Rail Freight Workshop

26 February 2018

Melanie Hobson and Mark Gibbs of Aether facilitated a workshop on rail freight emissions hosted by the Freight Transport Association in London on the 21st of February.  As air quality issues attract increasing public scrutiny, this is a topic of pressing interest to the whole rail freight industry as evidenced by the attendance of representatives from all major stakeholder organisations, including freight train operators, DfT, Network Rail, RDG, RFG, ORR and RSSB.

Aether compiles the rail emissions component of the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory.  Mark and Melanie presented on the current methodology and underlying data used to estimate rail freight emissions at the national level, and on how the resulting outputs are of limited use for air quality studies at the local level or for transport mode comparisons.  The ongoing development of low emission and electric road vehicles means the gap between road and rail is decreasing: the previously generally accepted environmental advantages of rail freight will likely diminish over the next decades, while the prominence of rail emissions, particularly in a key local settings, will rise.  Meaningful “apples to apples” comparisons are something that rail freight customers are increasingly requiring in order to fully understand the impact of their operations on emissions throughout the supply chain.

There was a strong commitment from industry representatives to collaborate by providing data that is already available in some form within different organisations.  Utilizing such data on engine performance and traffic flows on key routes would be a cost-effective way to help develop more accurate and defensible emission estimates.  These would better reflect locomotive fleet utilisation, changes in trainloads and freight train pathing (e.g., time waiting in sidings).

The next steps will be planning the implementation of the identified potential improvements, including making relatively quick refinements to the national inventory, devising a tractable approach to harnessing more granular data, and ground-truthing with robust emissions measurements of real-world freight trains drive cycles.  It was widely acknowledged by attendees that good quality emissions data will be a crucial foundation for effective future investment and policy decisions that will address the rail freight industry’s impact on air quality.

Photo credit: © Copyright Phil Sangwell

See all news

Testimonial

Don't just take our word for it...

“Engaging Aether to support us to develop the first GHG Inventory System and first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for the United Republic of Tanzania has been a rewarding experience due to their high level of professionalism, creativity, timeliness and value for money. We will definitely consider Aether in our future initiatives.”

Abbas Kitogo, Programme Specialist Energy and Climate Change, UNDP Tanzania

“Professional team and very collaborative communication. Effective result in terms of suggestions for improvement in the quality of the inventory and proposals on how to streamline specific topics.”

Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research

“The Aether team were a joy to work with and I would recommend the consultancy - the service provided throughout the process was exceptional.”

Clare Bayley, Defra

“Aether is a great partner for work in the area of European Air Emissions. The team was committed, reliable, well organised and had a deep technical understanding and motivated other partners with their good spirit.”

Umweltbundesamt: Environment Agency Austria

“Saint Lucia embraces the professional approach with which this project was undertaken by Aether, particularly their ability to develop mentorship relations with local government experts. This provides a basis for ensuring that the pool of local experts remain engaged and recognized over successive processes.”

Annette Rattigan-Leo, Chief Sustainable Development and Environment Officer

“The professional service provided by your company was of very high quality and completed within agreed timelines.”

Matthew Dudley, UNFCCC Secretariat

“We have been collaborating with Aether for several years, and our projects have greatly benefited from it. Aether staff are very knowledgeable, professional and flexible - and last but not least, very friendly and a pleasure to work with.”

Umhverfisstofnun, Environment Agency of Iceland

“Chris was excellent to work with and always very pro active in making suggestions, taking work forward and applying his considerable technical knowledge in effective ways.”

Robert Vaughan, Defra Air Quality Team

“Both the face-to-face training and the online version have been of high quality, with dynamic methods and a practical orientation that have allowed students to reach a solid knowledge base. The products have been delivered within the stipulated deadlines with an excellent quality and the team has always shown willingness to make adjustments according to the requirements of CONAF. We are very satisfied with the work. ”

Javier Cano Martín, Professional Unit for Climate Change and Environmental Services, CONAF (National Forestry Corporation), Chile

“A heartfelt thank you to all the Aether team for this very comprehensive review – this is certainly turning out to be one of the most beneficial capacity building projects I have ever been involved in.”

Saviour Vassallo, Senior Environment Protection Officer, Malta Resources Authority

Contact us

Get in touch

Call us on +44 1865 261 466, complete the short form below, or go to the Contact page

 Security code