Socio-economic CBA Retrofit Options in Order to Reduce Rail Noise by 2022/2025

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Wouter van der Geest, Adriaan Roest Crollius, Rob de Leeuw van Weenen

June 21, 2016

Goal:

• to provide an overview of the potential benefits for Europe-wide implementation of retrofitting existing wagons before 2022-2025.

How:

• socio-economic cost benefit analysis to compare costs and benefits of measures to combat noise:

o Retrofitting existing European wagon fleet by 2022/2025 and/or

o Infrastructure related measures by 2022/2025 in accordance with planned infrastructural investments on the TEN-T core network.

Introduction

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• Almost 12 million EU inhabitants affected by railway noise during day and around 9 million during night.

• Different studies identify three type of sources for railway noise :

o Rolling noise,

o Power equipment noise and

o Aerodynamic noise.

• Focus on rolling noise as this is considered the most important source of noise pollution

• Focus on rail freight as passenger rail has relatively silent brakes and rarely operates at night

Disturbance by rail noise

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• Europe-wide solutions as rail freight transport is internationally oriented

• Two types of measures are distinguished to reduce rail noise, rolling stock and infrastructure. In this regard, two types of actions can be identified, namely:

o Network wide actions and

o Local actions.

Disturbance by rail noise

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• Development scenarios for rail freight transport and Base Case.

• Freight volume

• Infrastructure

• Share of noisy wagons

• Population exposed

• Possible measures to combat noise.

• Modelling.

• Impact of measures for EU28.

• Conclusions.

Methodology applied in this study

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Development of rail freight volume and noise external costs 2010-2035

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035

millio

n t

km

6

• According to white paper (million tkm).

• Increase in noise external costs expected to be less than the increase in transport volume.

• 2010-2040 transport +69,3 % , noise 60,4 %.

• Caused by noise barriers and longer freight trains.

x106 Investment (2000 – 2015)

Investment (2015 - 2025)

TOTAL

AT € 402 € 75 € 477

CH € 830 € 230 € 1.060

CZ € 62 € - € 62

DE € 1.941 € 487 € 2.428

ES € 124 € 18 € 142

HU € 27 € 25 € 52

NL € - € 453 € 453

PL € 99 € - € 99

SE € 30 € 30 € 60

FR € 140 € 129 € 269

Base case infrastructure investment (noise barriers)

• Data obtained from national IMs via Prorail.

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• Total of fleet size. By 2035 all silent – new or refitted. Transition period 2015-2035

• Amount of silent wagons • German and

Swiss retrofitting programmes,

• Voluntary refitting in other countries and

• Number of silent new wagons.

• Share of population exposed (night)

Base Case development share of noisy wagons & population exposed

8

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 No

ise r

ed

ucti

on

(in

dB

(A

))

Sh

are o

f silen

t w

ag

on

s (

%)

Noise reduction in dB(A)

Developments in share of silent wagons

91%

92%

93%

94%

95%

96%

97%

98%

99%

100%

2013 2015 2020 2022 2025 2030 2035

< 55 dB 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 >75

• Autonomous development: unilateral measures reduce amount of noisy wagons.

• By 2035 a reduction of 7 dB.

• Over time, exposure to noise decreases due to changes in wagon fleet

• Inflow of new wagons and

• Retrofitting old ones.

• Effectiveness of investment in noise barriers therefore reduces over time.

Summary of baseline development

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• Baseline scenario: Gradual retrofit up to 100% by 2035 as presented earlier, no additional rail noise barriers apart from those already planned.

Compared against: • A scenario with a quicker retrofit by 2022 (gradual

inflow of wagons) and no additional rail noise barriers apart from those already planned.

• A scenario with a baseline retrofit by 2035 and additional rail noise barriers placed in cities, towns and suburbs (LAU2).

• A scenario with a quicker retrofit by 2022 (gradual inflow of wagons) and additional rail noise barriers placed in cities, towns and suburbs.

Scenarios

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Assessment of measures

• Noise disturbance varies on rail traffic intensity, height, buildings, etc.

• This varies for every trajectory in Europe.

• Barriers: local effect but all type of noise reduced.

• Silent brakes: effect along whole track, but only brake noise reduced.

Complex

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• Assessment based on official data.

• Information obtained about number of affected people by rail noise plus amount of noise barriers.

Approach to assess measures for NL + DE

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For rail wagons:

• Scenario with complete replacement by 2022 has been taken into account. A gradual uptake has been applied.

• Costs for earlier replacement: depreciation of current brakes + surplus of maintenance costs over 7 years.

• Baseline with complete replacement by 2035.

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Schematic overview calculation methodology used for NL + DE

Noise level (db(A))

€ per person

exposed

57 21

58 31

59 42

60 52

61 63

62 73

63 84

64 94

65 105

66 115

67 126

68 136

69 147

70 157

71 226

72 243

73 261

74 278

75 296

76 313

77 331

78 348

79 366

80 383

81 401

• For EU28: Scale up of DE-results to EU28 by using

• LAU2 (municipalities of European countries) and

• assumptions regarding area at which hindering noise levels are reached and

• the number inhabitants.

• Rail network data via ETISplus.

Approach to assess measures scale up to EU 28

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Schematic overview calculation methodology scale up to EU 28

Statistics based upon NL and DE data: area per km track affected by noise levels over 55 db(A)

Population density for all European municipalities

Estimation of people per municipality affected by rail noise.

Results Length of track per municipality

Impact measures for EU

€ 6.816

€ 25.753

€ 12.587

-€ 826

-€ 48.805 -€ 48.013

€ 5.990

-€ 23.053

-€ 35.426

€(60.000)

€(50.000)

€(40.000)

€(30.000)

€(20.000)

€(10.000)

€-

€10.000

€20.000

€30.000

Retrofit by 2022, without

additional barriers

Retrofit by 2022, with

additional barriers

Retrofit by 2035, with

additional barriers

Millio

ns

NPV2040 (5% discount), compared to baseline * Barriers assumed in densely populated areas + intermediate density areas only

Benefit Cost Delta

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Rail noise costs lower per db (A), so additional reductions

become less

effective!

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Benefits of retrofitting

(either 2022 / 2035 scenario)

Additional benefits barriers

2 meter (rail noise – 8 db (A))

Additional benefits barriers

4 meter (rail noise – 11 db (A))

Costs 2 meter barriers

Costs 4 meter barriers

We t

ake t

he m

axim

um

of

these t

wo e

quations a

nd

only

if th

e o

utc

om

e is

positiv

e

Application of screens only where economically feasible

€ 6.816 € 8.682

€ 2.974

-€ 826 -€ 2.524 -€ 2.575

€ 5.990 € 6.158

€ 399

€(60.000)

€(50.000)

€(40.000)

€(30.000)

€(20.000)

€(10.000)

€-

€10.000

€20.000

€30.000

Retrofit by 2022, without

additional barriers

Retrofit by 2022, with

additional barriers

Retrofit by 2035, with

additional barriers

Millio

ns

NPV2040 (5% discount), compared to baseline * Barriers are assumed only to be built if B-C>0

Benefit Cost Delta

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Impact measures for EU

• Barriers and silent wagons both have a positive influence on the exposure to noise.

• Calculations demonstrate the cost effectiveness (in €) of a quick retrofit by 2022 versus noise barriers (including cumulative noise reduction effects).

• In particular for towns, suburbs and rural areas, retrofit provides a cost-efficient solution to reduce rail noise.

• The effect of 100% retrofitting is almost comparable to the effect of 2m higher barriers.

Conclusions (1)

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• The NPV of monetised additional benefits of barriers applied in all densely populated areas does not level the building costs.

• However, barriers may be efficient measures in densely populated areas. Further, barriers can be realised within a shorter time frame that retrofitting.

• A minor shift from CEF-reserved budget for rail infrastructure related noise barriers to bring forward wagon retrofitting reduces noise greatly in the EU-28 and makes investments in (remaining) rail noise barriers more effective.

• Also, remaining rail noise barriers to be built, may be lower and thus be built at lesser costs.

Conclusions (2)

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Additional slides – may be shown when needed during discussion

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• STAIRRS study: noise reduction by placing noise barriers is not a cost efficient instrument.

Past research

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• We assessed the costs and benefits for in different scenarios

• Time horizon: 2040;

• Costs of capital: 5% and

• Lifetime barriers: 25 years.

• TCO of rail noise barriers:

• 1,045,000 for 2 meter barriers;

• 1,652,000 for 4 meter barriers.

Assumptions for calculations

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Example Zoetermeer

City of Zoetermeer

• 300 houses exposed to noise levels over 55 dB(A).

• 700 people exposed;

• 7.7 km of track of which 3.1 km is already covered with rail noise barriers.

• Investment costs of barriers: ± € 4 million.

• Benefit of solely retrofitting wagons by 2022: (NPV2040): € 245,490.

• Benefit of rail noise reduction with complete rolling stock retrofit by 2035 (NPV2040): € 248,314.

• Additional benefit of rail noise reduction with complete rolling stock retrofit by 2022 (NPV2040): € 259,140.

Local situation

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