Poor air quality is a major environmental contributor to disease and mortality and in the UK is estimated to lead to between 15,000 and 40,000 deaths per year
— Royal College of Physicians
Background
Air quality and emissions, especially at stations, remains an under-represented topic in the rail industry. Many stations are amongst the worst locations in the country for the air we breathe. Whilst other modes such as driving improve their act, rail faces becoming the primary contributor.
Given our access to enhanced train movements data in JNCTION Archive, and with expertise optimising performance, we were approached by an industry research body to estimate the impact of performance improvements on air quality for a leading operator with known challenges around emissions.
Our Solution
JNCTION focussed our analysis on the operator’s major London terminus, which had been highlighted as one of the UK’s worst for air quality. We also selected a major line of route connecting to another major UK city to apply our Timetable Planning Rules analysis tool which has been demonstrated previously on several Lines of Route including East London Line. Using the tool we identified timetable issues and dwell/section run time performance issues along the line of route.
JNCTION conducted a detailed review of the station operations at this major terminus station, including data deep-dives, site visits and conducting a series of interviews with key station personnel.
Using our ‘Station Operations Playbook‘, the team of data scientists analysed trends by location within the station, turnarounds and destinations to identify problem hotspots for further investigation.
Benefits
As this project is still underway, final results are to be determined so please get in touch to find out more.
Already, the operator has fed back that having been pro-active partnering with JNCTION to investigate their environmental performance, they now feel much more comfortable to field questions on what they have done to address their air pollution challenges.
JNCTION are still open to partnering with operators to use GPS data to enhance this research methodology. Please get in touch if you have access to GPS data and would be interested in taking the lead in the green agenda for rail.
