US rail operator CSX. This Calculator helps CSX clients to assess the carbon impact that they produce when they ship their cargo with CSX and compare it to what it would be if they use the roadways. This will be increasingly important for all kinds of industries, who in turn are required by their clients to show how they contribute to sustainability. I expect that it will even become one of the competitive criteria on which clients select their logistics service supplier. This is an incentive for the whole sector to take its responsibility for our long term future.

I’m confident that there’s no need to convince readers of this magazine that rail is well positioned to offer a good sustainable alternative. This is a major opportunity to increase the importance of the rail sector. As opposed to the black tyres of road vehicles and grey wings of short and medium distance aircrafts, trains have green wheels. This will make the difference!