Climate resilience of railway stations in The Netherlands A risk assessment for passenger stations Master Thesis Janieke Scholten December 2020 I The cover of this report shows a photo created by Jos van Zetten II Climate resilience of railway stations in The Netherlands A risk assessment for passenger stations By Janieke Scholten in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Civil Engineering at the Delft University of Technology, to be defended publicly on the 9th of December 2020 at 09:00. Supervisor: Dr. ir. F.H.M. van de Ven TU Delft Thesis committee: Dr. ir. J.G. Langeveld TU Delft Dr. ir. A.J. van Binsbergen TU Delft Ir. J.C.J. Maltha ProRail Ing. A. Toufexes ProRail An electronic version of this thesis is available at http://repository.tudelft.nl/. III IV Acknowledgements With the completion of this graduation thesis, my Master of Science in Civil Engineering at the Delft University of Technology comes to an end. I conducted my research in collaboration with ProRail Stations on the ‘Development and Policy’ department, by means of a graduate internship. When I started, climate adaptation for stations was a relatively unexplored topic at ProRail, which gave me the opportunity to help shape the way climate change is evaluated and addressed. This has stimulated me to challenge myself to work independently and always be critical of my findings. It has also allowed me to combine my interests in water management and climate adaptation, from both a technical and socio-economic perspective. I am therefore thankful for the opportunity ProRail has offered me, and for the trust which I received during the whole process. I would like to express my gratitude to the thesis committee members from the Delft University of Technology. Many thanks to Frans van de Ven, who helped me provide structure to the seemingly endless sources of information and for the specific, sometimes critical, questions or remarks that challenged me to get the most out of my research. To Arjan van Binsbergen, for clear directions and tips regarding the risk matrix approach or the network effects of stations, and for the entrusted freedom to make my own decisions. And to Jeroen Langeveld, for helping me to delve deeper into my case studies and for encouraging me to ask the right questions and remain critical in the assessment of my results. I have received great support from ProRail throughout the entire time I was working on my thesis. I have had regular contact with over 15 people from different departments, I was allowed to join in many climate adaptation sessions both within ProRail and with other stakeholders, and was invited to all department meetings, as a result of which I also learned something about other station-related matters. I would therefore like to thank everybody from the station’s and climate adaptation team within ProRail. In particular, I would like to thank Jorien Maltha and Andreas Toufexes; my daily supervisors from ProRail. You encouraged me to pursue all my ideas and helped me with every obstacle I came across in the process, even when you did not have the answers yourselves. Thank you for your persistent attention to detail and your very kind efforts in the last weeks of my thesis project. Even though I mainly had to work from home, I have felt very welcome at ProRail. I also want to thank to all organizations with which I have been able to work during the time of this study. Without the information and advice of members from NS Stations and their station managers, the municipalities of Amsterdam, Ede, Alphen a/d Rijn, Leeuwarden and Breda, GGD Gelderland & Overijssel, Waternet, de Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Arcadis, Movares and Marble Research, my research would not have been possible. During my master’s program, I have made multiple friends who I want to thank for making the classes easier and more enjoyable. I want to thank Anneloek and Chris, for reading my thesis and checking my spelling. Without mentioning their names individually, I also want to thank a number of other friends, who have provided me with distractions at times when they were much appreciated. Lastly, I want to thank Yannick, for listening to me when I was in doubt, and my mum; for everything else. V Abstract As climate change takes hold, extreme weather events increasingly pressure the performance of the railway infrastructure. A first insight has been obtained into the impacts of climate change for the train system and the railway network, but there are almost no studies on the impact of our changing climate on railway stations. This study therefore aims to provide insight into the risks of climate change-induced hazards for railway stations in The Netherlands and the associated effects on the functionality of the station for passengers. Scenarios of climate change show that the Netherlands will experience increasingly intense rainfall, dryer, hotter summers and warmer, wetter winters. This poses a number of risks to the operation, reliability, availability and safety of train stations in a country with the busiest and densest rail network of the European Union. In this study, a method was created to study the risks of climate extremes for train stations on the basis of thirteen identified threats, and risk matrices were developed to support ProRail in defining their attitude towards climate risks. Results show that Dutch railway stations are vulnerable to climate change and demonstrate that there are many aspects of climate change at stations that require attention. The most important nodes in the station network, and stations that have a relatively high number of boarding and disembarking passengers per day, are at a higher risk than the national average. The results of this study show that this could have implications for a relatively high number of travellers in terms of their safety and contentment, and it could have socio-economic consequences for both ProRail and NS, as well as for the accessibility of The Netherlands. The local applicability of the risk assessment methodology was tested in five case studies on stations with very different characteristics, sizes and locations. The case studies have demonstrated that many of the identified risks appear to be relevant and appropriate on a local scale as well, but that risk is situation-specific. Furthermore, the case studies provide strategic long-term quantitative insights on adaptation strategies for all stations in the Netherlands, projecting the cases onto comparative situations. VI Summary The rail network of The Netherlands is the busiest and densest network of the European Union and plays an essential role in the accessibility of The Netherlands and in driving population agglomeration and urban growth at regional and national scales (European Commission, 2016; Wang et al, 2009). The Dutch railway sector faces several major challenges, one of which is anticipating on the effects of climate change. Globally, weather records are broken every year. Regionally, extreme weather events are disturbing railway operations more and more frequently with an associated effect on safety, reliability, availability and functionality of rail as a transport mode (Quinn et al, 2017). Furthermore, studies show that (extreme) weather influences travel behaviour, timing, travel modes and travel routes, and affects passenger flows in public transport (Kuhnimhof et al., 2010; Sumalee et al., 2011). ProRail's awareness level of potential climate risks for stations can currently be characterized as somewhere between pathological and reactive: little is yet being invested in improving adaptative capacity and ProRail generally responds to events after they have happened. This indicates a level of random- or reactiveness in the implementation of measures rather than an organized approach as part of a strategy on climate resilience. The large degree of uncertainty and inconsistency in decision-making and climate research, in combination with the increased risk of a higher frequency of extreme climate-related events beyond the present coping range, result in increasing deficiencies in the climate resilience of the railway sector. Both academic publishing and climate experts from ProRail have obtained an initial insight into the risks for the (Dutch) railway network to the consequences of climate change. The risk of climate change for railway stations however, has not yet been addressed. This research project therefore aims to provide insight into the risks of climate change-induced hazards for railway stations in The Netherlands and the associated effects on the functionality of the station for passengers. This study was done in cooperation with, and with data made available by ProRail. This study focuses on the climate risks for rainfall-, heat- and drought extremes for a passenger station using the WH-scenario of the KNMI (2014). The risks for stations were assessed in terms of probability of exposure and the damage sensitivity, on the basis of thirteen identified threats. Damage sensitivity was evaluated for five different categories; ProRail’s reputation, the experience of customers, technical functionality, society, and the safety of travellers, station visitors or employees. Furthermore, the potential chain effect in the station network were assessed. The probability of exposure was determined with use of ProRail’s climate stress test for the railway network, and by analysing additional available data from the national climate effect atlas, ProRail, NS, Arcadis and Deltares. ProRail’s risk attitude towards climate risks for stations was established with use of three risk matrices for extreme rainfall, heat and drought hazards. This is essential for determining appropriate response strategies and for prioritising certain risks over others. The local applicability of the risk assessment methodology was tested in five case studies on stations with very different characteristics, sizes and locations. In addition to this, a heat risk assessment was made with use of a questionnaire on a traveller’s heat perception.