Extreme weather events related to climate change have increased in frequency and intensity in Europe over the past few years, becoming more unpredictable. They often have an impact on the rail infrastructure, causing traffic disruptions. The International Union of Railways (UIC) has launched the Resilient Rail (RERA) initiative to guide infrastructure managers in being ready to deal with heavy rains and high temperatures.
Over the past couple of years, heavy rainfalls led to floods all over Europe, including Italy, Slovenia, Czechia, Poland, Austria and Spain. These events led to the paralysation of the railway network in the affected areas, hence the need to rethink the strategies for tackling such events. With the RERA Rail Framework, UIC wants to issue clear guidelines on both strategic planning and daily management of the rail network. “It is not just a theoretical guide; it is designed to be implemented”, they stressed.
Three phases
The methodology provided by UIC is divided in three phases: Climate impact analysis; Vulnerability, risk and criticality assessment and Adaptation planning. The first one focusses on gathering data to better understand and predict future rainfall patterns. The second one revolves around assessing the state of railway assets and their potential exposure to heavy rainfalls. The last one includes targeted measures to ensure the functionality of the network.
Root causes
The RERA Rain Framework also identifies the main causes behind the impact of these extreme weather events on the rail infrastructure and the most common outcomes on the environment. When it comes to the root causes identified by UIC, there are internal ones, meaning that infrastructure managers have power to act on them, and external ones, which are outside their scope.
The internal causes include an ageing network, lack of risk awareness and preventive action, competence deficiencies and inadequate design, construction or maintenance. The external causes concern higher levels of rain than predicted by the competent authorities and poor maintenance of the environment surrounding the railways, for example drainage systems.
When it rains it slides
The UIC document also assessed what are the main consequences of heavy rainfalls. The two main phenomena identified are landslides (47 per cent of cases) and water on tracks (40 per cent of cases). The other main impacts found by UIC were settlement on platforms (13 per cent) and bridge collapse (7 per cent).
Other than causing the closures of railways, extreme weather phenomena often translate into rail accidents and derailments, especially when it comes to landslides. According to the data from UIC, five of the seven events involving a landslide analysed resulted in a train derailing or crashing.