Railways perform a significant role in the transportation system and they have relevant environmental, economic and social impacts. They are currently engineered optimizing every singular aspect rather than considering a broader system for improving the sustainability of the overall infrastructure. Thus, it is necessary to promote an effort to define a global sustainability framework for conceiving the design, construction and management of railway infrastructure. The Sustainable Rating System (SRS) proposed in this paper is a tool under development that evaluates different alternatives of railway track-bed structure. Inspired by similar efforts in the field of road engineering such as Greenroads and Greenpave, this SRS aims to be the first entirely dedicated to support railway engineers, designers and managers in taking more responsible decisions with regards to the sustainable design and maintenance of railway track-beds. It is based on a library that examines different solutions and treatments for each element of the track-bed and a table of points that assigns different scores to the different alternatives. To achieve the highest score in terms of sustainability it is necessary to maximize the points assigned to every element. In other words, the maximum score requires adopting best practices leading to more sustainable choices such as exploiting the use of recycled materials, reducing the use of non-renewable resources, the energy consumption, air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.
Skip Nav Destination
2017 Joint Rail Conference
April 4–7, 2017
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Conference Sponsors:
- Rail Transportation Division
ISBN:
978-0-7918-5071-8
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
A Framework for Defining a Sustainability Rating System for Railway Track-Beds Available to Purchase
Sara Bressi,
Sara Bressi
University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Search for other works by this author on:
Gaetano Di Mino,
Gaetano Di Mino
University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Search for other works by this author on:
Davide Lo Presti
Davide Lo Presti
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Search for other works by this author on:
Sara Bressi
University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Gaetano Di Mino
University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Davide Lo Presti
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Paper No:
JRC2017-2232, V001T07A002; 9 pages
Published Online:
July 19, 2017
Citation
Bressi, S, Di Mino, G, & Lo Presti, D. "A Framework for Defining a Sustainability Rating System for Railway Track-Beds." Proceedings of the 2017 Joint Rail Conference. 2017 Joint Rail Conference. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. April 4–7, 2017. V001T07A002. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/JRC2017-2232
Download citation file:
13
Views
Related Proceedings Papers
Related Articles
Energy Efficiency, Sources and Sustainability
J. Energy Resour. Technol (June,2010)
Incorporating Environmental Impacts in Strategic Redesign of an Engineered System
J. Mech. Des (March,2008)
Special Issue: Building Decarbonization
J. Eng. Sustain. Bldgs. Cities (November,2024)
Related Chapters
Overview
Energy, Technology, and the Environment
Rationale for Human-Powered Vehicle Design and Use
Design of Human Powered Vehicles
A Case of Organic Campus Landscape Design Integrating Local Characteristics
International Conference on Green Buildings and Optimization Design (GBOD 2012)