Abstract: Climate change is related with weather extremes, which may cause damages to infrastructure used by freight transport services. Heavy rainfall may lead to flooding and damage to railway lines, roads and inland waterways. Extreme drought may lead to extremely low water levels, which prevent safe navigation by inland barges. Wet and dry periods may alternate, leaving little time to repair damages. In some Western and Middle-European countries, barges have a large share in freight transport. If a main waterway is out of service, then alternatives are called for. Volume- and price-wise, trucking is not a viable alternative. Could railways be that alternative? The paper was written after the unusually long dry summer period in Europe in 2022. It deals with the question: If the Rhine, a major European waterway becomes locally inaccessible, could railways (temporarily) play a larger role in freight transport? It is a continuation of our earlier research. It contains a case study, the data of which was fed into a simulation model. The model deals with technical details like service specification route length, energy consumption and emissions. The study points to interesting rail services to keep Europe’s freight on the move. Their realization may be complex especially in terms of logistics and infrastructure, but is there an alternative?
MULTIFILE
Traditionally, most cleaning activities take place in the evening or during nighttime.In the Netherlands, day-time cleaning is becoming increasingly popular. It is however unknown how day-time cleaning affects perceptions and satisfaction of end-users. An experimental field study was conducted on trains of Netherlands Railways (NS) to determine how the presence of cleaning staff affects perceptions and satisfaction of train passengers.
Public safety is under enormous pressure. Demonstrations regularly result in riots and VIPs are often threatened even at their homes ! Criminal graffiti-gangs are threatening security professionals and costing the Dutch railways (NS), causing a loss of 10 M€ yearly. The safety incidents often escalate quickly, therefore, they require a very quick and correct scaling up of the security professionals. To do so, it is necessary for the security professionals to get very quick and accurate overview of the evolving situation using Mobile Drone intervention unit for quick response (Mobi Dick). The successfully completed project The Beast (9/11) has delivered a universal docking station with an automatic security drone. The drone takes off from a permanently installed docking station. Nest Fly emerged as a startup from this RAAK project, and it has already developed the prototype further to a first product. Based on extensive interaction with security professionals, it has been concluded that a permanently installed docking station is not suitable for all emergency cases. Therefore, a mobile, car-roof top mounted, docking station with a ready-for-take-off drone is required for the more severe and quickly escalating incidents. These situations require a drone taking off from the car-roof top mounted docking station while the vehicles continue to drive towards the incident. In this RAAK KIEM, a feasibility study will be executed by developing a car-roof top docking station. The concept will functionally be designed within the project (task 1). The two required subsystems car roof docking station (task 2) and dynamic take-off & landing (task 3) will technically be developed and integrated (task 4). The outcome of the experiments in this task will show the feasibly of the idea. Task 5 will ensure the results are disseminated in new cooperation’s, publications, and educational products.
