Railways projects

Scoping and Feasibility Study for a European Transport Market Study Client: RailNetEurope (RNE) RailNetEurope (in short, RNE), commissioned the consortium formed by TRT (lead) and HaCon a scoping and feasibility study for the development of a freight transport market study at the European level (European Transport Market Study, or ETMS). The need to investigate the technical characteristics, and the potential use cases of such a study stems from the scarce diffusion and lack of application of the Transport Market Studies made by individual European Rail Freight Corridors (RFCs) in the past. A European-level study would overcome the drawbacks identified with previous studies and would concretely support the necessity of optimising and coordinating efforts aimed at increasing the modal share of rail  freight transport, in line with EU policy targets. The research process underlying the feasibility study was first grounded on a thorough analysis of existing RFCs’ Transport Market Studies, aimed at identifying the respective contents and structure, as well as the data sources and databases employed; further, the employment of EU-scale models was assessed with respect to the purposes of simulation and forecasting, and a wide stakeholder consultation strategy was activated, bringing i.a. infrastructure managers, railway undertakings, associations, port terminals, and members of the Rail Freight Corridors to the table.       The project delivered a feasibility study with an accurate assessment of the actual possibility of making a Transport Market Study at the European scale, based on both the availability of necessary data and analytical tools, as well as the need to adequately and efficiently respond to the requests brought up by stakeholders. Specifically, several options for realising the study have been evaluated, accompanied by the definition of required analytical tools and methodologies. Based on the best solution, the main components of the actual study have been set, and guidelines for its realization have been redacted.     For more information: RailNetEurope istitutional websire Dedicated page for Rail Freight Corridors  

Consultancy assignment for specialist transport engineering activities related to the “Pre-feasibility study for a regional railway network in Sardinia” on behalf of Uniontrasporti TRT collaborated with GVG Engineering on an in-depth study on the current railway network in Sardinia, defining its characteristics and potential, for a study requested by Uniontrasporti. TRT analyzed the current railway network in terms of extension and technical characteristics of both the Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI, main Italian railway infrastructure manager) and secondary narrow-gauge (ARST) networks; the analysis of services offered; the analysis of production nodes and tourist demand; the definition of the needs of the local population to favor the accessibility of inner areas and support regional economic development; the definition of requirements; and the identification of modal interchange points between passenger services. This was accompanied by an analysis of the interventions planned on networks according to the Economy and Finance Document 2022 (“Documento Economia e Finanza” of Italian government), the Framework Agreement between the Region of Sardinia and RFI, the RFI 2022 Business Plan, regional planning instruments, and the three-year plan of works of ARST. The services description was based on an analysis of the timetables published on institutional websites of individual organizations. The analysis focused also on tourist services, such as the Green Train (“Trenino Verde”, a touristic service on dismissed rail lines), and urban services, above all MetroCagliari and MetroSassari. This analysis led to the identification of interchange nodes, which were described in terms of the services present. The demand analysis completes the definition of the knowledge framework, identifying the main municipalities in terms of population and employees, tourist demand over the years and identifying the most attractive municipalities. Eventually, the definition of needs analyses the information gathered during several meetings held with local stakeholders, trying to define the priorities of the territory. The study is completed by the description of possible project interventions, constraints and criticalities of the network, which TRT supported in defining.   [tw_button icon=”” link=”http://www.trt.it/archivio-progetti/” size=”small” rounded=”false” style=”flat” hover=”default” color=”#223468″ target=”_self”]Projects[/tw_button]

Implementing a multimodal transport network model of the Rail Baltica Corridor and appraisal of the passenger and freight transport activity onto the Corridor Rail Baltica Global Project is the Baltic part of a rail transport infrastructure project with a goal to integrate the Baltic States in the European rail network. The expected core outcome is a fully interoperable railway line of more than 870 km in length meant for both passenger and freight transport as part of TEN-T Core Network (North Sea – Baltic Corridor). A first phase of the study, carried out in 2021-22 consisted of two main activities. The first activity was the implementation of a multimodal transport network model of the Rail Baltica Corridor covering in some detail (NUTS3 or even sub-NUTS3 zones) the area of the three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and of neighbouring regions of Finland and Poland plus the rest of Europe and world regions in a progressively more aggregated fashion. The transport model is a four-stage model, dealing with the estimation of generated demand, distribution, mode split and assignment to a multimodal network. The model covers both passenger and freight activity of interest for the planned rail infrastructure. All transport modes competing with rail are represented. Different rail services are explicitly modelled both for passenger (including Night-Train services) and for freight. Supporting the implementation of the model, a Stated Preference surveys was carried out to estimate parameters for the passenger demand model. The second activity of the first part of the study was the application of the model to estimate the passenger and freight demand onto the corridor in several future time thresholds, corresponding to different stages of the implementation of the infrastructure, and under three scenarios: a “do-nothing” scenario without the new infrastructure. a “Base scenario” with the new infrastructure. an alternative scenarios where alternative assumptions are made regarding intermodal rail transport services and the application of measures related to the EC Green Deal transport policy is considered.   The application of the model provided several outputs ranging from aggregated statistics to link-based traffic and including impact indicators on energy consumption and emissions. The model was delivered along with the outcomes of the study and a training course focused on the use of the model was held for staff of Rail Baltica AS. This first phase of study was carried out by TRT with the support of PTV (DE), MDS Transmodal (UK), CSE COE (LV). TRT was the coordinator of the study and was responsible for developing the demand model (passenger and freight) as well as the Stated Preference survey. In a second phase (2024), some aspects of the model have been revised in order to improve the level of detail of the analysis and make the interaction with the model easier. In particular, the number of zones has been increased so that zones do not include more than one (non-urban) regional station. Following the revisions implemented, at the end of the second phase the model is recalibrated. The activities of […]