PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The management of vegetation along railway tracks is an essential part of railway maintenance to ensure reliable and safe train operations. Currently, Dutch and other European railways are heavily dependent on a mix of chemical herbicides, often based on glyphosate, and mostly the weedkiller Roundup.
The use of glyphosate has adverse effects on the environment and human health. As a result, there is increasing pressure against its use in the EU, with activities and targets to phase it out in railway environments being scaled up. ProRail – the state-owned company responsible for the construction, maintenance, operation and security of the Dutch railway network – currently has a legal exemption and is allowed to use glyphosate on tracks and inspection paths. This exemption was granted due to the absence of fully developed and demonstrated effective alternative for the Dutch railway environment. In the absence of an alternative, glyphosate is considered necessary for safe train operations. However, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has explicitly instructed ProRail to develop suitable alternative methods for vegetation control and – if possible – to discontinue the use of dangerous chemicals by 2025.
OBJECTIVES
The overall objective of LIFE NATURE-RAIL is to demonstrate a flexible and multifaceted zero-chemicals approach to vegetation control that can be applied to the inspection path of railways and be adapted for use in railway infrastructure environments. The LIFE NATURE-RAIL project will demonstrate 3 alternative vegetation control techniques: cryogenic treatment, electro-weeding and slow-growing grass path, in combination with an autonomous mower for inspection paths on the Dutch and Belgian railway systems.
The specific project objectives are to:
- upgrade the cryogenic treatment method for vegetation control at railways to technology readiness level (TRL) 8 by testing it out on Dutch and Belgian inspection paths
- upgrade the electro-weeding method for vegetation control in rail environments to TRL8 by applying it on Dutch and Belgian inspection paths.
- upgrade the slow-grass and mowing robot method for vegetation control in the rail environment to TRL8 by using it on Dutch and Belgian inspection paths
- demonstrate the socio-economic performance of each method and provide evidence-based criteria for selecting the most appropriate method for a specific rail section
- positively contribute to improving soil quality, and reducing chemical use and impact on the environment, humans and habitats
- actively stimulate upgrades to existing European rail infrastructure management and other sectors concerned through replication tools including manuals, policy papers and stakeholder events
RESULTS
The project’s expected results are:
- reduction of 659 kilograms (kg) in chemical herbicides used over the project duration along railway tracks in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
- further reduction of around 5 229 kg of chemical herbicides used 3 years after the project end
- management of around 300 kilometres of rail track in Belgium and other European countries will be managed almost without using chemical herbicides by the end of the project
- salvage of a 1.7km2 area of chemically contaminated soil areas along European railways during the project implementation, and around 13.5km2 2 to 3 years after the project concludes
- reduction of the area of Natura 2000 sites affected using chemical herbicides in the rail sector of 0.56km2 by the end of the project, and by 1.27km2 2 to 3 years after the project ends
- a cost-benefit analysis of the demonstrated vegetation control methods
- a replication manual consisting of a framework that allows the techniques and results demonstrated to be successfully reproduced in other countries or contexts