Abstract
Environmental sustainability is an increasingly important subject in the railway sector. Literature has revealed that transportation companies target multiple sustainability-related improvement areas and follow different strategies to improve in these. For railway operators, train modernization provides key opportunities for technical, financial, and environmental improvements halfway through the lifecycle. Using design science research, a framework was developed that is aimed at integrating sustainable design principles and sustainability-focused requirements in train modernization. The framework was tested and demonstrated by means of application to the train modernization project of an intercity train at the Nederlandse Spoorwegen in the Netherlands. The results reveal three key design mechanisms for sustainable modernization frameworks. Firstly, sustainability should be considered as early as possible in the design process. Secondly, such frameworks require efforts to simplify the way sustainability principles and impacts are considered, being careful not to oversimplify. Thirdly, the use of sustainability-focused requirements and budgets facilitate the process of prioritizing design decisions in relation to the effects they have on various environmental impacts. The design process of the framework not only provides a better understanding of the challenge of integrating sustainability, it also presents a generalizable approach that can be adapted by other organizations in the transportation sector.
Highlights
Sustainable development is often considered to consist of a three-pronged fork of social sustainability, environmental sustainability, and economic sustainability, known as the triple bottom line [1]
Applicable environmental sustainability principles in this sector appear to focus on four main areas: (1) the elimination of hazardous materials and substances; (2) the use of design for disassembly, reuse, and remanufacture; (3) the optimization for energy efficiency; and (4) the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) to facilitate more environmentally sustainable decision-making
Key questions for individual organizations are which of these universal principles to apply and how to implement them during engineering and design decision-making processes? This research focused on these questions for the process of train modernization, as this provides an interesting halfway point for the life cycle of a train series
Summary
Sustainable development is often considered to consist of a three-pronged fork of social sustainability (people), environmental sustainability (planet), and economic sustainability (profit), known as the triple bottom line [1]. Stimulating the use of public transport can be seen as an important means for achieving sustainable transportation in general [2]. In this regard, a better understanding of the preferences of passengers [3] and accessibility of people to railway transportation [4] are vital prerequisites. For the railway sector to be an environmentally sustainable option, its products and services need to be delivered in a sustainable way. To this end, the individual actors in the railway sector are continuously looking to improve their environmental impact
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