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Impacts of Climate Change on Operation of the US Rail Network
Citation:
Impacts of Climate Change on Operation of the US Rail Network. TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY.
Impact/Purpose:
Estimate the impacts of climate change on the rail system in the contiguous U.S.
Description:
The rail network in the US is the largest network within any single country at 140,000 miles of Class 1 tracks. The network is predominantly focused on freight traffic with the exception of key passenger corridors along the eastern seaboard and in the upper Midwest. This extensive rail network enhances connectivity, but also raises the question of potential vulnerability to climate changes over the next century. Specifically, projected changes in temperature highlight the vulnerability of tracks to temperature increases and the accompanying issue of track expansion, which under current operating policies can lead to train delays, and in the most extreme cases can lead to derailments. In this study, the issue of potential impacts to the rail network are analyzed in terms of the cost of potential increases in delays that will occur due to responses of train network operators to temperature increases.
