Tomorrow's Railway and Climate Change Adaptation Final Report

3.4 Operations
3.4.1 Changes to current practice
We suggest reviewing existing operational practices for dealing with weather events
considered general, adverse, critical or extreme in the context of projected climate
change. There may not be a need for any significant changes. However, it would be
prudent to improve awareness of potential increased weather and climate-related risks
across the whole system and all sub-systems of the GB railway. This could inform
operational decision making. A review of the consistent use and application of
operational procedures, including communications with employees and customers on
different routes, could also be carried out.
3.4.2 Review of relevant policies and standards
We also suggest reviewing existing operational policies and standards for dealing with
weather events considered general, adverse, critical or extreme in the context of
projected climate change. As with the review of operational practices, there may be no
need for significant changes. However, increased awareness of potential increased
weather and climate-related risks would be prudent in order to inform operational
decision making.
3.4.3 Further analysis of weather and climate data
A baseline threshold analysis of the number of snow days in different locations could be
undertaken. This could then be coupled with an analysis of snowfall projections using
the UKCP09 technical note [480] (subject to caveats within it) to examine the future
likelihood of impacts from snowfall. However, we first need to understand present-day
sensitivity of the GB railway system to snow. There has been progress on this front as a
result of Network Rail’s recent work on reviewing weather thresholds (Network Rail
Weather Analysis Report, 2014). However it has not been possible to determine precise
values for snow related ‘thresholds’ due to the lack of statistically robust data. As
snowfall events are relatively rare in the UK, any analysis of failure data as a result of
snow is not statistically valid.
The likelihood of future flooding impacts on operations could be calculated from the
system-wide threshold analysis of flooding recommended in Section 5.1. This is a single
analysis of flood risk at national and route level covering multiple sub-systems.
3.4.4 Monitoring and measurement of assets
A limited number of examples were found of how high temperatures affect traffic
operations. These include increased amounts of travel to take advantage of good
weather, increased irritability of passengers on trains, platforms and within stations, and
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