The work performed in the project is divided into three work streams which are first the definition of the basis for the socio-economic impact analysis in WP2. This again is done on the basis of four use cases named “System Platform Demonstrators (SPDs)” which are defined and detailed in WP3. The same SPDs are used for the integrated assessment of the Shift2Rail innovations on the railway system in WP4.
The “Socio-economic Impact Analysis (SEIA)” (WP2) addresses the interaction between technological developments and the development of the surrounding ecosystem in which they are implemented, such as development of societal values or trends in behaviour, trade patterns or global supply chains. First, research has been carried out on socio-economic values and needs of the passengers in the context of the railway system as well as analyses important trends and potential disruptions that might impact the railway system within the upcoming years. Differentiation is made between short-term scenarios and long-term developments up to the year 2050.
The required four use cases needed for the socio-economic impact analysis as well as the integrated assessment of the KPIs were defined in WP3. For each of the market segments High Speed passenger rail, Regional passenger rail, Metro and Rail Freight, a generic platform was defined where the technical developments and innovations of Shift2Rail demonstrate their application and impact. The aim of the SPDs is to provide a better understanding of the effects of Shift2Rail on the entire railway system as well as its socio-economic environment. The first step was to collect the requirements of the SPDs, considering the characteristics of the Shift2Rail innovations. The SPDs are specified for each of the four market segments mentioned above. Closely to the definition of the SPDs, use cases needed to be defined in order to apply the Shift2Rail TDs and describe the context of the future usage. The last Task of WP3 was to define a road map for the application of the SPD concept in subsequent projects.
The integrated assessment of the SPDs (SPDIA) uses estimated improvements delivered by the other Shift2Rail projects and evaluates how the operational Shift2Rail targets for the KPIs LCC, Capacity and Reliability & Punctuality are achieved through the carrying out the multi-annual action plan (MAAP) and the resulting projects. The basic concept and structure of the KPI model was developed and documented. The reference scenarios of the KPI model were detailed with technical and operational data based on the SPD definition and the requirements coming from the Shift2Rail innovations.
IMPACT-1 has proven to be a highly integrated project within Shift2Rail as shown in the figure below: It shows the overall cooperation inside IMPACT-1 and to other Shift2Rail activities. Internally the SPDs are provided by WP3 and used in WP2 to prepare the Socio-economic impact assessment (SEIA) and in WP4 for the Integrated KPI Assessment (SPDIA). The outline of this activity is given in the S2R Master Plan and refined in the Multi-Annual Action Plan. The input for the improvements is coming from the member projects in all the IPs and especially with respect to energy consumption from FINE1 and the open call project OPEUS which is performing the energy simulations for the SPDs. In a tender, a consortium led by the company Panteia was providing a visualization of the simulation. Finally, a fruitful cooperation was done with the open call project NEAR2050 which was used for the analysis of socio-economic conditions for the SEIA.
The following activities for exploitation and dissemination were carried out with respect to the results of IMPACT-1: All IP steering committees have been regularly informed about the progress and the current results as well as asked for comments. The work done in IMPACT-1 is continued in the subsequent project IMPACT-2 where the models are refined, updated with more parameters, and integrated. Two publications were made during the execution of IMPACT-1 to inform the wider scientific public about the approach and progress: A poster was published and presented at the Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2018 in Vienna, Austria and a bilingual English and German article has been published in the German Journal Signal+Draht in the issue 1+2 in 2018.
