Different levels of climate resilience in the transport sector
The transport sector is vulnerable to weather variations and long-term changes in climate, but not all operators have long-term strategies in place to adapt to climate change. ToPDAd interviewed some key stakeholders to assess what information or support they need to develop their adaptation strategies.
Climate
change is influencing transport
Weather
extremes have a direct impact on rail, ports, air and road transport. Extreme
rainfall or heat can cause damage to infrastructure like railway tracks and
catenary, roads or bridges. They can lead to perturbations of traffic and
operations, or put the health of travelers at risk.
Extreme
weather events are set to increase due to climate change. On the longer term,
global warming will also influence weather patterns, and cause increases in
temperature or precipitation, or sea level rises. Operators must also take this
into account and anticipate, for instance, higher air conditioning costs or
longer runways for some airports.
Representatives
from SNCF in France; Network Rail in UK, the Ministry of Transport in Spain and
Eurocontrol in Belgium, interviewed by ToPDAd, are well aware of the risks that
climate change poses to their operations and about the need to adapt.
"Given
the long life time of our investments– 40 years for a railway car and 100 years
for tracks and bridges, it is essential that these are climate-proof,” said a
SNCF agent. "We invest 2 million euro each year, so climate adaption is
important.”
From
monitoring to long-term adaptation strategies
While
most operators use weather services and early warning systems to prepare for
potential disturbances on the short term, not all have mapped vulnerabilities
on the longer term or developed adaptation strategies.
Spain
has done relatively little work on the impact of climate change on transport.
ToPDAD was told at CEDEX - the ministry of transport: "Nobody is really
busy with this problem, except a few experts. There is no clear strategy
yet.”
Also
in the air traffic sector the awareness of the problem is quite limited.
"The sector’s main concerns are short-term variability of weather
conditions and other perturbations, but I feel there is a lack of concern for
the longer term changes in climate”, we heard at Eurocontrol. However, there
are some islands of resilience: "Some countries like the UK and Norway
have made a larger effort. Especially the adaptation plan of London Heathrow is
good”
Also
British Network rail is well prepared, "Climate change adaptation is being
embedded in our key processes”.
Operators
need better data and tools
Operators
like Network Rail, SNCF and Spain’s RENFE, have come a long way in developing
tools to assess their vulnerability, based on data of meteorological
services.
Asked
about what additional data or tools they need, the interviewed stakeholders
mentioned a tool that would allow them to learn about adaptation strategies and
experiences from other European countries.
They
also expressed the need for a tool that would integrate all available climate
change data parameters and fine-tune them at regional level. Several
respondents are also looking for information across sectors.
Supporting
EU initiatives
There
is a range of EU-initiatives to support operators of the transport sector as
they are developing their adaptation strategies, including these:
- · the ToPDAd toolset and case-themes have transport as one of the key themes, along with energy and tourism. The toolset will support transport operators to assess costs and vulnerability under different adaptation options. The case-themes on transport look at firstly, the exploitation prospects of the Northern Sea Route as Arctic sea ice retreats, and secondly, the impact of informing travelers in case of extreme weather.
- · the Climate-ADAPT platform helps users to access and share information on expected climate change, vulnerability of regions and sectors, national and transnational adaptation strategies, case studies and tools. Also ToPDAd’s results will be included in Climate-ADAPT.
- · The MOWE-IT project identifies existing best practices and is developing methodologies to assist transport operators, authorities and transport system users to mitigate the impact of natural disasters and extreme weather phenomena on transport system performance.