FUTURENET: Future Resilient Transport Networks

June 2009 to June 2013

Prof Chris Baker, University of Birmingham

AIM: To determine:

• What will be the nature of the UK transport system in 2050 (taken as the mid-point of the UK Climate Projections scenarios), both in terms of its physical characteristics and its usage?

• What will be the shape of the transport network in 2050 that will be most resilient to climate change?

Objectives:

• The development of a number of possible UK transport scenarios for 2050 (Work Package 1).

• The identification of a route corridor for the study together with an inventory of infrastructure assets for that route corridor (Work Package 2).

• The development of conceptual models of weather/climate induced failure mechanisms of transport systems, together with meteorological and climatic trigger levels (Work Package 3).

• The development of a modelling methodology that will integrate the work of the first three objectives, and allow the effect of climate change on the resilience of transport networks to be systematically studied (Work Package 4).

• The development of generic tools that can be applied to other transport corridors and the wide dissemination of the results amongst stakeholders (Work Package 5).

Main messages

The final dissemination event provided a strategic overview of the project findings to help senior policy makers and practitioners deliver resilient transport systems into the future. Outputs include:

• A methodology for determining the resilience of large scale transport networks, from the perspective of the traveller experience, and how this resilience may vary in the future, which will be of use to decision makers seeking to prioritise investment;

• A suite of physical process models for different extreme weather-related effects on transport networks, which will be of use to infrastructure asset managers seeking to provide acceptable levels of service;

• The ability to illustrate the extent to which disruption propagates through the network following a specific event (such as flooding or snow), causing delays across the country, which could be used to inform travellers and to optimise travel plans.