Final Report Summary - SPIDER PLUS (Sustainable Plan for Integrated Development through the European Rail network – Projecting Logistics & mobility for Urban Spatial design evolution)
Executive Summary:
SPIDER PLUS was a research and development project co-funded by the European Union in the scope of the Seventh Framework Programme (12/2012 – 5/2015). The project aimed at developing a passenger and freight mobility vision for 2050 encompassing seamless transportation where electrified rail plays a central role. Within the “White Paper on Transport” the European Com¬mission stated sustainable mobility as the overall target for the prospective transport policy. That means a massive shift of traffic from road to rail. In the long-term, a rail market share of about 50% is the set goal for both long distance passenger service and freight trans¬port over 300 km.
During the project, the interdisciplinary team was supported by a network of expertise. The results are oriented on four guiding principles that will put electrified rail at the centre of sustainable mobility:
• Industrialisation of production
• Offer driven business models
• Seamless and convenient services
• Co-modality and sustainability
Based on the as-is situation and internal/external drivers of change the vision components have been elaborated. Main technological tools and solutions have been identified and assessed in terms of impact and costs. The SPIDER PLUS Roadmap is the final part of the project and paves the way to the desired future. It describes the required infrastructure development as well as business models and funding schemes. The integration of national systems into European grid and the co-modality implementation in user friendly mobility environment outline the future network and access points for rail passenger and rail freight services. Within the Roadmap, special emphasis for controlling purpose was given to the intermediate step in 2030 to indicate the interim goal which is needed to reach a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail in 2050.
All SPIDER PLUS recommendations are summarised in the interactive Solutions Guide Book which contains the 5 action fields:
• Rolling Stock
• Technology
• Investments
• Governance
• Market Uptake
The Guide Book itself focused on the content and the involved actors. The Decision Support Tool as second part has been implemented as a dynamic and interactive Roadmap which also takes temporal aspects into account. Essential actions and steps have been joined in a common project management software environment. Finally, this tool provides information about required steps, temporal sequences and dependencies between various actions.
Decision makers in politics, industry and business are the main target group for the use of the Decision Support Tool, which allows the creation of scenarios that show even far reaching effects of possible delays. Moreover it illustrates the processes that can be done in parallel and the ones that have to be done in sequence. The indicated time slots of the various steps to be done are the framework for the fulfilment of the SPIDER PLUS vision until 2050.
The key message of SPIDER PLUS is that the vision of a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail until 2050 is achievable if all stakeholders act targeted, jointly and in the present time.
Project Context and Objectives:
A high performance transport system is the guarantor for economic success and his sustainability the indicator for quality of life. The European transport and logistic services are among the leading services in the world. Nevertheless, problems exist and may steadily increase under the prospective of growing transport demand. In some areas, especially in densely populated agglomerations, traffic is more related to congestion and pollution than to sustainable and efficient transport services. In the EU, road based transport services play an overwhelmingly role and cause severe problems:
• Congestions
• Pollution (especially in form of CO2 and Particulate Matter)
• Accidents
These factors impair more and more economic welfare and quality of life. This trend is about to increase within the next years since all forecasts predict a steady growth of demand especially of road transport.
Figure 1: Passenger Transport in Europe (Source: European Commission 2010)
The European Commission and large parts of the population are aware of this fact. In order to push the transport system to a more sustainable direction, the European Commission has stated clear commitments in favour of rail in its 2011 White Paper “Roadmap to a Single Eu¬ropean Transport Area – Towards a Competitive and Resource Efficient Transport System”:
• 30 % of road freight over 300 km should shift to other modes such as rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50 % by 2050, facilitated by efficient and green freight corridors.
• 50+ % of medium distance intercity passenger traffic shifts to rail by 2050.
• The European high-speed rail network is to be completed with a tripling of the network by 2030. A dense railway network in all Member States will be maintained.
• By 2020, the framework for a European multimodal transport information, management and payment system should be established.
Based on these ambitious targets, the SPIDER PLUS project aimed at developing a passenger and freight mobility vision for 2050 encompassing seamless transportation where electrified rail has a central role. The aim was not only to create a vision for future mobility, but also to provide stakeholders and decision makers with a Roadmap with instructions/recommendations on how to get there.
The project was organised in work packages and built up a logical chain, beginning with an analysis of the As-is situation, continuing with the elaboration of a detailed vision and ending up with a guiding Roadmap.
WP5 – “As-is situation”
Starting point of the SPIDER PLUS project was to draw a picture of the current situation. Therefore the task of WP 5 was to describe and analyse the mobility of today. A detailed and critical analysis about the initial situation serves as the important basis for the further process of creating a mobility vision for 2050. Both aspects, market offer as well as market demand had to be assessed. The rail offer side includes all relevant aspects as they are technical, operational, structural, infrastructural, ICT technologies and any other service production components. In contrast, the market demand is characterised by the prevailing market needs and their expected evolution in the framework of the intermodal competition.
As part of the As-is situation, actions already in progress and decisions on infrastructures already financed are part of the consideration, too. A very important objective of the project, but located in WP5, is the elaboration of a quantitative framework of the future demand for passenger and freight services and the possible role of rail in the specific market segments. This is necessary to get a clearer view on the transport volume that has to be shifted from road to rail as quantitative framework scenario for the vision 2050 to be developed in SPIDER PLUS.
WP6 – “Mega Trends”
Subsequent to the analysis of the As-is situation, the Mega Trends influencing the development of society, economy, mobility and logistics had to be identified and evaluated. Thereby it was important that these elements were considered in an overall context. The identification and evaluation of general and superior trends as well as their expected impact on the mobility in 2050 was the central objective of WP6. Based on the trends, driving and restraining forces are to be described. Since the infrastructure network is one of the most important drivers for the future development of rail, this topic was kept under special focus, especially for freight services regarding terminals, nodes, hubs and capacity needs for train paths. For passenger services a more detailed look was required on high speed rail services and the multimodal connection with regional and commuter services in selected stations regarding urban planning. For both passenger and freight services, networking will become more important as well as the creation of seamless transport chains. Relevant requirements and conditions had to be defined. During WP6 a picture of the estimated future was drawn which was mainly determined by internal drivers of change and existing forecasts.
WP7 – “The vision’s components”
The main objective of the SPIDER PLUS work package (WP) 7 was to develop and elaborate a SPIDER PLUS 2050 vision for a rail based European society and to assess and roughly verify the feasibility and achievability of the vision. Among other issues, WP7 aimed at
• Assessment of HSR together with its integration in national, regional and local transport systems
• Introduction of way finding technologies and innovative ICT solutions
• Research on how to tackle city and urban planning and logistics in 2050
• The increasing role of corridors and hubs for freight services
• The role of co-modality and how it can be integrated in the vision.
The visioning has been carried out in five different components, comprising the five tasks of the WP 7:
• Electrified high speed rail society (Task 7.1)
• European rail freight corridors’ role (Task 7.2)
• Local transportation and the role of rail (Task 7.3)
• Urban/regional planning evolution and its impact (Task 7.4)
• Industrial production and associated business processes (Task 7.5)
Thus, all aspects of the whole future rail system are taken into account.
WP8 – “Impact Assessment”
The goal of WP8 was to assess the impact of technological tools and solutions based on the vision components in WP7. This assessment took place within the tasks:
• The technological tools and solutions (Task 8.1).
• The Cost benefit analysis including KPI definition and measurement (Task 8.2).
• The expected impacts on SPIDER PLUS 2050 mobility vision (Task 8.3).
The first step of the execution of task 8.1 was the identification of co-modal technical solutions. These solutions are the required preconditions for improvement of the railway system in terms of quality, capacity and efficiency and will enable the required shift to rail as guarantor for future sustainable mobility. For several co-modal technical solutions, a detailed CBA has been carried out in task 8.2 to identify particularly profitable or possibly uneconomical solutions. Therefore a huge variety of cost figures has been gathered, accompanied by qualified assumptions for remaining gaps. Finally, the expected impacts of dedicated solutions have been assessed in the frame of task 8.3.
WP9 – “Roadmap”
The definition of the Roadmap has been divided into the following 5 tasks:
• The derived infrastructure development (Task 9.1)
• The business models, costs, funding schemes, stakeholder’s role (Task 9.2)
• The integration of national systems into European grid (Task 9.3)
• The Co-modality implementation in user-friendly mobility environment (Task 9.4)
• The intermediate “Must have 2030” step and cohesive migration strategy (Task 9.5)
A major aim of WP9 was to create implementation plans or, as alternative, to set up a list of guidelines for implementation of advanced and interconnected infrastructures, technologies, processes and framework conditions. Especially the improvement of the rail infrastructure and its efficient use is one of the most important factors until 2050 (related of the figures elaborated in the quantitative framework). In addition to the building of new infrastructure, special emphasis has to be given on efficient management of available resources, new operation schemes and the elimination of bottlenecks. The usage and efficient utilisation of capacity is addressed in Task 9.2 including new and/or improved business models as well as funding schemes that will support required technical migrations especially in the rolling stock. In addition to that, a comprehensive picture of the European grid (Task 9.3) is developed.
In the sense of sustainability, a central topic in SPIDER PLUS, Task 9.4 is dedicated to co-modality. Case studies and existing good practices are evaluated in order to learn from these experiences and implement respective results in SPIDER PLUS.
The long time frame until 2050 requires a dedicated intermediate step as mandatory goal to be achieved. Therefore the most important measures to be taken until 2030 are identified. These are part of the overall target and have to be implemented at least by the year 2030 in order to keep the fulfilment of the vision 2050 as a realistic scenario. It is a main objective of Task 9.5 to identify these top priority measures and to indicate required actions and a date for their latest finalisation.
WP10 – “Solutions Guide Book”
Work package 10 summarises all recommended measures and actions that have been identified on the basis of the required vision components assessed in the framework of the SPIDER PLUS project. Two tasks are fulfilled which together build the Solutions Guide Book:
• The policy recommendations in the Guide Book (Task 10.1)
• The decision making tools (Task 10.2)
Both tasks aim at making the SPIDER PLUS Vision 2050 usable and accessible for all interested stakeholders. The Guide Book provides written information, while the decision making tools should follow a more technical approach in the sense of a “dynamic Roadmap”.
In brief, SPIDER PLUS had two main objectives:
• Elaboration of a mobility vision for 2050 based on electrified rail
• Development of a feasible plan for the implementation of the vision
Both objectives have been successfully achieved within the project lifetime.
Project Results:
As described above, SPIDER PLUS had two superior objectives, both of immense extent. These objectives are at the same time the main results of SPIDER PLUS (see also Figure 2). In Figure 3 the relevant factors that determine the Mobility vision 2050 and its respective Roadmap are shown.
1. Elaboration of a rail based mobility vision:
Under consideration of probable developments and experiences of the past, the SPIDER PLUS consortium has created an innovative but in our expert view realistic mobility vision for 2050 if the involved parties are in the position to implement the enormous efforts in infrastructure development and rolling stock technology. Thereby the focus was on the maxim “a society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail”.
2. Development of a feasible plan for the implementation of the vision:
After having painted a picture of the desired future, the question is how to get there. Critical steps and mandatory achievements are therefore explained in the SPIDER PLUS Roadmap. The Guide Book together with the dynamic Roadmap have a more instructing character and list up for every required measure what has to be done, when and in which sequence as well as who has to act.
A gap analysis compared and contrasted the estimated future with the desired future. The estimated future is grounded in a ‘business as usual’ scenario based on existing forecasts as well as expected/planned measures in the European transport area and has two dimensions: qualitative aspects concerning drivers like urbanisation and sustainable lifestyles which shape the future; and quantitative forecasts up to 2030. The estimated future differed significantly from the desired future which was developed in SPIDER PLUS based on the EU White Paper. The gaps which were identified were addressed in the design and development of the vision components and formed the backbone of the road map to sustainable mobility in 2050.
Special emphasis was given to the quantitative framework. Based on the situation in 2010, several forecasts for 2030 were analysed. Under consideration of the decreasing growth rates of demand for freight and passenger services expected for the period between 2030 and 2050, a quantitative scenario for the European transport demand for 2050 was created based on expertise knowledge. In view of the general development of the European transport demand and the resulting ambitious SPIDER PLUS quantitative scenario for a sustainable mobility in 2050, it became clear that the current rail transport volume would have to increase substantially. In particular, rail passenger services (excluding tram and metro) would have to increase 2.8 fold by 2050, while rail freight services would have to increase 4.0 fold by 2050; this being based on 2010 (Figure 4).
Figure 2: SPIDER PLUS objectives and process
Figure 3: Elaboration of the SPIDER PLUS Mobility vision 2050
Figure 4: SPIDER PLUS quantitative framework
This massive increase of rail transport volume may be hard to imagine from today’s perspective. Nevertheless, the SPIDER PLUS consortium elaborated targeted measures that pave the way to an European railway system capable to handle this shift from road to rail and at the same time more efficient and attractive than road itself. The vision 2050 and required measures have been developed by the support of the networks of expertise that were integral part of SPIDER PLUS. All results of the project are based on the four way paving guiding principles that have been identified as mandatory for the European railway area to fulfil the desired mobility vision:
Figure 5: SPIDER PLUS Guiding Principles
Detached from the work package structure that is described in the Technical Annex, the SPIDER PLUS project has worked on five action fields and finally delivered all recommendations for measures to be taken in order to realise the 2050 mobility vision in the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap. The action fields
• Infrastructure
• Rolling Stock
• Technology
• Governance
• Market Uptake
account for the biggest part of the “Rail sector” that determines (future) mobility. The action fields and their most important aspects are explained in the following.
Infrastructure
Sustainable growth and environmental friendly mobility is particularly challenging when viewed against the 2050 vision given the magnitude of the required increases in traffic volume for both passengers and freight. Therefore the action field ‘infrastructure’ is the most critical and determining consideration:
• EU Network development
• Interoperability & modular design
• Predictive maintenance
• Safety & security
• Environment & sustainability
• Stations and nodes
Upgrading of the EU rail network is crucial. The mid-term focus is on the TEN-T core network, including the elimination of bottlenecks as a structural work for expanding capacity, and on the addition of new conventional and high speed lines, which will close existing infrastructure gaps. This way of proceeding is cost-effective, extracting the best benefits from investments.
Comprehensive interoperability must be ensured to enable high quality rail freight transportation in Europe and effective modal shift. The interoperability goal is key for promoting investments and precluding individual countries’ initiatives which may run contrary to the fulfilment of a single European rail area. By 2030, the TEN-T corridors must be completed. The co-modal nodes located in the traffic attraction zones for improving accessibility and last mile distribution must be in operation. The existing rail infrastructure will have the facility to accommodate 750m long trains everywhere in Europe. On the busiest corridors sustaining traffic industrialisation, the infrastructure will be capable of managing 1,500m long trains (with potential for combining trains and path sharing).
In the period between 2030 and 2050, one focus is on the comprehensive network, which, in addition to the TEN-T corridors, provides the transport capillaries into suburban and rural areas. Urban/regional lines play an important role as connectors and feeders for long distance services. The second focus is on a significant increase of the network capacity, by innovative rail operating schemes, as well as new lines/by-passes for rail freight services. This will reduce conflicting paths with passenger traffic in the most intense urban areas where passengers have a priority.
All developments, constructions and upgradings must take into consideration both operational optimisation and cost reduction, as well noise protection which is a key factor in gaining public acceptance.
Existing plans for upgrading the long distance HSR passenger lines must be accomplished to support seamless passenger transport on a European scale while at the same time, conventional long distance services are necessary to cover more rural areas. In European cities, the integration process in the central hubs can take different paths. Station upgrading enables full functionality of all modes.
The stations have to be designed in a co-modality framework and serve as central mobility hubs, offering a variety of services, including direct interchanges with airports. Newly constructed stations extend over multiple levels integrating all mobility services with suitable accessibility. Metro and rail lines such as high speed, commuter and conventional are integrated underground to avoid conflicts with surface transportation at street level. At street level, tram and bus services interchange with mobility segments such as taxis, automated shuttle transportation and bike sharing. Limited space is needed for drop-off and pick-up locations for private vehicles. It is important to allow easy walking access to the hubs for people of all ages.
The freight nodes must be located in the middle of the European traffic attraction zones, providing proper interchanges between corridors. They have to fulfil the task of traffic bundling for achieving rail freight industrialisation and be capable of offering a variety of ancillary services to the users, promoting an effective co-modality. Advanced technologies will have been deployed to manage the planned traffic volumes. Hubs and terminals are open 24/7 to be compatible with the seaports’ production cycles and the overland interchange borders of the Union.
The European ERTMS Deployment Plan foresees installation of the ERTMS equipment to more than 25,000 km of railway lines by 2020. A number of key European freight lines have also been identified for ERTMS deployment. For both freight and passenger services, the implementation of moving block operation (ETCS Level 3) where a substantial capacity increase of up to 40 % versus conventional system can be expected is a long-term priority.
Especially in combination with new rolling stock technologies predictive maintenance contributes to an efficient management of the infrastructure.
Rolling Stock
For the transition to a future oriented rolling stock park there are three key elements of main importance:
• Hybrid locomotives & train sets
• Automatic coupling, electric wire & new braking technologies
• New light weight wagon design
Locomotives with energy recuperation are state of the art tools. Optimised hybrid locomotives and train sets enable the provision of seamless services between electrified and non-electrified parts of the network both for freight and regional passenger services. The support of efficient last mile services will improve the competitiveness of rail freight services, especially in the intermodal industry as well as for private sidings.
Automatic coupling together with continuous electric wire, facilitate efficient shunting operations and new production schemes. Electronically controlled braking and automated brake tests are innovations which are creating step changes especially in rail freight services. Instant electronic braking reduces derailment risks and improves the general safety and security of the train operation. This is especially important for longer, heavier, commercially faster trains which will be an important pillar of future rail freight services.
Another step change will be done in wagon design with advanced lighter materials and alloys such as carbon fibres to reduce dead weight for higher payload. Modular design for freight wagons becomes standardised.
The pace of innovation must be fast providing suitable services for increased traffic volumes. The process of speeding up the replacement of the existing park is paramount and needs therefore to be strongly supported by public funds (national and / or EU).
Even if rolling stock characteristics are different for passenger and freight wagons, lighter materials, modular design, preventive maintenance, embedded ICT, are common features.
Technology
The evolution of the rail service sector by introduction of new technologies is mandatory to be more efficient and competitive in short- to mid-term horizon; here three major key-elements are identified:
• Rolling stock design and materials
• Automation in movements/transfers
• Comprehensive ICT based management
For passenger services, new design train sets are modular, energy efficient and eco-friendly by reduced tare weight. Maintenance on demand is important for cost efficiency by optimised use of the fleet in service. Demand criteria like comfort and well-being as well as extended on-board services and reduced noise, are important elements of the improved service profile.
Design and materials for the next generation of freight wagons as well as the refitting of existing fleet is guided by a reduction of noise emissions and abrasion of the tracks. For freight the automation of all loading/unloading and controlling processes are of main importance for the reduction of increasing labour costs and acceleration of train dispatching.
In the context of the required overwhelming increase of rail based intermodal services, the automation of handling of Combined Transport (CT) units in hubs and terminals is a sine qua non. Supported by the equipment of all intermodal wagons with continuous electric wire the comprehensive introduction of robotics/mechatronics in transfer, pin setting and controlling will contribute to the efficiency and capability of rail based intermodal services in competition to road for cost and quality. These functionalities performed in the nodes define the terminal profile of the future. Efficient IT-based interactions with shippers /receivers, forwarders and road feeder services are another key efficiency driver. Future transhipment terminals concentrate on efficient transfer of CT units between trains to facilitate the integration of feeder terminals/urban logistic centres in the European intermodal network. Automated composition/shunting of train sets supports the efficiency in yards where the assembling/disassembling can be arranged for competitive operation on the long distance part of the rail transport chain.
Comprehensive ICT based management, as well as advanced e-solutions support all operations and the seamless integration of rail in overall logistic distribution and supply chains. Applications for rail are developed to control traffic volumes, increase safety of operations and improve asset utilisation. Satellite solutions such as Galileo support future advanced pan-European real time data collection and information.
Governance
Holistic Governance including all actors in their respective responsibility is crucial for the proper development of the rail sector:
• Network governance
• Transport industrialisation
• Legal framework
Governance ensures investment effectiveness, coordinates planning, and facilitates technological development and successful market uptake. Targeted regulation and planning ensure an European wide coordinated approach, an integrated mobility system, and the harmonising of existing and future guidelines e.g. for TEN-T realisation, European rail port network, capacity of hubs compatible with corridors’ capacity, and the desired single EU rail space.
The role of European agencies is evolving; the governance is shifting from national to European authorities. An adequate balance in mutual relationships for a new European model for co-modal transport authorities is required.
Rail transport services need a performance upgrade through industrialisation models enabling economies of scale and have to be supported by respective governance measures. Efficiency is reached by working on all system components like trains, tracks, terminals, rolling stock & unit loads equipment, ICT and energy in a co-modal integrated perspective. The outlined elements for passengers are optimised connectivity, different types of services, coupling/sharing of train modules, and high frequency services with integrated timetables. For freight services longer, commercially faster & heavier trains and the comprehensive transition to 24/7 working cycles by all in the transport chain involved stakeholders are of high importance.
TSI (Technical Specifications for Interoperability) and IRS (International Rail Standards) are features set to harmonise technical components and operating processes. Legal framework and policy measures are fundamental to support harmonised and integrated business models enabling true EU wide market opening and efficient competition, as well as EU focused for rail system construction, renewal, upgrading and operation. Funding schemes to support the stakeholders for the required migration of the existent rail area to the desired vision for 2050 are fundamental. Simplified European approval procedures and appropriate R&D programs are main supporters of the change.
Market Uptake
Beside the technological evolution, soft elements fostering an appropriate market uptake are the precondition for the required evolution of the European rail system towards the vision 2050. Two aspects are especially important:
• Collaboration and offer driven business models
• Permanent education and training
The move from the recent national monopolies to an international collaborative culture is key for reliable market uptake of new business solutions. Pioneer experiences exist in many areas: OSS (One stop shop) – single point of contact & multichannel distribution approach, logistic engineering, new offerings & collaborative logistics/warehouses, single ticketing for the whole journey. Their development requires new processes, appropriate ICT technology and upgraded/new business models, to be incorporated in a regulatory framework.
The renaissance of the rail industry relies on the abilities of the involved staff. The natural turnover of ‘old’ with ‘new’ staff facilitates the introduction of new and qualified employees. Measures like permanent training and education for technical/technological and commercial skills remain the only way to guarantee a high level of competences. The educational aspects are as important as the technical ones.
Guidebook and dynamic Roadmap - helpful tools to support the implementation
In the end, 60 elements have been implemented in the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap. The Guide Book was realised in the form of an innovative online touchscreen reference tool (www.spiderplus-project.eu) summarises all recommended actions and measures, each in about one page. Stakeholders and decision makers can inform themselves very quickly about all relevant factors:
• Content
• Impacts & Market segments
• Timing Milestones
• Type of Action/Resources
• Responsible Agents
• Actions correlation
An example for the visualisation of the online Guide Book is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Screenshot of the Guide Book (Card for Hybrid Locomotives)
In addition, the elements have been integrated into a dynamic Roadmap which is intended to give an overview about the chronological and logical structure of the SPIDER PLUS recommendations.
Figure 7: Screenshot of the dynamic Roadmap
SPIDER PLUS developed and assessed a suitable approach on how the ambitious vision of a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail can come true. Although additional research, refinement and constant updating are required, the main message is clear: A more sustainable, rail based mobility is achievable, but all stakeholders have to act targeted, coordinated and immediately.
In the light of the ambitious target in 2050 (Figure 4), a clear progress has to be achieved already until the year 2030; otherwise the remaining 20 years until 2050 will be too short to make the vision come true. Therefore SPIDER PLUS has given a special emphasis to the intermediate “Must have 2030” step. Under consideration of the inert rail system and the very strong market position of road transport (in passenger as well as in freight services), a doubling of the rail freight volume and an increase in passenger transport by the 1.6 fold (both compared to 2010) until 2030 is the least, otherwise the final targets cannot be realistically achieved in 2050. This precondition mirrored against the estimated future based on existing forecasts and intended development of the upgrade of the European rail area is visualised in the figure below:
Figure 8: Forecasted (based on German growth factor) rail freight development vs. SPIDER PLUS objective 2050 [*growth of 43% according to the German “Verkehrsverflechtungsprognose” 2030, BMVI]
In order to develop a resilient Roadmap, the project partners have defined crucial issues that have to be addressed so that the interim targets for 2030 can be achieved. The most important measures are the following milestones that have to be achieved until 2030:
• Infrastructure upgrade for 1,500m trains (on Core Network Corridors (CNC) in central Europe with significant importance for freight)
• Improved bi-trilateral coordination of HSR upgrading incl. HSR access at airports
• Comprehensive communication and cooperation of all actors for train path management and rail
• Clear progress in the implementation of ETCS Level 3, especially on the CNC
• Clear progress in the implementation of automatic centre buffer couplers (ACBC) and electric wire (enabling new braking technologies)
• “Smart ticketing” and harmonised travel assistance (including seamless ticketing for international connections and last mile services)
• Pushing and fostering of an increased implementation of offer driven business models for freight services.
• Industrialisation based on approved business models for freight services.
• Coordination/Management of all infrastructure and services/operations related to capacity, quality and standardisation along the CNC.
A main problem of the current European railway area is more or less not the development of suitable technologies but rather the lack of coordinated and efficient implementation of important developments in the system due to missing or defective planning of a proper European wide co-ordinated migration scenario supported by funding and investment programmes. For this reason SPIDER PLUS has set up 5 steps that are vital for the successful implementation of most of the new technologies and innovations. In various cases, this approach also applies to the introduction of new business models. The sequence of steps (which also was basis for the elaboration of the dynamic Roadmap) is shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9: Required steps for successful implementation of new technologies/innovations
SPIDER PLUS – results with regard to the technical structure of the project:
The consortium partners have delivered/performed the following parts:
• Detailed Analysis of the “As-is situation” of transport in Europe, especially concerning railway services.
• Identification and Evaluation of the Mega Trends that will affect the European society and its mobility.
• Elaboration of the quantitative framework 2050 that is implicated by “a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail” considering the potentials of freight and passenger production systems.
• Creation of a detailed mobility vision for Europe in 2050, aiming at a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail.
• Identification of suitable solutions for the fulfilment of the vision and respective evaluation in terms of impact (incl. cost benefit analysis).
• Development of a detailed Roadmap for Rail towards 2050.
• Creation of an innovative Solutions Guide Book, consisting of an online Guide Book with state of the art touch screen technology and a dynamic Roadmap.
The work in the project was organised in work packages. Although all work packages are closed topics themselves, they altogether build up a logical sequence (compare Figure 2). In the following, the results are described according to the respective work package.
WP5 "As-is situation“
In order to develop visions for the future of European mobility, the current situation of the vast sector has been elaborated. This evaluation has been done from two perspectives: the offer and the demand side. By analysing the "As-is situation" of the transport market split into relevant segments a gap analysis has been done which also has taken into account the expected market development. Deciding factors associated with user’s requirements like costs and quality in “door-to-door” transport chains or journeys have been taken into account.
Rail passenger transport has shown positive trends, especially in the urban transport and high speed rail sectors. Nevertheless, high-speed rail represents only about 25 per cent in relation to the total European rail passenger service performance (passenger/km). Thus, there is an enormous growth potential for adequate and customer-oriented service offers, especially under consideration of the immense shift potential of current air and road services.
Compared to passenger services, rail freight transport shows much less dynamic growth in all segments due to insufficient performances compared to road services, lack of industrialisation and high fixed costs especially in single wagonload service. In the new EU member states and accession countries of East and South-East Europe the market share of rail declined drastically after liberalisation of the transport market. On short term, the structural changes of the transport sector in these countries had very negative consequences for the rail system and, apart from a significant infrastructure reduction (e.g. number of private sidings/marshalling yards), also the number of employees dropped, leading to other societal challenges as well. Nevertheless, the experience of other countries shows that, after a period of consolidation, it is possible to successfully redevelop a rail freight transport service as long as the market requirements can be met by implementing appropriate measures.
In conclusion, major results are:
• The overall demand for logistic services will continue to rise significantly, but the current railway system and its expected development especially in SWL will not be able to cope with this logistic trend or even increase its market share if intensive measures won´t be taken. Also the forward-looking and increasing intermodal service needs substantial improvements in competition to road services.
• Reliability and resource efficiency are key criteria for the competitiveness of rail freight services. This can only be improved significantly by a new generation of IT technologies which have to lead to a better interaction of railway market actors and provide appropriate decision support functions.
• Comfortable co-modal solutions are the key to success.
• The demand for the high speed rail services is mainly supply- or infrastructure-driven.
• Service costs, transit time, comforts, seamless connections and available information constitute deciding factors for the modal choice.
• Existent Rail infrastructure capacity is a limiting factor both for freight and passenger services.
To achieve a long-term modal shift from road to rail or inland waterways, co-modality seems to be the only practical option. In addition, rail freight transport needs a completely new industrialised business model on selected axes together with refined terminals, hubs and freight villages as future oriented access points.
In addition, the “quantitative framework” was set up in order to give a clearer view on what is meant by the target “European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail”. Based on a broad analysis of existing forecasts and under consideration of expert assessments target figures for the European transport volume (SPIDER PLUS scenario) have been calculated. According to this forecast the passenger volume has to grow by factor 2.8 which means 1,147 bpkm in 2050 (today: 404 bpkm). Freight services would have to reach 1,560 btkm, which is the 4-fold of today’s volume (390 btkm). These figures underline the ambitiousness of the White Paper and SPIDER PLUS targets and show that actions have to start now in order to fulfil the vision.
WP6 "Mega Trends"
Starting from the “As-is situation”, the next stage of the Spider Plus project has been the identification of “Drivers of Change”. These drivers are factors that have the potential to shape the 2050 vision of a society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail. Therefore, societal trends and developments can have a major impact on future mobility demands. Attitudes, values, behaviours, life styles as well as goals and expectations have been determined. Taking urbanisation as an example, this trend will remarkably affect urban and regional transport, which is especially challenging due to the limited capacity (and growth potential) in already strongly frequented areas. Greater environmental awareness can support the shift to rail, provided that seamless travel chains are realised that also take co-modality aspects into account.
Though, a view solely on societal factors is too short-sighted. “Drivers of change” that influence the external environment and the rail industry have to be considered as well. Two categories have been set:
• Internal drivers (environment, competition, stakeholders, regulations, etc.)
• External drivers (energy, economy, resources, technology, politics, etc.)
To ensure an accurate evaluation concerning cross impacts and consequences of internal and external drivers, a study with combined forecasting and backcasting techniques has been designed and executed. Subsequently, the results have been judged and evaluated.
The work first of all consisted of the identification and analysis of enabling and restraining drivers of change which are external to the rail freight and passenger industry. In tandem with these efforts, industry-internal drivers of change have been compiled, analysed and evaluated with respect to their probability and level of impact. By consolidating these two work outcomes, an expected picture of rail in the year 2050 has been elaborated based on the input from WP5.
The work was carried out by desk research and several internal workshops. The consortium managed to overcome the traditional way of thinking and to find the right balance/the realistic middle between innovative dreams which will be hard to be realised in the given time and budget, and conservative progress which would never lead to an achievement of the goals. As a result, a combined forecasting/backcasting box (methodology) was created, which fulfilled the needs for an iterative process in conjunction with WP7 to define a realistic, but as much as possible forward looking, vision for 2050, with an intermediate check point in 2030.
An evaluation has been conducted regarding these types of rail freight services which will be able to contribute to the desired modal shift goal. Based on the findings and the anticipated capabilities and resources of the rail freight industry and, in particular, intermodal service providers and by disregarding any major “revolutionary” changes in the industry itself and the regulatory framework, the key internal drivers of change in rail freight transport have been identified which are considered to have a high occurrence probability and high impact. From the ten internal drivers the following have been considered to be the main drivers for a modal shift and thus expected to be most critical for determining the future of rail freight services:
• Deployment and fast extension of use of automatic-coupling wagons
• Horizontal collaboration of rail freight and intermodal service providers
• Implementation of effective, cost-moderate production systems for bundling and split-up of wagon groups
• Implementation of smart ICT management systems for the dispatching/deployment of operational resources
• Offer driven business cases through industrialisation of production especially of freight services
The results have been a major input for the backcasting process and the gap analysis with regard to the desired future in WP7.
WP7 "The vision’s components"
The main objective of the SPIDER PLUS work package (WP) 7 was to develop and elaborate a SPIDER PLUS 2050 vision for a rail based European society and to assess and roughly verify the feasibility and achievability of the vision. The visioning has been carried out in five different components, comprising the five tasks of the WP 7. For each vision component a separate deliverable was produced. The vision for 2050 has been described from different perspectives but remaining in a coherent structure and providing a comprehensive picture of the preferred future of a society overwhelmingly served by rail.
Over the five thematic areas, a common approach has been used to identify the vision components. The following working steps have been carried out to develop the vision 2050:
1. Specification of targets for a society overwhelmingly served by rail
2. Structure and design of elements and content of the vision components
3. Good Practice identification
4. Back Casting Process
5. Vision statement
6. External Feedback Workshop
The vision’s targets & development
The target specification was carried out primarily from the demand perspective considering the modal share. However, the offer side has to supply sufficient capacities, advanced technologies and comprehensive framework conditions.
Task 7.1 is the first vision’s component and deals with the electrified high speed rail society in 2050. The European HSR industry and RUs are among the leaders worldwide. In order to keep the current position, all fields of HSR have to follow a continuous development. Infrastructure, rolling stock, services and offer quality are playing a crucial role in shifting passengers from road to rail transport and in enabling the rail system to handle the consequential expected transport volumes. At the same time, the liberalisation of the HSR market and the European wide interoperability will give a further boost for international high speed rail connections up to 600 km substituting air and road transport and for longer, especially intercontinental services supplementing and cooperating with air transport. With a seamless society as final aim, it is important to integrate regional and local transport providers in one full and multimodal mobility service offer.
Within the decades until 2050 external and internal market drivers will influence and change the HSR environment. The ongoing trend of urbanisation and the coherent economic development will be two main drivers of the (HSR) traffic development within Europe. At the same time the concerns of an ageing society and environmental issues have to be taken into account. Internal drivers like technology, the regulation and the liberalisation of the market will affect the way HSR takes place in Europe. Task 7.1 delivers a comprehensive and integrated vision of an electrified high speed rail society in which infrastructure, rolling stock, service business models and ICT support are coordinated in order to
• build upon the attraction potential of HSR and to achieve the desired shift to rail
• enable all components of the HSR system to manage the expected transport volume.
The Task 7.2 result is the elaboration of the freight transport vision. Corridors are the tools for developing the core network up to 2030. In 2050 corridors are the network lanes in an EU comprehensive network where denser traffic and freight priorities are managed according to the “European rail network for competitive freight” law enforced in 2011. The rail freight based mobility vision is composed by the following elements determining modal shift:
• The innovation components
• The resources category drivers (corridors, network, management)
• The traffic segments drivers (intermodal, group of wagons, blocked trains)
The vision for local transportation and the role of rail in 2050 presents a picture of the future local area, stretching from the city centre, to the peripheral urban areas, to the suburbs to the outer agglomeration zones.
Task 7.3 includes the perspective of freight and passenger transport separately. For both perspectives vision targets have been derived based on the EC White Paper vision (European Commission 2011), the passenger transport vision for long distance rail (Task 7.1) and the freight transport vision for the corridors (Task 7.2). The vision targets are defined for three market segments: city area, regional area and the interface to medium and long distance transport.
For freight transport, the role of enabling a seamless connection of urban freight transport with long distance rail network and integrated city logistics are key targets. Regarding intra-city logistics and last mile distribution services there is also in the future only limited potential for rail based transport services. The target there is a CO2-free urban freight logistics (e.g. via zero emission trucks). For the regional and medium distance area a share of rail and rail based underground transport systems of more than 25 % is targeted. For long distance rail freight a market share of more than 50% is adopted from the Task 7.2.
Urban passenger transport should be overwhelmingly served by efficient modes, excluding motorised personal transport; also enabling seamless integration into long and medium-distance passenger mobility. The focus in the urban areas is on substituting all individual car traffic (to below 10 %) with efficient transport modes like trams or bikes. For the suburban areas as well as for the long-distance transport interfacing with local transport a 50 % market share of rail is the vision target.
SPIDER PLUS also carried out a vision for the urban and regional situation. Task 7.4 investigated trends of current policies and created a vision for optimised conditions in 2050. Therefore the urban planning elements of the 2050 vision aim at two goals:
• To reduce the needs of urban and metropolitan mobility, ensuring that the demands are served by more sustainable modes.
• To ensure good accessibility to mobility hubs, both passenger and freight, in order to improve railway modal shift in middle and long distance mobility.
In particular, two claims are set in this context:
• Urban planning provides central locations for new mobility hubs, with enough space to include the elements necessary for optimal functioning. Around mobility hubs, urban planning poses land uses with important ability to generate or attract trips with high building densities. Moreover, to improve or expand mobility hubs in consolidated urban areas, special urban plans are designed.
• Regional and local logistics plans are developed in favour of rail. Logistics is planned from a territorial perspective, through Master Plans that, instead of promoting competition between municipalities/cities, orders logistics activity in the region or metropolitan areas.
The last report about vision components deals with the shaping of the 2050 features related to the Vision Component “Industrial Production and associated Business Processes” of rail transport services in the intermodal transport chain context.
The VC’s statement considers that by 2050, rail based freight service production is an industrialised process and offer driven business. Cargo consolidation is fully exploited, as the logistics clustering concept that fosters the cargo consolidation uptake as well. The assets are collaboratively used by the freight transport chain stakeholders, thus broadly including also the freight hubs. Hubs are multimodal transport service centres offering Added Value Services, also with a network approach at various levels, thus being able to offer flexible services and increase their qualitative and quantitative connectivity. Rail Production processes and equipment are standardized, following the modular concept. Most part of hub operations and the rail network management are automated. Big data, Internet of Things, Augmented Reality are exploited also in the rail freight transport, thus allowing also the exploitation of the above features.
WP7 has built up a mobility vision for 2050 considering the most important aspects. It is important to state that the Vision is technically, socially, financially and politically achievable if understood and shared. Nevertheless, the proposed changes are time requiring, and can only be implemented in the long term, but with continuous work throughout the next 35 years (2015 – 2050) by an immediate start.
WP8 "Impact Assessment"
WP 8 consists of three tasks and deals with impact assessment. The first task is about the technical tools and solutions. Co-modal solutions for the realisation of modal shift from road to rail are in focus. All solutions have been analysed in terms of quality, capacity and efficiency. In this respect, the following objectives have been identified as mandatory for freight and passenger services in order to be successful:
Freight:
1. Boost of efficiency of single wagon load (SWL) production
2. Opening of Block trains (BT) for new market segments through modularisation of production
3. Continuous industrialisation of Combined transport (CT) on European level
Passenger:
1. Increase efficiency of services and capacity per train
2. Increase frequency of services
3. Increase attractiveness of service quality and travel assistance
Besides the solutions for passenger services, freight services and infrastructure, accompanying measures like supporting strategies (for Research and Development, Financing, Migration and implementation and urban/regional planning) have been identified and evaluated. This includes especially
• Research and Development
• Financing
• Migration and implementation
• Urban/regional planning
A deeper analysis took place in task 8.2 and 8.3 where an exercise based on cost benefit analysis (CBA) approach has been run in order to evaluate scenarios characterised by a set of innovative solutions applied to the railway sector both concerning freight and passengers, estimating the economic benefits of the identified solutions. In principle, since the CBA uses the “public” point of view comparing only differential costs and benefits that are borne or taken by the community, all impacts should be assessed: financial, economic, social, environmental, etc.
Solutions assessed are: a) for freight, railports and private sidings dedicated to wagon load service, intermodal terminals, Automatic Centre Buffer Coupler (ACBC) for wagons, and hybrid locomotives; b) for passengers, the development of both HSR and conventional networks, HS and conventional equipment (trainsets), ETCS system.
Comprehensive cost benefit analyses have been developed both for passengers and for freight, based on the detailed estimations elaborated for each of the solutions listed above. This provides a consistent picture of the impact that the envisaged investments according to the solutions might have in terms of generated benefits while contributing to reach the 2050 modal shift objectives and SPIDER PLUS 2050 targets.
The integration of CBA results, KPIs and qualitative impact description and ranking has generated a consistent pattern of estimated effects which allows evaluating the potential of different sets of solutions, and will lead to a prioritisation of strategies which supported the definition of the Roadmap.
WP9 “Roadmap”
WP9 describes the Roadmap of relevant results of SPIDER PLUS in the chapters
• The derived infrastructure development (Task 9.1)
• The business models, costs, funding schemes, stakeholder’s role (Task 9.2)
• The integration of national systems into European grid (Task 9.3)
• The Co-modality implementation in user-friendly mobility environment (Task 9.4)
• The intermediate “Must have 2030” step and cohesive migration strategy (Task 9.5)
According to the approach and the findings of WP5, the (necessary) development of the infrastructure is described in task 9.1. The very long lead time and operating life of infrastructure is the reason why the decisions and actions of today are so important. The experience with the realisation of big infrastructure projects shows that projects which are not envisaged and planned today or latest tomorrow will not be in operation in 2030. Thus, the target infrastructure for Europe has to be planned and financed by 2030. Thereby, the development has to follow the principle “From Core Network to Comprehensive Network”. Task 9.1 identified relevant actions that are already planned and indicates actions that are required to fill the gaps up to 2030 and 2050. These gaps are first of all related to capacity, because the capacity availability is central within the SPIDER PLUS vision (and its quantitative framework).
The infrastructure development is also about the integration of local networks that need to be compatible with the sustainable development of EU markets and territorial cohesion. Key point is the implementation of nodes from which interconnections between the core and comprehensive networks will be achieved.
The objective of Task 9.2 was to identify the most suitable business models and funding schemes for rail freight and passenger services, to ensure the mobility vision for the horizon 2050. First of all, the requirements for business models have been defined. Business models shall consist of four inter-related key elements: the value proposition, the product and the value chain as well as the cost-revenue model. Funding schemes in this respect shall include all forms of financing activities related to rail services.
Business models for rail freight transport are of special importance. By 2050 they relate to two principal production systems, which are considered suitable to match the requirements of shippers and logistics service providers and, at the same time, secure the competitive edge against through-road transport. Conventional block trains, operated as direct or co-loaded unit trains, mainly target at moving cargo by various types of wagons. Unaccompanied combined transport services rail/road (UCT) are deployed when there is not sufficient volume for the conventional production system or a more demanding service level is requested by market actors.
Whilst operations vary, the future business models are expected to have several elements in common, in particular:
• Logistics service providers (LSP) specialising in the relevant field of rail freight will become the central actors. In UCT, however, the “classical” operators may maintain a strong market position if they extend their scope of service towards the LSP-based business model;
• Rail service providers define their role more comprehensive than today. They are able to integrate all components of the supply chains for moving goods (wagonload) or load units (UCT) and provide the very extent of service requested by individual clients;
• The value proposition is to provide the most cost-efficient transport for the defined or targeted markets or goods;
• The principal levers of the cost-revenue models are economies of scale and the integration of the logistical value chain;
• The supply side of the value chain will see two rather new actors: specialised train operating companies and a central European rail infrastructure manager.
An extensive picture of the current and desired European grid for passenger and freight services was created in Task 9.3. The consortium considered a large number of aspects to describe international mobility options and missing links. Once again a detailed knowledge about the infrastructure all over Europe (existing and planned) was important to deliver detailed results. The passenger part describes four dimensions:
• European lines: There already are a high number of border crossing lines for long distance (HSR, Intercity and Night train) services in operation. These lines are the backbone of the current European grid and serve as basis for future extensions.
• Reachability: The reachability dimension takes the travel time into account. The regional reachability (within 60 minutes) illustrates the first/last part of the travel chain. The long distance reachability indicates the degree of cross linking between main rail hot spots and possible destinations.
• Air Rail cooperation: HSR is predestined to replace “short” distance flights (below 600 km). Today, this potential is not exhausted at all. The replacement of short flights (in many cases “feeder flights”) can lead to a win-win situation for air and rail traffic.
• Regional border crossing: The European grid is also consisting of important regional connections linking centres near the border.
Figure 10: Overview of maps generated in Task 9.3
For future freight services, the focus was more on intermodal transport and less on wagonload services especially SWL. Therefore a resilient network of terminals is mandatory, considering the traffic attraction zones and the TEN-T corridors. The implementation of Megahubs has a high significance for the development of the European grid for freight services. Firstly, the Megahub concept contributes to the connection of areas that have been more or less uncovered so far. Secondly, the Megahubs have an important function as corridor integrators. For this reason their location is most beneficially at the intersections of different corridors. A good example in this respect is the Megahub Lehrte which is located at the junction of the North Sea Baltic, the Scandinavian Mediterranean and the Orient/East-Med corridor lines Therefore, it will have high connectivity and fulfil an important inter corridor integration function.
Besides the network infrastructure and the network of access and bundling facilities, the management of capacities is equally important. In order to strengthen a fully integrated transport solution which offers “door-to-door” mobility in the European grid, it is necessary to amend the approach of prearranged train paths (which are today not taking terminal capacities into account). This would allow more flexibility and a coherent capacity allocation on the line (corridor) and the network nodes (terminal/hub). The pre-arranged path booking system has to be modified to arrive at a flexible booking system which aligns the capacity on the corridor in conjunction with the terminal.
Since rail based mobility is the objective, but not the ultimate and optimised service solution for the “last mile” it is also important to enhance co-modality. For this reason, SPIDER PLUS identified existing elements and technological solutions that have neither reached their optimum functionality nor sufficient expansion through Europe. Thus they determine the development direction and rhythm to arrive successfully to a society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail.
Task 9.4 focused on the co-modal integration into metropolitan areas for both passenger and freight, delivering a recap of co-modality gaps, actions in place and deducted actions, followed by a derived co-modality Roadmap. The co-modality Roadmap covers the SPIDER PLUS action fields, giving dedicated intermediate milestones at 2015, 2020, 2030 and 2050.
In order to handle the long timeframe of 35 years until 2050, the year 2030 has been determined as intermediate step. This intermediate step shall help to fulfil the quantitative challenge in 2050 by giving an intermediate result already in 2030. The step in the quantitative challenge is mainly depending on the extent to which the identified actions will be set in place by this time. In the light of the ambitious target in 2050, a clear progress has to be achieved already in the year 2030; otherwise the remaining 20 years until 2050 will be too short to make the vision come true. Under consideration of the inert rail system and the very strong market position of road transport (in passenger as well as in freight services), a doubling of the rail freight volume and an increase in passenger transport by the 1.6-fold (both compared to 2010) until 2030 is the least, otherwise the final targets cannot be realistically achieved in 2050. Facing the current or general challenges of the European railway system, this objective is even more ambitious.
Within the time period from today to 2030, actions and strategies are ongoing to increase the capacity for reliable rail services and to improve the whole system. However, these are already ongoing/decided/planned actions and strategies and they are only aligned on the forecasted growth of the transport volume on rail, not taking into account the required volume that is supposed to be shifted to rail until 2030 in the SPIDER PLUS scenario.
In order to correct this imbalance, targeted additional actions have been identified within the SPIDER PLUS action fields infrastructure, technology, rolling stock, market uptake and governance which are necessary to realise this additional modal shift.
Besides the very actions such as terminals or technological innovation that are related to concrete milestones that have to be reached until 2030, first applications of appropriate business models are presented, giving a first outlook on the later implementation. Under consideration of five identified steps that are required for the successful implementation of new technologies and innovations, the business models are designed to find first starting points in which the advantages can be tested, proved and highlighted. Experiences gained in these pilot demonstrations will be used to improve the technology and to facilitate the area wide implementation.
WP 10 “Solutions Guide Book”
In the course of the project lifetime, much more than 60 elements that are helpful or necessary to fulfil the vision were identified. During successive elaboration it was thought advisable to concentrate on the most relevant ones in order to focus the attention of the Planning Authorities and the Policy makers. These elements have been grouped into 17 key elements representing the 5 action fields on which the 2050 Mobility Vision Scenario is based on. The SPIDER PLUS partners were guided during the whole project lifetime by the basic awareness of wanting to imagine a “Sustainable World” in 2050 correcting errors of the past. The SPIDER PLUS Mobility Vision based on Electrified Rail has taken into consideration more positive measures of success wanting to signify the people ambitions rather than the restraining forces. To this effect, measures - not exhaustive list - such as
• sustainability encompassed in services, products and life style,
• services accessibility to low carbon transport means for people and freight,
• populations lifted out of poverty with basic needs all met,
• environment protected in all its facets,
• external costs internalised reflecting societal ambitions,
• safety and security guaranteed,
• eco energy efficiency improved,
• zero emission mobility achieved,
• time and space optimised and
• better use of the available resources being the Planet a “Finite Entity”
have been interiorised during the whole SPIDER PLUS project proceedings, work packages and task developments.
Work package 10 summarises all relevant recommendations in extreme synthesis. Therefore two tasks with different focuses have been fulfilled:
• The Policy recommendations in the Guide Book (Task 10.1)
• The decision making tools (Task 10.2)
The Policy recommendations are presented in an online Guide Book which is also accessible via touchscreen. By doing so, the presentation itself represents central keywords of SPIDER PLUS - “Innovation” and “Sustainability.”
Figure 11: SPIDER PLUS Action fields (Screenshot)
The Guide Book provides the basic information about
• content,
• impacts & market segments,
• timing milestones,
• type of action/resources,
• responsible agents,
• actions correlation,
for all key elements as it is shown in Figure 12 for the key element “Hybrid Locomotives”.
Figure 12: Card as explanation to the Guide Book element (Screenshot)
Task 10.2 – the decision support tool or interactive Roadmap - is the second part of the Solutions Guide Book (WP10) and covers the question of how the actions (recommended in task 10.1) have to be done in terms of timing and interdependencies. The dynamic Roadmap was set up in MS Project to ensure good accessibility and usability. With this Roadmap, all relevant stakeholders, especially from industry, business and policy have now a tool for
• orientation,
• planning,
• decision support,
• controlling,
concerning all rail developments towards 2050.
Design, content and structure have been logically set up to reach an optimum benefit. The most important positive aspects are summarised in the figure below:
Figure 13: Positive Aspects of the SPIDER PLUS dynamic Roadmap
The following figures give an impression of the Roadmap:
Figure 14: SPIDER PLUS dynamic Roadmap I
Figure 15: SPIDER PLUS dynamic Roadmap II
Potential Impact:
The SPIDER PLUS project aimed at developing a passenger and freight mobility vision for 2050 encompassing seamless transportation where electrified rail has a central role. This goal was successfully reached. Moreover, the project has delivered the necessary tools and guidance, namely the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap that can help to make the vision finally come true. It is up to the decision makers and railway stakeholders to use the theoretical basis to start practical actions and generate actual benefit.
Provided that the potentials of the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap are fully exploited and all recommendations are fulfilled properly, the SPIDER PLUS vision will be realised in 2050 and the White Paper targets will be achieved. Figure 16 gives an overview on the direct and indirect SPIDER PLUS impacts:
Figure 16: SPIDER PLUS direct and indirect impacts
Based on the project results, in particular the Quantitative Framework, the Mobility Vision 2050, the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap superior impacts can be achieved:
Immediate impact – Enhancement of the European Railway System:
The recommendations of SPIDER PLUS help to enhance the European Railway System and thus realise three of the four keywords, SPIDER PLUS regarded as the Guiding Principles:
Industrialisation:
Especially freight services profit from comprehensive industrialisation. Therefore advanced technologies (e.g. automatic coupling, continuous electric wire and new braking systems) and innovative productions systems (e.g. train coupling and sharing) are successfully introduced. Viable migration strategies ensure a proper market uptake. A higher degree of industrialisation is also achieved by comprehensive interoperability and harmonised cooperation (e.g. between Infrastructure Managers – Operators – Users). Industrialisation in a broad scale is also a measure to reduce costs.
Seamless and convenient transport
Seamlessness is a key factor for successful mobility and transport services. Therefore measures like smart ICT services and improved coordination between actors realise an improved door to door integration and co-modality. New concepts are also enabling holistic management and guidance through the networks based on real time information.
Offer driven business models
A full liberalisation of the markets and the implementation of modern offer driven business models give a boost to the freight transportation on rail.
Overall result – Shift from Road to Rail
Due to the enhanced railway system and consequently more attractive offers, travellers as well as freight forwarders choose rail as mean of transport more often than today. Higher standards and reduced costs make rail more competitive and realise the desired shift from road to rail.
Final Outcome – Increased Quality of Life
An increased Quality of Life will be the result of the shift from road to rail. The negative impacts of road transport will be reduced. This means a great relief especially for densely populated areas. CO2 emissions will be reduced as well as a high number of (fatal) accidents.
A smaller number of cars in the cities free up space for other usages like cycle paths, playgrounds parks and public spaces. Cities can evolve to greener and more liveable places.
People also profit from improved rail services and seamless travel chains. Journeys are more comfortable and the easy use of the services (one for all ticket, frequent services and integrated timetables) increases the mobility of the people.
List of Websites:
www.spiderplus-project.eu
HaCon Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH
Lars Deiterding
lars.deiterding@hacon.de
Lister Straße 15
30163 Hannover, Germany
NewOpera Aisbl
Franco Castagnetti
franco.castagnetti@newopera.com
Rue d'Idalie 9-13
1050 Brussels, Belgium
KombiConsult GmbH
Rainer Mertel
Zum Laurenburger Hof 76
60594 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
RAPP Trans AG
Martin Ruesch
Utlibergstraße 132
8045 Zürich, Switzerland
Universita Commercial ‘Luigi Bocconi’
Bruno Pavesi
Via Sarfatti 25
20136 Milano, Italy
AIRBUS Group SE
Martine Cot
Boulevard de Montmorency 37
75016 Paris, France
Consorzio IB Innovation
Alessandro Ricci
Via Altabella 15
40126 Bologna, Italy
Deutsche Umschlaggesellschaft Schiene-Strasse mbH
Wolfgang Müller
Am Kuemmerling 24-26
5594 Bodenheim, Germany
Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori SPA
Giuseppe Sciarrone
Via del Policlinico 149b
00161 Roma, Italy
Tecnicas Territoriales y urbanas S.L
Tomas Fernandez
C/ Rosario Pino
Edificio Posterior 12
28020 Madrid, Spain
Centre for future Studies UK Limited
Frank Shaw
University Road Kent University
CT27FG Canterbury, United Kindom
SIEMENS AG
Markus Bergner
Wittelsbacher Platz 2
80333 München, Germand
GRUPPO CLAS SRL
Roberto Zucchetti
Via Serviliano Lattuada 20
20135 Milan, Italy
SPIDER PLUS was a research and development project co-funded by the European Union in the scope of the Seventh Framework Programme (12/2012 – 5/2015). The project aimed at developing a passenger and freight mobility vision for 2050 encompassing seamless transportation where electrified rail plays a central role. Within the “White Paper on Transport” the European Com¬mission stated sustainable mobility as the overall target for the prospective transport policy. That means a massive shift of traffic from road to rail. In the long-term, a rail market share of about 50% is the set goal for both long distance passenger service and freight trans¬port over 300 km.
During the project, the interdisciplinary team was supported by a network of expertise. The results are oriented on four guiding principles that will put electrified rail at the centre of sustainable mobility:
• Industrialisation of production
• Offer driven business models
• Seamless and convenient services
• Co-modality and sustainability
Based on the as-is situation and internal/external drivers of change the vision components have been elaborated. Main technological tools and solutions have been identified and assessed in terms of impact and costs. The SPIDER PLUS Roadmap is the final part of the project and paves the way to the desired future. It describes the required infrastructure development as well as business models and funding schemes. The integration of national systems into European grid and the co-modality implementation in user friendly mobility environment outline the future network and access points for rail passenger and rail freight services. Within the Roadmap, special emphasis for controlling purpose was given to the intermediate step in 2030 to indicate the interim goal which is needed to reach a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail in 2050.
All SPIDER PLUS recommendations are summarised in the interactive Solutions Guide Book which contains the 5 action fields:
• Rolling Stock
• Technology
• Investments
• Governance
• Market Uptake
The Guide Book itself focused on the content and the involved actors. The Decision Support Tool as second part has been implemented as a dynamic and interactive Roadmap which also takes temporal aspects into account. Essential actions and steps have been joined in a common project management software environment. Finally, this tool provides information about required steps, temporal sequences and dependencies between various actions.
Decision makers in politics, industry and business are the main target group for the use of the Decision Support Tool, which allows the creation of scenarios that show even far reaching effects of possible delays. Moreover it illustrates the processes that can be done in parallel and the ones that have to be done in sequence. The indicated time slots of the various steps to be done are the framework for the fulfilment of the SPIDER PLUS vision until 2050.
The key message of SPIDER PLUS is that the vision of a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail until 2050 is achievable if all stakeholders act targeted, jointly and in the present time.
Project Context and Objectives:
A high performance transport system is the guarantor for economic success and his sustainability the indicator for quality of life. The European transport and logistic services are among the leading services in the world. Nevertheless, problems exist and may steadily increase under the prospective of growing transport demand. In some areas, especially in densely populated agglomerations, traffic is more related to congestion and pollution than to sustainable and efficient transport services. In the EU, road based transport services play an overwhelmingly role and cause severe problems:
• Congestions
• Pollution (especially in form of CO2 and Particulate Matter)
• Accidents
These factors impair more and more economic welfare and quality of life. This trend is about to increase within the next years since all forecasts predict a steady growth of demand especially of road transport.
Figure 1: Passenger Transport in Europe (Source: European Commission 2010)
The European Commission and large parts of the population are aware of this fact. In order to push the transport system to a more sustainable direction, the European Commission has stated clear commitments in favour of rail in its 2011 White Paper “Roadmap to a Single Eu¬ropean Transport Area – Towards a Competitive and Resource Efficient Transport System”:
• 30 % of road freight over 300 km should shift to other modes such as rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50 % by 2050, facilitated by efficient and green freight corridors.
• 50+ % of medium distance intercity passenger traffic shifts to rail by 2050.
• The European high-speed rail network is to be completed with a tripling of the network by 2030. A dense railway network in all Member States will be maintained.
• By 2020, the framework for a European multimodal transport information, management and payment system should be established.
Based on these ambitious targets, the SPIDER PLUS project aimed at developing a passenger and freight mobility vision for 2050 encompassing seamless transportation where electrified rail has a central role. The aim was not only to create a vision for future mobility, but also to provide stakeholders and decision makers with a Roadmap with instructions/recommendations on how to get there.
The project was organised in work packages and built up a logical chain, beginning with an analysis of the As-is situation, continuing with the elaboration of a detailed vision and ending up with a guiding Roadmap.
WP5 – “As-is situation”
Starting point of the SPIDER PLUS project was to draw a picture of the current situation. Therefore the task of WP 5 was to describe and analyse the mobility of today. A detailed and critical analysis about the initial situation serves as the important basis for the further process of creating a mobility vision for 2050. Both aspects, market offer as well as market demand had to be assessed. The rail offer side includes all relevant aspects as they are technical, operational, structural, infrastructural, ICT technologies and any other service production components. In contrast, the market demand is characterised by the prevailing market needs and their expected evolution in the framework of the intermodal competition.
As part of the As-is situation, actions already in progress and decisions on infrastructures already financed are part of the consideration, too. A very important objective of the project, but located in WP5, is the elaboration of a quantitative framework of the future demand for passenger and freight services and the possible role of rail in the specific market segments. This is necessary to get a clearer view on the transport volume that has to be shifted from road to rail as quantitative framework scenario for the vision 2050 to be developed in SPIDER PLUS.
WP6 – “Mega Trends”
Subsequent to the analysis of the As-is situation, the Mega Trends influencing the development of society, economy, mobility and logistics had to be identified and evaluated. Thereby it was important that these elements were considered in an overall context. The identification and evaluation of general and superior trends as well as their expected impact on the mobility in 2050 was the central objective of WP6. Based on the trends, driving and restraining forces are to be described. Since the infrastructure network is one of the most important drivers for the future development of rail, this topic was kept under special focus, especially for freight services regarding terminals, nodes, hubs and capacity needs for train paths. For passenger services a more detailed look was required on high speed rail services and the multimodal connection with regional and commuter services in selected stations regarding urban planning. For both passenger and freight services, networking will become more important as well as the creation of seamless transport chains. Relevant requirements and conditions had to be defined. During WP6 a picture of the estimated future was drawn which was mainly determined by internal drivers of change and existing forecasts.
WP7 – “The vision’s components”
The main objective of the SPIDER PLUS work package (WP) 7 was to develop and elaborate a SPIDER PLUS 2050 vision for a rail based European society and to assess and roughly verify the feasibility and achievability of the vision. Among other issues, WP7 aimed at
• Assessment of HSR together with its integration in national, regional and local transport systems
• Introduction of way finding technologies and innovative ICT solutions
• Research on how to tackle city and urban planning and logistics in 2050
• The increasing role of corridors and hubs for freight services
• The role of co-modality and how it can be integrated in the vision.
The visioning has been carried out in five different components, comprising the five tasks of the WP 7:
• Electrified high speed rail society (Task 7.1)
• European rail freight corridors’ role (Task 7.2)
• Local transportation and the role of rail (Task 7.3)
• Urban/regional planning evolution and its impact (Task 7.4)
• Industrial production and associated business processes (Task 7.5)
Thus, all aspects of the whole future rail system are taken into account.
WP8 – “Impact Assessment”
The goal of WP8 was to assess the impact of technological tools and solutions based on the vision components in WP7. This assessment took place within the tasks:
• The technological tools and solutions (Task 8.1).
• The Cost benefit analysis including KPI definition and measurement (Task 8.2).
• The expected impacts on SPIDER PLUS 2050 mobility vision (Task 8.3).
The first step of the execution of task 8.1 was the identification of co-modal technical solutions. These solutions are the required preconditions for improvement of the railway system in terms of quality, capacity and efficiency and will enable the required shift to rail as guarantor for future sustainable mobility. For several co-modal technical solutions, a detailed CBA has been carried out in task 8.2 to identify particularly profitable or possibly uneconomical solutions. Therefore a huge variety of cost figures has been gathered, accompanied by qualified assumptions for remaining gaps. Finally, the expected impacts of dedicated solutions have been assessed in the frame of task 8.3.
WP9 – “Roadmap”
The definition of the Roadmap has been divided into the following 5 tasks:
• The derived infrastructure development (Task 9.1)
• The business models, costs, funding schemes, stakeholder’s role (Task 9.2)
• The integration of national systems into European grid (Task 9.3)
• The Co-modality implementation in user-friendly mobility environment (Task 9.4)
• The intermediate “Must have 2030” step and cohesive migration strategy (Task 9.5)
A major aim of WP9 was to create implementation plans or, as alternative, to set up a list of guidelines for implementation of advanced and interconnected infrastructures, technologies, processes and framework conditions. Especially the improvement of the rail infrastructure and its efficient use is one of the most important factors until 2050 (related of the figures elaborated in the quantitative framework). In addition to the building of new infrastructure, special emphasis has to be given on efficient management of available resources, new operation schemes and the elimination of bottlenecks. The usage and efficient utilisation of capacity is addressed in Task 9.2 including new and/or improved business models as well as funding schemes that will support required technical migrations especially in the rolling stock. In addition to that, a comprehensive picture of the European grid (Task 9.3) is developed.
In the sense of sustainability, a central topic in SPIDER PLUS, Task 9.4 is dedicated to co-modality. Case studies and existing good practices are evaluated in order to learn from these experiences and implement respective results in SPIDER PLUS.
The long time frame until 2050 requires a dedicated intermediate step as mandatory goal to be achieved. Therefore the most important measures to be taken until 2030 are identified. These are part of the overall target and have to be implemented at least by the year 2030 in order to keep the fulfilment of the vision 2050 as a realistic scenario. It is a main objective of Task 9.5 to identify these top priority measures and to indicate required actions and a date for their latest finalisation.
WP10 – “Solutions Guide Book”
Work package 10 summarises all recommended measures and actions that have been identified on the basis of the required vision components assessed in the framework of the SPIDER PLUS project. Two tasks are fulfilled which together build the Solutions Guide Book:
• The policy recommendations in the Guide Book (Task 10.1)
• The decision making tools (Task 10.2)
Both tasks aim at making the SPIDER PLUS Vision 2050 usable and accessible for all interested stakeholders. The Guide Book provides written information, while the decision making tools should follow a more technical approach in the sense of a “dynamic Roadmap”.
In brief, SPIDER PLUS had two main objectives:
• Elaboration of a mobility vision for 2050 based on electrified rail
• Development of a feasible plan for the implementation of the vision
Both objectives have been successfully achieved within the project lifetime.
Project Results:
As described above, SPIDER PLUS had two superior objectives, both of immense extent. These objectives are at the same time the main results of SPIDER PLUS (see also Figure 2). In Figure 3 the relevant factors that determine the Mobility vision 2050 and its respective Roadmap are shown.
1. Elaboration of a rail based mobility vision:
Under consideration of probable developments and experiences of the past, the SPIDER PLUS consortium has created an innovative but in our expert view realistic mobility vision for 2050 if the involved parties are in the position to implement the enormous efforts in infrastructure development and rolling stock technology. Thereby the focus was on the maxim “a society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail”.
2. Development of a feasible plan for the implementation of the vision:
After having painted a picture of the desired future, the question is how to get there. Critical steps and mandatory achievements are therefore explained in the SPIDER PLUS Roadmap. The Guide Book together with the dynamic Roadmap have a more instructing character and list up for every required measure what has to be done, when and in which sequence as well as who has to act.
A gap analysis compared and contrasted the estimated future with the desired future. The estimated future is grounded in a ‘business as usual’ scenario based on existing forecasts as well as expected/planned measures in the European transport area and has two dimensions: qualitative aspects concerning drivers like urbanisation and sustainable lifestyles which shape the future; and quantitative forecasts up to 2030. The estimated future differed significantly from the desired future which was developed in SPIDER PLUS based on the EU White Paper. The gaps which were identified were addressed in the design and development of the vision components and formed the backbone of the road map to sustainable mobility in 2050.
Special emphasis was given to the quantitative framework. Based on the situation in 2010, several forecasts for 2030 were analysed. Under consideration of the decreasing growth rates of demand for freight and passenger services expected for the period between 2030 and 2050, a quantitative scenario for the European transport demand for 2050 was created based on expertise knowledge. In view of the general development of the European transport demand and the resulting ambitious SPIDER PLUS quantitative scenario for a sustainable mobility in 2050, it became clear that the current rail transport volume would have to increase substantially. In particular, rail passenger services (excluding tram and metro) would have to increase 2.8 fold by 2050, while rail freight services would have to increase 4.0 fold by 2050; this being based on 2010 (Figure 4).
Figure 2: SPIDER PLUS objectives and process
Figure 3: Elaboration of the SPIDER PLUS Mobility vision 2050
Figure 4: SPIDER PLUS quantitative framework
This massive increase of rail transport volume may be hard to imagine from today’s perspective. Nevertheless, the SPIDER PLUS consortium elaborated targeted measures that pave the way to an European railway system capable to handle this shift from road to rail and at the same time more efficient and attractive than road itself. The vision 2050 and required measures have been developed by the support of the networks of expertise that were integral part of SPIDER PLUS. All results of the project are based on the four way paving guiding principles that have been identified as mandatory for the European railway area to fulfil the desired mobility vision:
Figure 5: SPIDER PLUS Guiding Principles
Detached from the work package structure that is described in the Technical Annex, the SPIDER PLUS project has worked on five action fields and finally delivered all recommendations for measures to be taken in order to realise the 2050 mobility vision in the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap. The action fields
• Infrastructure
• Rolling Stock
• Technology
• Governance
• Market Uptake
account for the biggest part of the “Rail sector” that determines (future) mobility. The action fields and their most important aspects are explained in the following.
Infrastructure
Sustainable growth and environmental friendly mobility is particularly challenging when viewed against the 2050 vision given the magnitude of the required increases in traffic volume for both passengers and freight. Therefore the action field ‘infrastructure’ is the most critical and determining consideration:
• EU Network development
• Interoperability & modular design
• Predictive maintenance
• Safety & security
• Environment & sustainability
• Stations and nodes
Upgrading of the EU rail network is crucial. The mid-term focus is on the TEN-T core network, including the elimination of bottlenecks as a structural work for expanding capacity, and on the addition of new conventional and high speed lines, which will close existing infrastructure gaps. This way of proceeding is cost-effective, extracting the best benefits from investments.
Comprehensive interoperability must be ensured to enable high quality rail freight transportation in Europe and effective modal shift. The interoperability goal is key for promoting investments and precluding individual countries’ initiatives which may run contrary to the fulfilment of a single European rail area. By 2030, the TEN-T corridors must be completed. The co-modal nodes located in the traffic attraction zones for improving accessibility and last mile distribution must be in operation. The existing rail infrastructure will have the facility to accommodate 750m long trains everywhere in Europe. On the busiest corridors sustaining traffic industrialisation, the infrastructure will be capable of managing 1,500m long trains (with potential for combining trains and path sharing).
In the period between 2030 and 2050, one focus is on the comprehensive network, which, in addition to the TEN-T corridors, provides the transport capillaries into suburban and rural areas. Urban/regional lines play an important role as connectors and feeders for long distance services. The second focus is on a significant increase of the network capacity, by innovative rail operating schemes, as well as new lines/by-passes for rail freight services. This will reduce conflicting paths with passenger traffic in the most intense urban areas where passengers have a priority.
All developments, constructions and upgradings must take into consideration both operational optimisation and cost reduction, as well noise protection which is a key factor in gaining public acceptance.
Existing plans for upgrading the long distance HSR passenger lines must be accomplished to support seamless passenger transport on a European scale while at the same time, conventional long distance services are necessary to cover more rural areas. In European cities, the integration process in the central hubs can take different paths. Station upgrading enables full functionality of all modes.
The stations have to be designed in a co-modality framework and serve as central mobility hubs, offering a variety of services, including direct interchanges with airports. Newly constructed stations extend over multiple levels integrating all mobility services with suitable accessibility. Metro and rail lines such as high speed, commuter and conventional are integrated underground to avoid conflicts with surface transportation at street level. At street level, tram and bus services interchange with mobility segments such as taxis, automated shuttle transportation and bike sharing. Limited space is needed for drop-off and pick-up locations for private vehicles. It is important to allow easy walking access to the hubs for people of all ages.
The freight nodes must be located in the middle of the European traffic attraction zones, providing proper interchanges between corridors. They have to fulfil the task of traffic bundling for achieving rail freight industrialisation and be capable of offering a variety of ancillary services to the users, promoting an effective co-modality. Advanced technologies will have been deployed to manage the planned traffic volumes. Hubs and terminals are open 24/7 to be compatible with the seaports’ production cycles and the overland interchange borders of the Union.
The European ERTMS Deployment Plan foresees installation of the ERTMS equipment to more than 25,000 km of railway lines by 2020. A number of key European freight lines have also been identified for ERTMS deployment. For both freight and passenger services, the implementation of moving block operation (ETCS Level 3) where a substantial capacity increase of up to 40 % versus conventional system can be expected is a long-term priority.
Especially in combination with new rolling stock technologies predictive maintenance contributes to an efficient management of the infrastructure.
Rolling Stock
For the transition to a future oriented rolling stock park there are three key elements of main importance:
• Hybrid locomotives & train sets
• Automatic coupling, electric wire & new braking technologies
• New light weight wagon design
Locomotives with energy recuperation are state of the art tools. Optimised hybrid locomotives and train sets enable the provision of seamless services between electrified and non-electrified parts of the network both for freight and regional passenger services. The support of efficient last mile services will improve the competitiveness of rail freight services, especially in the intermodal industry as well as for private sidings.
Automatic coupling together with continuous electric wire, facilitate efficient shunting operations and new production schemes. Electronically controlled braking and automated brake tests are innovations which are creating step changes especially in rail freight services. Instant electronic braking reduces derailment risks and improves the general safety and security of the train operation. This is especially important for longer, heavier, commercially faster trains which will be an important pillar of future rail freight services.
Another step change will be done in wagon design with advanced lighter materials and alloys such as carbon fibres to reduce dead weight for higher payload. Modular design for freight wagons becomes standardised.
The pace of innovation must be fast providing suitable services for increased traffic volumes. The process of speeding up the replacement of the existing park is paramount and needs therefore to be strongly supported by public funds (national and / or EU).
Even if rolling stock characteristics are different for passenger and freight wagons, lighter materials, modular design, preventive maintenance, embedded ICT, are common features.
Technology
The evolution of the rail service sector by introduction of new technologies is mandatory to be more efficient and competitive in short- to mid-term horizon; here three major key-elements are identified:
• Rolling stock design and materials
• Automation in movements/transfers
• Comprehensive ICT based management
For passenger services, new design train sets are modular, energy efficient and eco-friendly by reduced tare weight. Maintenance on demand is important for cost efficiency by optimised use of the fleet in service. Demand criteria like comfort and well-being as well as extended on-board services and reduced noise, are important elements of the improved service profile.
Design and materials for the next generation of freight wagons as well as the refitting of existing fleet is guided by a reduction of noise emissions and abrasion of the tracks. For freight the automation of all loading/unloading and controlling processes are of main importance for the reduction of increasing labour costs and acceleration of train dispatching.
In the context of the required overwhelming increase of rail based intermodal services, the automation of handling of Combined Transport (CT) units in hubs and terminals is a sine qua non. Supported by the equipment of all intermodal wagons with continuous electric wire the comprehensive introduction of robotics/mechatronics in transfer, pin setting and controlling will contribute to the efficiency and capability of rail based intermodal services in competition to road for cost and quality. These functionalities performed in the nodes define the terminal profile of the future. Efficient IT-based interactions with shippers /receivers, forwarders and road feeder services are another key efficiency driver. Future transhipment terminals concentrate on efficient transfer of CT units between trains to facilitate the integration of feeder terminals/urban logistic centres in the European intermodal network. Automated composition/shunting of train sets supports the efficiency in yards where the assembling/disassembling can be arranged for competitive operation on the long distance part of the rail transport chain.
Comprehensive ICT based management, as well as advanced e-solutions support all operations and the seamless integration of rail in overall logistic distribution and supply chains. Applications for rail are developed to control traffic volumes, increase safety of operations and improve asset utilisation. Satellite solutions such as Galileo support future advanced pan-European real time data collection and information.
Governance
Holistic Governance including all actors in their respective responsibility is crucial for the proper development of the rail sector:
• Network governance
• Transport industrialisation
• Legal framework
Governance ensures investment effectiveness, coordinates planning, and facilitates technological development and successful market uptake. Targeted regulation and planning ensure an European wide coordinated approach, an integrated mobility system, and the harmonising of existing and future guidelines e.g. for TEN-T realisation, European rail port network, capacity of hubs compatible with corridors’ capacity, and the desired single EU rail space.
The role of European agencies is evolving; the governance is shifting from national to European authorities. An adequate balance in mutual relationships for a new European model for co-modal transport authorities is required.
Rail transport services need a performance upgrade through industrialisation models enabling economies of scale and have to be supported by respective governance measures. Efficiency is reached by working on all system components like trains, tracks, terminals, rolling stock & unit loads equipment, ICT and energy in a co-modal integrated perspective. The outlined elements for passengers are optimised connectivity, different types of services, coupling/sharing of train modules, and high frequency services with integrated timetables. For freight services longer, commercially faster & heavier trains and the comprehensive transition to 24/7 working cycles by all in the transport chain involved stakeholders are of high importance.
TSI (Technical Specifications for Interoperability) and IRS (International Rail Standards) are features set to harmonise technical components and operating processes. Legal framework and policy measures are fundamental to support harmonised and integrated business models enabling true EU wide market opening and efficient competition, as well as EU focused for rail system construction, renewal, upgrading and operation. Funding schemes to support the stakeholders for the required migration of the existent rail area to the desired vision for 2050 are fundamental. Simplified European approval procedures and appropriate R&D programs are main supporters of the change.
Market Uptake
Beside the technological evolution, soft elements fostering an appropriate market uptake are the precondition for the required evolution of the European rail system towards the vision 2050. Two aspects are especially important:
• Collaboration and offer driven business models
• Permanent education and training
The move from the recent national monopolies to an international collaborative culture is key for reliable market uptake of new business solutions. Pioneer experiences exist in many areas: OSS (One stop shop) – single point of contact & multichannel distribution approach, logistic engineering, new offerings & collaborative logistics/warehouses, single ticketing for the whole journey. Their development requires new processes, appropriate ICT technology and upgraded/new business models, to be incorporated in a regulatory framework.
The renaissance of the rail industry relies on the abilities of the involved staff. The natural turnover of ‘old’ with ‘new’ staff facilitates the introduction of new and qualified employees. Measures like permanent training and education for technical/technological and commercial skills remain the only way to guarantee a high level of competences. The educational aspects are as important as the technical ones.
Guidebook and dynamic Roadmap - helpful tools to support the implementation
In the end, 60 elements have been implemented in the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap. The Guide Book was realised in the form of an innovative online touchscreen reference tool (www.spiderplus-project.eu) summarises all recommended actions and measures, each in about one page. Stakeholders and decision makers can inform themselves very quickly about all relevant factors:
• Content
• Impacts & Market segments
• Timing Milestones
• Type of Action/Resources
• Responsible Agents
• Actions correlation
An example for the visualisation of the online Guide Book is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Screenshot of the Guide Book (Card for Hybrid Locomotives)
In addition, the elements have been integrated into a dynamic Roadmap which is intended to give an overview about the chronological and logical structure of the SPIDER PLUS recommendations.
Figure 7: Screenshot of the dynamic Roadmap
SPIDER PLUS developed and assessed a suitable approach on how the ambitious vision of a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail can come true. Although additional research, refinement and constant updating are required, the main message is clear: A more sustainable, rail based mobility is achievable, but all stakeholders have to act targeted, coordinated and immediately.
In the light of the ambitious target in 2050 (Figure 4), a clear progress has to be achieved already until the year 2030; otherwise the remaining 20 years until 2050 will be too short to make the vision come true. Therefore SPIDER PLUS has given a special emphasis to the intermediate “Must have 2030” step. Under consideration of the inert rail system and the very strong market position of road transport (in passenger as well as in freight services), a doubling of the rail freight volume and an increase in passenger transport by the 1.6 fold (both compared to 2010) until 2030 is the least, otherwise the final targets cannot be realistically achieved in 2050. This precondition mirrored against the estimated future based on existing forecasts and intended development of the upgrade of the European rail area is visualised in the figure below:
Figure 8: Forecasted (based on German growth factor) rail freight development vs. SPIDER PLUS objective 2050 [*growth of 43% according to the German “Verkehrsverflechtungsprognose” 2030, BMVI]
In order to develop a resilient Roadmap, the project partners have defined crucial issues that have to be addressed so that the interim targets for 2030 can be achieved. The most important measures are the following milestones that have to be achieved until 2030:
• Infrastructure upgrade for 1,500m trains (on Core Network Corridors (CNC) in central Europe with significant importance for freight)
• Improved bi-trilateral coordination of HSR upgrading incl. HSR access at airports
• Comprehensive communication and cooperation of all actors for train path management and rail
• Clear progress in the implementation of ETCS Level 3, especially on the CNC
• Clear progress in the implementation of automatic centre buffer couplers (ACBC) and electric wire (enabling new braking technologies)
• “Smart ticketing” and harmonised travel assistance (including seamless ticketing for international connections and last mile services)
• Pushing and fostering of an increased implementation of offer driven business models for freight services.
• Industrialisation based on approved business models for freight services.
• Coordination/Management of all infrastructure and services/operations related to capacity, quality and standardisation along the CNC.
A main problem of the current European railway area is more or less not the development of suitable technologies but rather the lack of coordinated and efficient implementation of important developments in the system due to missing or defective planning of a proper European wide co-ordinated migration scenario supported by funding and investment programmes. For this reason SPIDER PLUS has set up 5 steps that are vital for the successful implementation of most of the new technologies and innovations. In various cases, this approach also applies to the introduction of new business models. The sequence of steps (which also was basis for the elaboration of the dynamic Roadmap) is shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9: Required steps for successful implementation of new technologies/innovations
SPIDER PLUS – results with regard to the technical structure of the project:
The consortium partners have delivered/performed the following parts:
• Detailed Analysis of the “As-is situation” of transport in Europe, especially concerning railway services.
• Identification and Evaluation of the Mega Trends that will affect the European society and its mobility.
• Elaboration of the quantitative framework 2050 that is implicated by “a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail” considering the potentials of freight and passenger production systems.
• Creation of a detailed mobility vision for Europe in 2050, aiming at a European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail.
• Identification of suitable solutions for the fulfilment of the vision and respective evaluation in terms of impact (incl. cost benefit analysis).
• Development of a detailed Roadmap for Rail towards 2050.
• Creation of an innovative Solutions Guide Book, consisting of an online Guide Book with state of the art touch screen technology and a dynamic Roadmap.
The work in the project was organised in work packages. Although all work packages are closed topics themselves, they altogether build up a logical sequence (compare Figure 2). In the following, the results are described according to the respective work package.
WP5 "As-is situation“
In order to develop visions for the future of European mobility, the current situation of the vast sector has been elaborated. This evaluation has been done from two perspectives: the offer and the demand side. By analysing the "As-is situation" of the transport market split into relevant segments a gap analysis has been done which also has taken into account the expected market development. Deciding factors associated with user’s requirements like costs and quality in “door-to-door” transport chains or journeys have been taken into account.
Rail passenger transport has shown positive trends, especially in the urban transport and high speed rail sectors. Nevertheless, high-speed rail represents only about 25 per cent in relation to the total European rail passenger service performance (passenger/km). Thus, there is an enormous growth potential for adequate and customer-oriented service offers, especially under consideration of the immense shift potential of current air and road services.
Compared to passenger services, rail freight transport shows much less dynamic growth in all segments due to insufficient performances compared to road services, lack of industrialisation and high fixed costs especially in single wagonload service. In the new EU member states and accession countries of East and South-East Europe the market share of rail declined drastically after liberalisation of the transport market. On short term, the structural changes of the transport sector in these countries had very negative consequences for the rail system and, apart from a significant infrastructure reduction (e.g. number of private sidings/marshalling yards), also the number of employees dropped, leading to other societal challenges as well. Nevertheless, the experience of other countries shows that, after a period of consolidation, it is possible to successfully redevelop a rail freight transport service as long as the market requirements can be met by implementing appropriate measures.
In conclusion, major results are:
• The overall demand for logistic services will continue to rise significantly, but the current railway system and its expected development especially in SWL will not be able to cope with this logistic trend or even increase its market share if intensive measures won´t be taken. Also the forward-looking and increasing intermodal service needs substantial improvements in competition to road services.
• Reliability and resource efficiency are key criteria for the competitiveness of rail freight services. This can only be improved significantly by a new generation of IT technologies which have to lead to a better interaction of railway market actors and provide appropriate decision support functions.
• Comfortable co-modal solutions are the key to success.
• The demand for the high speed rail services is mainly supply- or infrastructure-driven.
• Service costs, transit time, comforts, seamless connections and available information constitute deciding factors for the modal choice.
• Existent Rail infrastructure capacity is a limiting factor both for freight and passenger services.
To achieve a long-term modal shift from road to rail or inland waterways, co-modality seems to be the only practical option. In addition, rail freight transport needs a completely new industrialised business model on selected axes together with refined terminals, hubs and freight villages as future oriented access points.
In addition, the “quantitative framework” was set up in order to give a clearer view on what is meant by the target “European society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail”. Based on a broad analysis of existing forecasts and under consideration of expert assessments target figures for the European transport volume (SPIDER PLUS scenario) have been calculated. According to this forecast the passenger volume has to grow by factor 2.8 which means 1,147 bpkm in 2050 (today: 404 bpkm). Freight services would have to reach 1,560 btkm, which is the 4-fold of today’s volume (390 btkm). These figures underline the ambitiousness of the White Paper and SPIDER PLUS targets and show that actions have to start now in order to fulfil the vision.
WP6 "Mega Trends"
Starting from the “As-is situation”, the next stage of the Spider Plus project has been the identification of “Drivers of Change”. These drivers are factors that have the potential to shape the 2050 vision of a society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail. Therefore, societal trends and developments can have a major impact on future mobility demands. Attitudes, values, behaviours, life styles as well as goals and expectations have been determined. Taking urbanisation as an example, this trend will remarkably affect urban and regional transport, which is especially challenging due to the limited capacity (and growth potential) in already strongly frequented areas. Greater environmental awareness can support the shift to rail, provided that seamless travel chains are realised that also take co-modality aspects into account.
Though, a view solely on societal factors is too short-sighted. “Drivers of change” that influence the external environment and the rail industry have to be considered as well. Two categories have been set:
• Internal drivers (environment, competition, stakeholders, regulations, etc.)
• External drivers (energy, economy, resources, technology, politics, etc.)
To ensure an accurate evaluation concerning cross impacts and consequences of internal and external drivers, a study with combined forecasting and backcasting techniques has been designed and executed. Subsequently, the results have been judged and evaluated.
The work first of all consisted of the identification and analysis of enabling and restraining drivers of change which are external to the rail freight and passenger industry. In tandem with these efforts, industry-internal drivers of change have been compiled, analysed and evaluated with respect to their probability and level of impact. By consolidating these two work outcomes, an expected picture of rail in the year 2050 has been elaborated based on the input from WP5.
The work was carried out by desk research and several internal workshops. The consortium managed to overcome the traditional way of thinking and to find the right balance/the realistic middle between innovative dreams which will be hard to be realised in the given time and budget, and conservative progress which would never lead to an achievement of the goals. As a result, a combined forecasting/backcasting box (methodology) was created, which fulfilled the needs for an iterative process in conjunction with WP7 to define a realistic, but as much as possible forward looking, vision for 2050, with an intermediate check point in 2030.
An evaluation has been conducted regarding these types of rail freight services which will be able to contribute to the desired modal shift goal. Based on the findings and the anticipated capabilities and resources of the rail freight industry and, in particular, intermodal service providers and by disregarding any major “revolutionary” changes in the industry itself and the regulatory framework, the key internal drivers of change in rail freight transport have been identified which are considered to have a high occurrence probability and high impact. From the ten internal drivers the following have been considered to be the main drivers for a modal shift and thus expected to be most critical for determining the future of rail freight services:
• Deployment and fast extension of use of automatic-coupling wagons
• Horizontal collaboration of rail freight and intermodal service providers
• Implementation of effective, cost-moderate production systems for bundling and split-up of wagon groups
• Implementation of smart ICT management systems for the dispatching/deployment of operational resources
• Offer driven business cases through industrialisation of production especially of freight services
The results have been a major input for the backcasting process and the gap analysis with regard to the desired future in WP7.
WP7 "The vision’s components"
The main objective of the SPIDER PLUS work package (WP) 7 was to develop and elaborate a SPIDER PLUS 2050 vision for a rail based European society and to assess and roughly verify the feasibility and achievability of the vision. The visioning has been carried out in five different components, comprising the five tasks of the WP 7. For each vision component a separate deliverable was produced. The vision for 2050 has been described from different perspectives but remaining in a coherent structure and providing a comprehensive picture of the preferred future of a society overwhelmingly served by rail.
Over the five thematic areas, a common approach has been used to identify the vision components. The following working steps have been carried out to develop the vision 2050:
1. Specification of targets for a society overwhelmingly served by rail
2. Structure and design of elements and content of the vision components
3. Good Practice identification
4. Back Casting Process
5. Vision statement
6. External Feedback Workshop
The vision’s targets & development
The target specification was carried out primarily from the demand perspective considering the modal share. However, the offer side has to supply sufficient capacities, advanced technologies and comprehensive framework conditions.
Task 7.1 is the first vision’s component and deals with the electrified high speed rail society in 2050. The European HSR industry and RUs are among the leaders worldwide. In order to keep the current position, all fields of HSR have to follow a continuous development. Infrastructure, rolling stock, services and offer quality are playing a crucial role in shifting passengers from road to rail transport and in enabling the rail system to handle the consequential expected transport volumes. At the same time, the liberalisation of the HSR market and the European wide interoperability will give a further boost for international high speed rail connections up to 600 km substituting air and road transport and for longer, especially intercontinental services supplementing and cooperating with air transport. With a seamless society as final aim, it is important to integrate regional and local transport providers in one full and multimodal mobility service offer.
Within the decades until 2050 external and internal market drivers will influence and change the HSR environment. The ongoing trend of urbanisation and the coherent economic development will be two main drivers of the (HSR) traffic development within Europe. At the same time the concerns of an ageing society and environmental issues have to be taken into account. Internal drivers like technology, the regulation and the liberalisation of the market will affect the way HSR takes place in Europe. Task 7.1 delivers a comprehensive and integrated vision of an electrified high speed rail society in which infrastructure, rolling stock, service business models and ICT support are coordinated in order to
• build upon the attraction potential of HSR and to achieve the desired shift to rail
• enable all components of the HSR system to manage the expected transport volume.
The Task 7.2 result is the elaboration of the freight transport vision. Corridors are the tools for developing the core network up to 2030. In 2050 corridors are the network lanes in an EU comprehensive network where denser traffic and freight priorities are managed according to the “European rail network for competitive freight” law enforced in 2011. The rail freight based mobility vision is composed by the following elements determining modal shift:
• The innovation components
• The resources category drivers (corridors, network, management)
• The traffic segments drivers (intermodal, group of wagons, blocked trains)
The vision for local transportation and the role of rail in 2050 presents a picture of the future local area, stretching from the city centre, to the peripheral urban areas, to the suburbs to the outer agglomeration zones.
Task 7.3 includes the perspective of freight and passenger transport separately. For both perspectives vision targets have been derived based on the EC White Paper vision (European Commission 2011), the passenger transport vision for long distance rail (Task 7.1) and the freight transport vision for the corridors (Task 7.2). The vision targets are defined for three market segments: city area, regional area and the interface to medium and long distance transport.
For freight transport, the role of enabling a seamless connection of urban freight transport with long distance rail network and integrated city logistics are key targets. Regarding intra-city logistics and last mile distribution services there is also in the future only limited potential for rail based transport services. The target there is a CO2-free urban freight logistics (e.g. via zero emission trucks). For the regional and medium distance area a share of rail and rail based underground transport systems of more than 25 % is targeted. For long distance rail freight a market share of more than 50% is adopted from the Task 7.2.
Urban passenger transport should be overwhelmingly served by efficient modes, excluding motorised personal transport; also enabling seamless integration into long and medium-distance passenger mobility. The focus in the urban areas is on substituting all individual car traffic (to below 10 %) with efficient transport modes like trams or bikes. For the suburban areas as well as for the long-distance transport interfacing with local transport a 50 % market share of rail is the vision target.
SPIDER PLUS also carried out a vision for the urban and regional situation. Task 7.4 investigated trends of current policies and created a vision for optimised conditions in 2050. Therefore the urban planning elements of the 2050 vision aim at two goals:
• To reduce the needs of urban and metropolitan mobility, ensuring that the demands are served by more sustainable modes.
• To ensure good accessibility to mobility hubs, both passenger and freight, in order to improve railway modal shift in middle and long distance mobility.
In particular, two claims are set in this context:
• Urban planning provides central locations for new mobility hubs, with enough space to include the elements necessary for optimal functioning. Around mobility hubs, urban planning poses land uses with important ability to generate or attract trips with high building densities. Moreover, to improve or expand mobility hubs in consolidated urban areas, special urban plans are designed.
• Regional and local logistics plans are developed in favour of rail. Logistics is planned from a territorial perspective, through Master Plans that, instead of promoting competition between municipalities/cities, orders logistics activity in the region or metropolitan areas.
The last report about vision components deals with the shaping of the 2050 features related to the Vision Component “Industrial Production and associated Business Processes” of rail transport services in the intermodal transport chain context.
The VC’s statement considers that by 2050, rail based freight service production is an industrialised process and offer driven business. Cargo consolidation is fully exploited, as the logistics clustering concept that fosters the cargo consolidation uptake as well. The assets are collaboratively used by the freight transport chain stakeholders, thus broadly including also the freight hubs. Hubs are multimodal transport service centres offering Added Value Services, also with a network approach at various levels, thus being able to offer flexible services and increase their qualitative and quantitative connectivity. Rail Production processes and equipment are standardized, following the modular concept. Most part of hub operations and the rail network management are automated. Big data, Internet of Things, Augmented Reality are exploited also in the rail freight transport, thus allowing also the exploitation of the above features.
WP7 has built up a mobility vision for 2050 considering the most important aspects. It is important to state that the Vision is technically, socially, financially and politically achievable if understood and shared. Nevertheless, the proposed changes are time requiring, and can only be implemented in the long term, but with continuous work throughout the next 35 years (2015 – 2050) by an immediate start.
WP8 "Impact Assessment"
WP 8 consists of three tasks and deals with impact assessment. The first task is about the technical tools and solutions. Co-modal solutions for the realisation of modal shift from road to rail are in focus. All solutions have been analysed in terms of quality, capacity and efficiency. In this respect, the following objectives have been identified as mandatory for freight and passenger services in order to be successful:
Freight:
1. Boost of efficiency of single wagon load (SWL) production
2. Opening of Block trains (BT) for new market segments through modularisation of production
3. Continuous industrialisation of Combined transport (CT) on European level
Passenger:
1. Increase efficiency of services and capacity per train
2. Increase frequency of services
3. Increase attractiveness of service quality and travel assistance
Besides the solutions for passenger services, freight services and infrastructure, accompanying measures like supporting strategies (for Research and Development, Financing, Migration and implementation and urban/regional planning) have been identified and evaluated. This includes especially
• Research and Development
• Financing
• Migration and implementation
• Urban/regional planning
A deeper analysis took place in task 8.2 and 8.3 where an exercise based on cost benefit analysis (CBA) approach has been run in order to evaluate scenarios characterised by a set of innovative solutions applied to the railway sector both concerning freight and passengers, estimating the economic benefits of the identified solutions. In principle, since the CBA uses the “public” point of view comparing only differential costs and benefits that are borne or taken by the community, all impacts should be assessed: financial, economic, social, environmental, etc.
Solutions assessed are: a) for freight, railports and private sidings dedicated to wagon load service, intermodal terminals, Automatic Centre Buffer Coupler (ACBC) for wagons, and hybrid locomotives; b) for passengers, the development of both HSR and conventional networks, HS and conventional equipment (trainsets), ETCS system.
Comprehensive cost benefit analyses have been developed both for passengers and for freight, based on the detailed estimations elaborated for each of the solutions listed above. This provides a consistent picture of the impact that the envisaged investments according to the solutions might have in terms of generated benefits while contributing to reach the 2050 modal shift objectives and SPIDER PLUS 2050 targets.
The integration of CBA results, KPIs and qualitative impact description and ranking has generated a consistent pattern of estimated effects which allows evaluating the potential of different sets of solutions, and will lead to a prioritisation of strategies which supported the definition of the Roadmap.
WP9 “Roadmap”
WP9 describes the Roadmap of relevant results of SPIDER PLUS in the chapters
• The derived infrastructure development (Task 9.1)
• The business models, costs, funding schemes, stakeholder’s role (Task 9.2)
• The integration of national systems into European grid (Task 9.3)
• The Co-modality implementation in user-friendly mobility environment (Task 9.4)
• The intermediate “Must have 2030” step and cohesive migration strategy (Task 9.5)
According to the approach and the findings of WP5, the (necessary) development of the infrastructure is described in task 9.1. The very long lead time and operating life of infrastructure is the reason why the decisions and actions of today are so important. The experience with the realisation of big infrastructure projects shows that projects which are not envisaged and planned today or latest tomorrow will not be in operation in 2030. Thus, the target infrastructure for Europe has to be planned and financed by 2030. Thereby, the development has to follow the principle “From Core Network to Comprehensive Network”. Task 9.1 identified relevant actions that are already planned and indicates actions that are required to fill the gaps up to 2030 and 2050. These gaps are first of all related to capacity, because the capacity availability is central within the SPIDER PLUS vision (and its quantitative framework).
The infrastructure development is also about the integration of local networks that need to be compatible with the sustainable development of EU markets and territorial cohesion. Key point is the implementation of nodes from which interconnections between the core and comprehensive networks will be achieved.
The objective of Task 9.2 was to identify the most suitable business models and funding schemes for rail freight and passenger services, to ensure the mobility vision for the horizon 2050. First of all, the requirements for business models have been defined. Business models shall consist of four inter-related key elements: the value proposition, the product and the value chain as well as the cost-revenue model. Funding schemes in this respect shall include all forms of financing activities related to rail services.
Business models for rail freight transport are of special importance. By 2050 they relate to two principal production systems, which are considered suitable to match the requirements of shippers and logistics service providers and, at the same time, secure the competitive edge against through-road transport. Conventional block trains, operated as direct or co-loaded unit trains, mainly target at moving cargo by various types of wagons. Unaccompanied combined transport services rail/road (UCT) are deployed when there is not sufficient volume for the conventional production system or a more demanding service level is requested by market actors.
Whilst operations vary, the future business models are expected to have several elements in common, in particular:
• Logistics service providers (LSP) specialising in the relevant field of rail freight will become the central actors. In UCT, however, the “classical” operators may maintain a strong market position if they extend their scope of service towards the LSP-based business model;
• Rail service providers define their role more comprehensive than today. They are able to integrate all components of the supply chains for moving goods (wagonload) or load units (UCT) and provide the very extent of service requested by individual clients;
• The value proposition is to provide the most cost-efficient transport for the defined or targeted markets or goods;
• The principal levers of the cost-revenue models are economies of scale and the integration of the logistical value chain;
• The supply side of the value chain will see two rather new actors: specialised train operating companies and a central European rail infrastructure manager.
An extensive picture of the current and desired European grid for passenger and freight services was created in Task 9.3. The consortium considered a large number of aspects to describe international mobility options and missing links. Once again a detailed knowledge about the infrastructure all over Europe (existing and planned) was important to deliver detailed results. The passenger part describes four dimensions:
• European lines: There already are a high number of border crossing lines for long distance (HSR, Intercity and Night train) services in operation. These lines are the backbone of the current European grid and serve as basis for future extensions.
• Reachability: The reachability dimension takes the travel time into account. The regional reachability (within 60 minutes) illustrates the first/last part of the travel chain. The long distance reachability indicates the degree of cross linking between main rail hot spots and possible destinations.
• Air Rail cooperation: HSR is predestined to replace “short” distance flights (below 600 km). Today, this potential is not exhausted at all. The replacement of short flights (in many cases “feeder flights”) can lead to a win-win situation for air and rail traffic.
• Regional border crossing: The European grid is also consisting of important regional connections linking centres near the border.
Figure 10: Overview of maps generated in Task 9.3
For future freight services, the focus was more on intermodal transport and less on wagonload services especially SWL. Therefore a resilient network of terminals is mandatory, considering the traffic attraction zones and the TEN-T corridors. The implementation of Megahubs has a high significance for the development of the European grid for freight services. Firstly, the Megahub concept contributes to the connection of areas that have been more or less uncovered so far. Secondly, the Megahubs have an important function as corridor integrators. For this reason their location is most beneficially at the intersections of different corridors. A good example in this respect is the Megahub Lehrte which is located at the junction of the North Sea Baltic, the Scandinavian Mediterranean and the Orient/East-Med corridor lines Therefore, it will have high connectivity and fulfil an important inter corridor integration function.
Besides the network infrastructure and the network of access and bundling facilities, the management of capacities is equally important. In order to strengthen a fully integrated transport solution which offers “door-to-door” mobility in the European grid, it is necessary to amend the approach of prearranged train paths (which are today not taking terminal capacities into account). This would allow more flexibility and a coherent capacity allocation on the line (corridor) and the network nodes (terminal/hub). The pre-arranged path booking system has to be modified to arrive at a flexible booking system which aligns the capacity on the corridor in conjunction with the terminal.
Since rail based mobility is the objective, but not the ultimate and optimised service solution for the “last mile” it is also important to enhance co-modality. For this reason, SPIDER PLUS identified existing elements and technological solutions that have neither reached their optimum functionality nor sufficient expansion through Europe. Thus they determine the development direction and rhythm to arrive successfully to a society overwhelmingly served by electrified rail.
Task 9.4 focused on the co-modal integration into metropolitan areas for both passenger and freight, delivering a recap of co-modality gaps, actions in place and deducted actions, followed by a derived co-modality Roadmap. The co-modality Roadmap covers the SPIDER PLUS action fields, giving dedicated intermediate milestones at 2015, 2020, 2030 and 2050.
In order to handle the long timeframe of 35 years until 2050, the year 2030 has been determined as intermediate step. This intermediate step shall help to fulfil the quantitative challenge in 2050 by giving an intermediate result already in 2030. The step in the quantitative challenge is mainly depending on the extent to which the identified actions will be set in place by this time. In the light of the ambitious target in 2050, a clear progress has to be achieved already in the year 2030; otherwise the remaining 20 years until 2050 will be too short to make the vision come true. Under consideration of the inert rail system and the very strong market position of road transport (in passenger as well as in freight services), a doubling of the rail freight volume and an increase in passenger transport by the 1.6-fold (both compared to 2010) until 2030 is the least, otherwise the final targets cannot be realistically achieved in 2050. Facing the current or general challenges of the European railway system, this objective is even more ambitious.
Within the time period from today to 2030, actions and strategies are ongoing to increase the capacity for reliable rail services and to improve the whole system. However, these are already ongoing/decided/planned actions and strategies and they are only aligned on the forecasted growth of the transport volume on rail, not taking into account the required volume that is supposed to be shifted to rail until 2030 in the SPIDER PLUS scenario.
In order to correct this imbalance, targeted additional actions have been identified within the SPIDER PLUS action fields infrastructure, technology, rolling stock, market uptake and governance which are necessary to realise this additional modal shift.
Besides the very actions such as terminals or technological innovation that are related to concrete milestones that have to be reached until 2030, first applications of appropriate business models are presented, giving a first outlook on the later implementation. Under consideration of five identified steps that are required for the successful implementation of new technologies and innovations, the business models are designed to find first starting points in which the advantages can be tested, proved and highlighted. Experiences gained in these pilot demonstrations will be used to improve the technology and to facilitate the area wide implementation.
WP 10 “Solutions Guide Book”
In the course of the project lifetime, much more than 60 elements that are helpful or necessary to fulfil the vision were identified. During successive elaboration it was thought advisable to concentrate on the most relevant ones in order to focus the attention of the Planning Authorities and the Policy makers. These elements have been grouped into 17 key elements representing the 5 action fields on which the 2050 Mobility Vision Scenario is based on. The SPIDER PLUS partners were guided during the whole project lifetime by the basic awareness of wanting to imagine a “Sustainable World” in 2050 correcting errors of the past. The SPIDER PLUS Mobility Vision based on Electrified Rail has taken into consideration more positive measures of success wanting to signify the people ambitions rather than the restraining forces. To this effect, measures - not exhaustive list - such as
• sustainability encompassed in services, products and life style,
• services accessibility to low carbon transport means for people and freight,
• populations lifted out of poverty with basic needs all met,
• environment protected in all its facets,
• external costs internalised reflecting societal ambitions,
• safety and security guaranteed,
• eco energy efficiency improved,
• zero emission mobility achieved,
• time and space optimised and
• better use of the available resources being the Planet a “Finite Entity”
have been interiorised during the whole SPIDER PLUS project proceedings, work packages and task developments.
Work package 10 summarises all relevant recommendations in extreme synthesis. Therefore two tasks with different focuses have been fulfilled:
• The Policy recommendations in the Guide Book (Task 10.1)
• The decision making tools (Task 10.2)
The Policy recommendations are presented in an online Guide Book which is also accessible via touchscreen. By doing so, the presentation itself represents central keywords of SPIDER PLUS - “Innovation” and “Sustainability.”
Figure 11: SPIDER PLUS Action fields (Screenshot)
The Guide Book provides the basic information about
• content,
• impacts & market segments,
• timing milestones,
• type of action/resources,
• responsible agents,
• actions correlation,
for all key elements as it is shown in Figure 12 for the key element “Hybrid Locomotives”.
Figure 12: Card as explanation to the Guide Book element (Screenshot)
Task 10.2 – the decision support tool or interactive Roadmap - is the second part of the Solutions Guide Book (WP10) and covers the question of how the actions (recommended in task 10.1) have to be done in terms of timing and interdependencies. The dynamic Roadmap was set up in MS Project to ensure good accessibility and usability. With this Roadmap, all relevant stakeholders, especially from industry, business and policy have now a tool for
• orientation,
• planning,
• decision support,
• controlling,
concerning all rail developments towards 2050.
Design, content and structure have been logically set up to reach an optimum benefit. The most important positive aspects are summarised in the figure below:
Figure 13: Positive Aspects of the SPIDER PLUS dynamic Roadmap
The following figures give an impression of the Roadmap:
Figure 14: SPIDER PLUS dynamic Roadmap I
Figure 15: SPIDER PLUS dynamic Roadmap II
Potential Impact:
The SPIDER PLUS project aimed at developing a passenger and freight mobility vision for 2050 encompassing seamless transportation where electrified rail has a central role. This goal was successfully reached. Moreover, the project has delivered the necessary tools and guidance, namely the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap that can help to make the vision finally come true. It is up to the decision makers and railway stakeholders to use the theoretical basis to start practical actions and generate actual benefit.
Provided that the potentials of the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap are fully exploited and all recommendations are fulfilled properly, the SPIDER PLUS vision will be realised in 2050 and the White Paper targets will be achieved. Figure 16 gives an overview on the direct and indirect SPIDER PLUS impacts:
Figure 16: SPIDER PLUS direct and indirect impacts
Based on the project results, in particular the Quantitative Framework, the Mobility Vision 2050, the Guide Book and the dynamic Roadmap superior impacts can be achieved:
Immediate impact – Enhancement of the European Railway System:
The recommendations of SPIDER PLUS help to enhance the European Railway System and thus realise three of the four keywords, SPIDER PLUS regarded as the Guiding Principles:
Industrialisation:
Especially freight services profit from comprehensive industrialisation. Therefore advanced technologies (e.g. automatic coupling, continuous electric wire and new braking systems) and innovative productions systems (e.g. train coupling and sharing) are successfully introduced. Viable migration strategies ensure a proper market uptake. A higher degree of industrialisation is also achieved by comprehensive interoperability and harmonised cooperation (e.g. between Infrastructure Managers – Operators – Users). Industrialisation in a broad scale is also a measure to reduce costs.
Seamless and convenient transport
Seamlessness is a key factor for successful mobility and transport services. Therefore measures like smart ICT services and improved coordination between actors realise an improved door to door integration and co-modality. New concepts are also enabling holistic management and guidance through the networks based on real time information.
Offer driven business models
A full liberalisation of the markets and the implementation of modern offer driven business models give a boost to the freight transportation on rail.
Overall result – Shift from Road to Rail
Due to the enhanced railway system and consequently more attractive offers, travellers as well as freight forwarders choose rail as mean of transport more often than today. Higher standards and reduced costs make rail more competitive and realise the desired shift from road to rail.
Final Outcome – Increased Quality of Life
An increased Quality of Life will be the result of the shift from road to rail. The negative impacts of road transport will be reduced. This means a great relief especially for densely populated areas. CO2 emissions will be reduced as well as a high number of (fatal) accidents.
A smaller number of cars in the cities free up space for other usages like cycle paths, playgrounds parks and public spaces. Cities can evolve to greener and more liveable places.
People also profit from improved rail services and seamless travel chains. Journeys are more comfortable and the easy use of the services (one for all ticket, frequent services and integrated timetables) increases the mobility of the people.
List of Websites:
www.spiderplus-project.eu
HaCon Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH
Lars Deiterding
lars.deiterding@hacon.de
Lister Straße 15
30163 Hannover, Germany
NewOpera Aisbl
Franco Castagnetti
franco.castagnetti@newopera.com
Rue d'Idalie 9-13
1050 Brussels, Belgium
KombiConsult GmbH
Rainer Mertel
Zum Laurenburger Hof 76
60594 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
RAPP Trans AG
Martin Ruesch
Utlibergstraße 132
8045 Zürich, Switzerland
Universita Commercial ‘Luigi Bocconi’
Bruno Pavesi
Via Sarfatti 25
20136 Milano, Italy
AIRBUS Group SE
Martine Cot
Boulevard de Montmorency 37
75016 Paris, France
Consorzio IB Innovation
Alessandro Ricci
Via Altabella 15
40126 Bologna, Italy
Deutsche Umschlaggesellschaft Schiene-Strasse mbH
Wolfgang Müller
Am Kuemmerling 24-26
5594 Bodenheim, Germany
Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori SPA
Giuseppe Sciarrone
Via del Policlinico 149b
00161 Roma, Italy
Tecnicas Territoriales y urbanas S.L
Tomas Fernandez
C/ Rosario Pino
Edificio Posterior 12
28020 Madrid, Spain
Centre for future Studies UK Limited
Frank Shaw
University Road Kent University
CT27FG Canterbury, United Kindom
SIEMENS AG
Markus Bergner
Wittelsbacher Platz 2
80333 München, Germand
GRUPPO CLAS SRL
Roberto Zucchetti
Via Serviliano Lattuada 20
20135 Milan, Italy
