Open Calculator for Environmental and Social Footprints of Rail Infrastructures

In EU27 0.2 % of global emissions correspond to rail transport. Infrastructure supposes 28 % of these emissions, half of them caused during construction. This shows the high environmental impact of these activities. Life cycle assessment (LCA) techniques combined with intelligent data analysis improves sustainability of railway infrastructure construction processes as a whole, considering environmental, economic and social aspects. The goal is the development of methodologies and tools to optimize decision making process, reducing carbon and water footprints of railway infrastructure construction projects from their earliest stages, i.e. design and planning processes. Environmental and social impact of most relevant tasks have been reviewed and analyzed in order to set the impact of railway networks construction processes. Multi-objective optimization has been performed to find a trade-off solution for project units scheduling. A tool has been developed from this information compilation, providing selected specific footprint values and environmental indicators as open data to the community.