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...

“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

“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

“Aether delivered training workshops and generated learning materials for our SSN members, providing technical content in a manageable and comprehendible format. We particularly benefitted from their extensive knowledge and ability to interpret the needs of our members into the training materials.”

Jennifer Anderson, Sustainable Scotland Network

“Aether's approach to couple innovative visualisation with high expertise manpower delivered valuable insights for our inventory work.”

Umweltbundesamt (Germany)

“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

“If we have a need for any more reports in the future Aether will be first on my list.”

Alan Hardy, Kyson Design

“The support provided by Aether for this project was especially remarkable considering the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tools and methods used in order to engage local stakeholders really added value to the capacity building of the national team.”

Shanna Emmanuel, Saint Lucia BUR Project Coordinator

“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

“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 Aether team were a joy to work with and I would recommend the consultancy - the service provided throughout the process was exceptional. Where there were problems, they provided solutions. The team were working to very short time scales but were able to deliver a high quality piece of work within the specified time frame.”

Sefton Council - for the Merseyside Atmospheric Emissions Inventory

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