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A Decision Support Tool to Manage Earthworks along Road and Rail Networks

Project description

Support tool for transport disrupted by climate change

Climate change is taking a heavy toll on transport infrastructure. Road and rail networks are more exposed to extreme weather conditions today than ever before. For instance, increased periods of rainfall and flooding due to climate change in northern European countries have resulted in an increase in the number of failures involving embankments, slopes and other earthworks supporting rail or road infrastructure. These failures can be devastating, leading to injuries, deaths, and operational downtime across transport networks. To address this issue, the EU-funded DETER project proposes a decision support tool for the management of earthworks. The tool is designed based on novel scientific algorithms and provides a quantifiable risk assessment for each earthwork asset.

Objective

Road and rail managers must maintain their networks to ensure the safety of passengers and the reliability of transport services. The management of earthworks is particularly challenging as many of these assets were constructed prior to modern engineering standards, meaning that earth/rock slopes and embankments are of poor construction quality. More frequent extreme weather events due to climate change are rapidly worsening the situation and increasing the occurrence of earthwork failures. At present, infrastructure managers are forced to make decisions about where to implement remediation works based on disparate information from various data sources, and are constrained by annual budgets. Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions Ltd. has developed an innovative software solution, DETER, which can be used to conduct a risk ranking of earthworks and to support decision making for optimised budget spending to prevent failures along road and rail networks. This is the leading Decision Support Tool available for the management of earthworks that is based on novel scientific algorithms, providing a quantifiable risk assessment for each earthwork asset. The product is at a TRL of 7 as it is currently being used by the national railway operator in Ireland to manage 3,700 earthwork assets. GDG aim to become the leading provider of DETER and intend to commercialise this innovative tool within the European and global markets. To do so, this feasibility study will conduct a detailed market analysis to establish the scale of the market opportunity and to verify that DETER is the leading solution for the management of earthwork assets. The feasibility study will also include a technical review of the compatibility of DETER with existing databases through engagement with infrastructure managers, a review of existing commercial barriers, and the development of a commercialisation strategy for GDG to bring this product to market, resulting in an elaborated business plan for DETER.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020

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Coordinator

GAVIN AND DOHERTY GEOSOLUTIONS LTD
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 50 000,00
Address
KILLACLORAN UPPER
- Aughrim Wicklow
Ireland

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Ireland Eastern and Midland Mid-East
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 71 429,00
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