Transportation Research Part D 103 (2022) 103168

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Transportation Research Part D

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Environmental impacts and associated costs of railway turnouts

based on Austrian data
M. Landgraf a, *, M. Zeiner a, D. Knabl a, F. Corman b
a
Graz University of Technology, Austria
b
ETH Zurich, Switzerland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The production and provision of railway infrastructure causes environmental impacts for several
Railway infrastructure environmental indicators. The goal of this study is a single-score evaluation for environmental
Environmental costs impacts of turnouts by calculating associated environmental costs.
Environmental pricing
The methodology includes the life cycle assessment using the CML-IA baseline method to
Life cycle assessment
Railway turnouts
calculate mid-point indicators. Monetary valuation models are investigated as a basis for envi­
Railway switches ronmental pricing. Turnouts equipped with USP result in lower annual environmental costs (EC)
Embodied emissions of €429 than turnouts with conventional concrete sleepers (€495). Of the assessed impact cate­
gories, global warming potential (GWP) is responsible for the vast majority of EC with values from
87% to 97%. The main uncertainties lie within the emission factors to calculate mid-point in­
dicators and the deviation within the environmental pricing schemes. Steel and concrete pro­
duction, circular economy, use of alternative propulsion systems for track work machinery, and
efficient maintenance strategies are major potentials for mitigation.

1. Introduction

Mitigation of environmental impacts is one of the main challenges now faced by mankind. Many global measures and policies have
been issued to tackle the challenge. This includes the Kyoto Protocol (Maamoun, 2019), the Paris Agreement (Mitchell et al., 2018;
United Nations, 2015) and Montreal Protocol (Goyal et al., 2019). The world’s first carbon market was the European Trading System
(ETS), established within the European Union in 2005 (European Commission, 2015; European Parliament and the Council of the
European Union, 2018). The European Green Deal was launched in 2019 as part of the Paris Agreement, with the overarching goal of
making Europe climate neutral in 2050 (Bloomfield and Steward, 2020; European Commission, 2019; Ossewaarde and Ossewaarde-
Lowtoo, 2020). In Austria, the associated policy covering also transport and infrastructure is #mission2030 (Federal Ministry Republic
of Austria Sustainability and Tourism, 2018). The expectation is to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) within the mobility sector
by 50% before 2050. Regarding mobility, these regulations often focus on burned fuel and power consumption based on direct and
indirect emissions. This covers rail operation whereas railway infrastructure is neglected.
However, the railway infrastructure in Austria embodies 235,000 tonnes of CO2eq. emissions per year (0.3% of Austria’s total). In
comparison to rail passenger operation, railway infrastructure is responsible for an additional 141% of GHG emissions. Of all infra­
structure assets the main contributor is railway track (55%, followed by tunnels with 21%). (Landgraf and Horvath, 2021).
This paper assesses all processes and supply chains in relation to environmental impacts of railway turnouts (also referred to as

* Corresponding author at: Graz University of Technology, Rechbauerstrasse 12/II, Graz, Styria 8010, Austria.
E-mail address: m.landgraf@tugraz.at (M. Landgraf).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2021.103168

Available online 15 January 2022

1361-9209/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
M. Landgraf et al. Transportation Research Part D 103 (2022) 103168

switches and crossings, S&C, points) in ballasted railway tracks. This covers an assessment of all associated upstream and downstream
processes. We choose a bottom-up process to focus on one component of railway infrastructure to ensure a high level of detail covering
all emissions related to the value chain. Hence, we can specifically consider local conditions, used components of railway track, specific
supply chains and emissions caused by track work machinery. Also, this enables to use actual data, knowledge, and experience
regarding supply chains, service life and maintenance demands within the life cycle rather than basing calculations on assumptions.
These impacts will be transferred into a single-score evaluation considering monetary evaluation of environmental aspects throughout
the life cycle. We believe that an expression of environmental impacts in cost figures will boost its consideration within various sectors.
This is the first LCA for turnouts considering specific data and environmental costing schemes.
Turnouts are a safety critical part of railway track networks. They enable trains to switch from one track onto another thus enabling
necessary flexibility during train operations. A turnout consists of multiple metal parts as shown in Fig. 1. The specific constructional
design, heterogeneous elasticities, and the existence of moving parts result in high dynamic forces. Consequently, these leads to
accelerated wear and tear of the parts and short inspection and maintenance intervals to guarantee safe rail operations. To sum up,
turnouts are more complex, cost-intensive, wear driven, material-intensive and safety–critical in comparison to open track (Wilfling
et al., 2021). Within the network of Austrian Federal Railways, 5,980 turnouts are situated within 6,859 km of railway track network
(Austrian Federal Railways, 2019a).
In the present research, the environmental impacts of turnouts will be evaluated based on life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA is used
to understand, quantify, and analyse products on a life cycle basis (Rebitzer et al., 2004). Previous studies underpin the necessity to
quantify the greenhouse gas emissions of transport infrastructure provision. According to studies in the United States (Chester and
Horvath, 2007; Facanha and Horvath, 2007) the environmental impacts of transport modes are undervalued if infrastructure is
neglected. One of the first comprehensive studies of environmental impacts of transport modes including infrastructure was executed
by Chester and Horvath (Chester and Horvath, 2012, 2010). California High Speed Rail (CAHSR) was assessed, and the associated
environmental efficiency was quantified and compared to other transport modes. Scenario-based calculations included evolving
technologies as well as different occupancy rates. Results show that high occupancy rates of CAHSR lead to decreased energy con­
sumption and GHG emissions. Lower occupancy rates lead to higher SO2 emissions as the electricity mix for rail operation is strongly
based on fossil fuel generated electricity. A Swedish study (Åkerman, 2011) investigated the climate change impact of a planned
Swedish high-speed rail line using LCA. It showed a significant reduction in GHG emissions due to modal shift to HSR. A study in China
states that HSR significantly mitigates environmental pollution by 7.35% (Yang et al., 2019). A decisive parameter lies within the
substructure of railway track and whether track is installed as ballasted or ballastless rail track. For service life up to 75 years, ballasted
rail tracks which are also part of the present study, show the lowest environmental impacts (Pons et al., 2020).
In regard to upstream material production, calculations on a Chinese HSR line conclude that this phase accounts for over 89% in the
footprints of water, material, carbon, and land (Cheng et al., 2020). The majority of environmental impacts within railway infra­
structure are caused by rails, ballast, sub-ballast, and civil engineering structures (de Bortoli et al., 2020). With approximately 50%,
production of rail steel is the overwhelming source for GHG emissions within HSR track construction (International Union of Railways
UIC, 2017).
Table 1 shows a synopsis of conducted LCA evaluations for railway infrastructure. More than two third are focusing on greenfield
projects for high-speed rail application. Two publications assess environmental costs of railway infrastructure. The calculation of the
life cycle costs of Turkish passenger transports (Banar and Özdemir, 2015) is based on monetisation of general values for environ­
mental impacts of railway infrastructure and vehicles gathered from ecoinvent database (Wernet et al., 2016). A whole life cycle
approach for route types within the UK rail network is applied to identify economically justifiable railway track maintenance strategies
(Sasidharan et al., 2020). Thus, life cycle costs including environmental costs are calculated for the whole railway system and related to
average track quality expressed in standard deviation of vertical profile.
The aim that unifies all sources in Table 1 is to describe as many infrastructure assets as possible, often also parts of the operated
vehicle fleet as well. This top-down approach allows for assessing and comparing different sub-systems within the railway system.
However, the level of detail for specific components remains low. This approach has already been executed in many countries for
various scopes, mainly high-speed rail. The novelty of the present study lies within the bottom-up approach and focussing on one
essential asset of railway infrastructure only rather than assessing the railway infrastructure or railway system using assumptions and
mean values. Our bottom-up assessment is based on specific data throughout the whole value chain of turnouts. Ideally, future research
should focus on specific components as this enables for comparison, identification of potentials for mitigation and allows to aggregate

Fig. 1. Design and component nomenclature of turnouts (Fellinger et al., 2020a).

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Table 1
Synopsis of LCA models for railway infrastructure.
Infrastructure Vehicle Fleet Scope/region FU Impact Categories

(Chester and Horvath, 2007) Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M HSR, pmt many
Catenary: C,O,M Wagons: C,O,M Light Rail
Substations: C,O,M Railcars: C,O,M
Railway Stations; C,O, United States
M
Parking: C,O,M
(Chester and Horvath, 2009) Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M HSR, pmt many
Catenary: C,O,M Wagons: C,O,M Light Rail
Substations: C,O,M Railcars: C,O,M Commuter
Parking: C,O,M
United States
(Milford and Allwood, 2010) Open Track: C,M, D Not defined m per year CO2

(Swedish Transport Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M HSR km line per year many
Administration, 2010) Tunnels: C,O,M Wagons: C,O,M
Bridges: C,O,M Railcars: C,O,M Sweden
Embankment: C,O,M
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
Substations: C,O,M
Railway Stations: C,O,
M
Maintenance Stations:
C,O,M
Terminals: C,O,M
Administrative
Buildings: C,O,M
Parking: C,O,M
(Åkerman, 2011) Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M HSR km of double track CO2-eq.
Tunnels: C,O,M Wagons: C,M
Bridges: C,O,M Railcars: C,O,M Sweden
Embankment: C,O,M
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
Substations: C,O,M
(Grossrieder, 2011) Open Track: C,M HSR m per year many
Tunnels: C,M
Bridges: C,M Norway
Catenary: C,M
Signalling: C,M
(Chang and Kendall, 2011) Open Track: C HSR km railway CO2-eq.
Tunnels: C
Bridges: C United States
Catenary: C
Signalling: C
(Tuchschmid and Knörr, Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M Several networks and km many
2011) Tunnels: C,O,M Wagons: C,M countries
Bridges: C,O,M Railcars: C,O,M
Embankment: C,O,M
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
Substations: C,O,M
Railway Stations: C,O,
M
Maintenance Stations:
C,O,M
Terminals: C,O,M
Administrative
Buildings: C,O,M
Parking: C,O,M
(Baron et al., 2011) Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M HSR km of line CO2
Tunnels: C,O,M Wagons: C,M
Bridges: C,O,M Railcars: C,O,M Several countries
Embankment: C,O,M
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
Substations: C,O,M
Railway Stations: C,O,
(continued on next page)

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Table 1 (continued )
Infrastructure Vehicle Fleet Scope/region FU Impact Categories

M
Maintenance Stations:
C,O,M
Terminals: C,O,M
Administrative
Buildings: C,O,M
Parking: C,O,M
(Westin and Kågeson, 2012) Open Track: C,O,M HSR pkt CO2
Tunnels: C,O,M
Railway Stations: C,O,
M
(Schmied et al., 2013) Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M Passenger km/a CO2-eq.
Tunnels: C,O,M Wagons: C,M Freight pkm
Bridges: C,O,M Railcars: C,O,M tkm
Embankment: C,O,M Germany
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
Substations: C,O,M
Railway Stations: C,O,
M
Maintenance Stations:
C,O,M
(Mottschall and Bergmann, Open Track: C,O,M Network of Deutsche pkt CO2-eq.
2013) Tunnels: C,O,M Bahn, mixed traffic tkm
Bridges: C,O,M
Embankment: C,O,M Germany
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
Substations: C,O,M
Railway Stations: C,O,
M
Maintenance Stations:
C,O,M
(Yue et al., 2015) Open Track: C Locos: C,O,M HSR skt many
Tunnels: C Wagons: C,O,M
Bridges: C Railcars: C,O,M China
(Banar and Özdemir, 2015) Railway High Speed HSR Network many
Infrastructure: C,O,M, Trains: C,O,M,D CR Also cost assessment
D Conv. Trains: C,O, Turkey
M,D
(International Union of Open Track: C,O,M HSR line km per year, pkt, CO2
Railways UIC, 2016) Tunnels: C,O,M Freight tkm
Bridges: C,O,M Intercity
Embankment: C,O,M Several countries
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
Substations: C,O,M
Railway Stations: C,O,
M
Maintenance Stations:
C,O,M
(Chester and Cano, 2016) Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M Light rail pmt many
Catenary: C,O,M Wagons: C,O,M Global
Railway Stations: C,O, Railcars: C,O,M
M
Parking: C,O,M
(Bueno et al., 2017) Open Track: C,O,M HSR pkt CO2
Tunnels: C,O,M Spain
Bridges: C,O,M
Embankment: C,O,M
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
Substations: C,O,M
Railway Stations: C,O,
M
(Landgraf and Klambauer, Open Track: C,M,D Austrian Network, km track per year many
2018) mixed traffic
(Fridell et al., 2019) Open Track: C,O,M Freight vkt, tkm many
Tunnels: C,O,M Europe
(continued on next page)

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Table 1 (continued )
Infrastructure Vehicle Fleet Scope/region FU Impact Categories

Bridges: C,O,M
Embankment: C,O,M
Catenary: C,O,M
Signalling: C,O,M
(Pons et al., 2020) Open Track: C,O,M,D HSR 10 km of straight many
global double-track
(Lee et al., 2020) Open Track: C HSR km of track CO2-eq.
Tunnels: C Korea
Bridges: C
Embankment: C
Catenary: C
Signalling: C
Railway Stations: C
(Cheng et al., 2020) Open Track: C HSR km track several env. footprints
Tunnels: C China
Bridges: C
Embankment: C
Catenary: C
Signalling: C
Substations: C
Railway Stations: C
(Sasidharan et al., 2020) Railway Track: C,O,M Freight, passenger HSR Network-Wide many
trains UK main-line railway including cost and track
quality assessment
(Landgraf and Horvath, Open Track: C,O,M Austrian network, Networkwide, km CO2-eq.
2021) Tunnels: C mixed traffic track per year
Bridges: C
Embankment: C
Catenary: C
Signalling: C
Substations: C
Railway Stations: C
(Kortazar et al., 2021) Open Track: C,O,M Locos: C,O,M HSR pkm, km track per many
Tunnels: C,O,M Wagons: C,O,M year
Bridges: C,O,M Spain

FU: Functional Unit, C: Construction, O: Operation, M: Maintenance, D: Disposal, HSR: High Speed Rail, CR: Conventional Rail, pmt: passenger mile
travelled, pkm: passenger kilometre, tkm: tonne kilometre, pkt: passenger kilometre travelled, skt: seat kilometre travelled, vkt: vehicle kilometre
travelled.

the railway system from a component-level with a high grade of detail.

A full review of 100 papers on embodied emissions in rail infrastructure (Olugbenga et al., 2019) concludes that the considered case
studies range from 0.5 to 12,700 tCO2 per km. This deviation highlights the need for assessing specific components using a bottom-up
approach to ensure robust results. The main influence parameters for deviations are whether railway track is built in a tunnel, elevated
or at-grade. The underlying statistical model shows that ~941(±168) tCO2eq. are emitted per kilometre of rail at-grade. For tunnel
sections, GHG emissions are 27 (±5) times higher.
However, most of the published studies miss specificity to local conditions, used components of railway track, specific supply
chains and emissions caused by track work machinery. Also, information on railway infrastructure assets is usually neglecting varying
boundary conditions such as alignment, component types and traffic load which are responsible for diverse maintenance demands and
service lives. Moreover, generic assumptions are made for different materials and their associated upstream supply chain. The use of
unspecific input data is an essential reason for uncertainty within LCA calculations.
Thus, within the present study, our methodology focuses on specific and essential assets of railway infrastructure rather than
assessing the whole railway system using assumptions, average values and results from other literature. The granularity within our
approach allows for a detailed assessment of specific value chains and consideration of various boundary conditions. Therefore, we do
not rely on generic assumptions but on actual material compositions, supply chains, maintenance demands and service lives for
turnouts within the Austrian railway network. We present the first bottom-up approach for railway turnouts including an assessment of
associated costs of environmental impacts for railway infrastructure (Fig. 2) in a country-wide test case. This includes LCA of materials,
resources, and energy input of manufacturing, constructing and operating railway turnouts. Associated emissions are transferred into
mid-point indicators (acidification potential AP, eutrophication potential EP, global warming potential GWP, ozone depletion po­
tential ODP, photochemical ozone creation potential POCP) by classification and characterization using CML-IA baseline method (de
Bortoli et al., 2020). The midpoint characterization method provides indicators for comparing environmental interventions at a level of
cause-effect chain between emissions towards endpoint level (European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2012). At this point
uncertainty is relatively low and acceptance is high as the methodology and values are published by Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change IPCC (Goedkoop et al., 2009). In comparison, endpoint-indicators (e.g. damage to human health, ecosystem diversity
and resource availability) further aggregate and convert midpoint indicators which is often based on own models leading to relatively

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Table 2
Assessed components and groups, associated materials, processes, and sources.
Name Included components Material/Details LC phase Sources for emission factors

Rails Stock rail, wing rail and Rail steel (97%) Manufacturing (Thinkstep database, 2021; Detzel et al., 2012;
check rails Quality steel (3%) voestalpine, 2019)
Crossing nose Rail steel (36%) Manufacturing
Manganese steel (64%)
Switch & switch Switching machine, locking Rail steel (79%) Manufacturing
rails device, hollow sleeper, Non-alloy quality structural steel (21%)
switch rails
Rail support Base plates + fastenings, rail Ductile Iron (18%), Alloy special steel Manufacturing (Thinkstep database, 2021)
pads (8%), Non-alloy quality special steel
(18%), Non-alloy quality structural
steel (55%), Polyurethane rigid foam
(PUR) (less than1%)
Sleeper Concrete, Plug, Reinforcing Concrete C50/60 Manufacturing (InformationsZentrum Beton GmbH, 2018;
and rebar steel, Assembly, If (97%), Reinforcing steel (2%), rebar Thinkstep database, 2021)
installed: Under sleeper steel, metal, In case of USP: 1% plastics
pads (USP) (PUR)
Ballast Gravel (Grain size 2/32) Extraction, processing Manufacturing (Eyerer and Reinhardt, 2000)
Transportation Upstream transports to Transport of machinery from/to site, Manufacturing (Austrian Environmental Agency, 2019;
upstream turnout assembly track maintenance work Railways, 2019b; Thinkstep database, 2021)
Turnout Assembly of sleepers, rail Work processes, emissions from factory Construction (voestalpine, 2018)
assembly support, switch & switch
rails, crossing nose, rails
Turnout Transport from turnout Well to wheel emissions, production of Construction (Alstom, 2014; Austrian Environmental
construction assembly to site, transport of machinery Agency, 2019; Bombardier Transportation
machinery from/to site, GmbH, 2010; HypatiaAccesorios, 2017;
track maintenance work Plasser and Theurer GmbH, 2020; Thinkstep
Maintenance Transport of machinery Well to wheel emissions, production of Operation database, 2021)
work from/to site, track work machinery
Ex_HSS Check Exchange half set of Transport, work and materials Operation (Austrian Environmental Agency, 2019;
rail switches and check rails Thinkstep database, 2021; Detzel et al., 2012;
Ex_Crossing nose Exchange of crossing nose Transport, work and materials Operation voestalpine, 2019)
Ex_Rail Pads Exchange of rail pads Transport, work and materials Operation

Table 3
Maintenance demands within LC and service life for turnouts from standard element method.
Maintenance Task Turnout 1 Turnout 2
Concrete sleepers Concrete sleepers
with under sleeper pads

tamping # in LC 8 6
grinding # in LC 5 5
half set of switch exchange # in LC 1 1
common crossing exchange # in LC 2 2
check rail exchange # in LC 1 1
overlay and repair welding # in LC 2 2
ballast cleaning # in LC 1 0
rail pad exchange # in LC 0 1
service life years 36 40

General boundary conditions for Turnout 1 and Turnout 2 are set with: simple turnout, radius of branch 500 m, traffic load 55,000 gt/day, rails 60E1,
manganese crossing nose.

high uncertainty and lower acceptance (Goedkoop et al., 2009). The reasons for using CML-IA baseline method and associated impact
categories are twofold. On the one hand, most environmental pricing schemes refer to these impact categories (Table 4). On the other
hand, they enable using EPDs as input data as well, since results in EPDs are also expressed using these impact categories. We use
monetary valuation to transfer mid-point indicators into a single-score evaluation, as environmental costs (EC) provide a clear and
comparable basis for decisions. The main critique for this is that by paying for the “cost” of the pollution, it might suggest that it is
possible to compensate for the associated environmental consequences (Vogtlander and Bijma, 2000). However, the advantage is that
it provides cost-based information to policy makers and stakeholders when evaluating the environmental quality and efficiency of
projects, products or services (Swarr et al., 2011). Also, monetary single-score evaluation enables the inclusion of environmental
criteria in business decisions (Watson and Zakri, 2005) and cost-benefit analyses.
We used specific information on the value chain to assess environmental impacts of railway turnouts. Also, clustering of relevant
boundary conditions into standard elements and its associated maintenance demands and service lives allows for comparing different
scenarios in the context of the component composition of track superstructure. This enables a scenario-based comparison of different

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Fig. 2. Concept of single-score evaluation based on LCA and weighting via environmental pricing of mid-point indicators for railway turnouts,
modified from (Schneider-Marin and Lang, 2020).

Table 4
Summary of environmental pricing methodologies for selected mid-point level categories.
Global warming Acidification Ozone depletion Eutrophication Photochemical ozone creation
potential potential potential Potential potential

€/ kg CO2eq. €/ kg SO2eq. €/ kg CFC-11 eq. €/ kg phos-phate eq. €/ kg ethane eq.

number of values in 16 11 11 11 11
literature
mean 0.14822 3.73508 66.75391 13.95494 11.95478
median 0.10687 2.17832 52.47481 3.49893 4.68609
min 0.00745 0.00560 0.00000 0.01289 0.00000
max 0.64600 9.00963 129.25506 64.12401 55.22593
25% - quartile 0.05932 0.40345 19.23321 1.83941 0.67112
75% - quartile 0.14442 7.79755 123.34247 10.63390 12.61473

A detailed list of all considered environmental pricing methodologies including values and literature can be found within the supplementary material.

constructional designs and related environmental impacts. The chosen functional unit for the comparison of these scenarios is envi­
ronmental impact categories and costs per turnout and year.

2. Methods and data

Turnouts are safety critical components of a railway track, requiring regular maintenance and generating high life-cycle costs. In
Sweden, it is concluded (Johansson et al., 2011) that faults in turnout generate 50% of the registered inspection remarks within railway
infrastructure and 21% of the operation disturbances. Approximately half of the maintenance and security remarks are related to the
switch and crossing panels. Dynamic wheel-rail contact forces with high magnitudes, and associated track geometry degradation, are
often caused by discontinuities of rail profiles in the switch and crossing areas (Li et al., 2014). The main driver for increasing
maintenance costs is repair and replacement of switch rails and crossing noses as these parts strongly affect deterioration in terms of
track geometry and rail profile over time. The Austrian railway network consists in average of 0.9 turnouts per kilometre of track. This
leads to both, high life-cycle costs (LCC) and environmental impacts. LCC have already been determined (Wilfling et al., 2021),
whereas environmental impacts of railway turnouts remain unevaluated.
The goal of this study is thus to assess environmental impacts and transfer them into monetary values. This will allow the inte­
gration of these values into any LCC considerations. For this study, railway turnouts are chosen as they are a component with large
requirements in material and maintenance, and a high complexity within the deterioration behaviour over time. However, the pro­
posed methodology can be used for railway infrastructure in general and is not limited to turnouts only. The presented LCA follows the
process of EN ISO 14040 (Fig. 3) which defines a three-step approach starting with definition of goal and scope, followed by inventory

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analyses and impact assessment. All steps are interpreted stating the uncertainties by the help of sensitivity analyses.
The focus is set on turnout renewals within the network of Austrian Federal Railways. This is because the focus within the Austrian
network lies on maintenance and renewal of the present network and not on building new lines. Track renewal between 2014 and 2018
shows an average of 197.4 km with an annual renewal rate of 2.9% (Austrian Federal Railways, 2019a) whereas newly built track lines
average to 13 km per year since 2008 (Austrian Federal Railways, 2019b). In regards to turnouts, Austrian Federal Railways replaced
319 turnouts in average between 2015 and 2019 (Austrian Federal Railways, 2019a), resulting in an annual renewal rate of 5%.
The bottom-up analysis proposed is founded on network-specific supply chains and production processes. Turnout renewal and
maintenance is a process-oriented operation within the Austrian network. Thus, these calculations are not only valid for specific
turnouts but represent all turnouts within the Austrian railway network. A major requirement for input data of LCA is information on
the assetś behaviour over the life cycle, mainly its service life and expected maintenance demands. We gather this data by operating a
data warehouse for scientific purposes with data and information regarding all track assets, maintenance measures, and measurement
data since 2005 within the network of Austrian Federal Railways (OeBB). Consequently, we have detailed information on construc­
tional design, installation date, as well as quantity and type of track work machinery used for renewal and maintenance measures.
This information enabled us to establish a model for calculating life-cycle cost (LCC) based on standard elements (Neuhold et al.,
2020; Wilfling et al., 2021). These standard elements describe a clustering of the relevant boundary conditions dependent on com­
parable degradation behaviour. Consequently, these clusters (standard elements) represent similar maintenance demands and service
lives.
It can be stated that the main influence parameters for turnout behaviour over time are alignment, superstructure configuration
(sleeper type, frog type, rail profile, steel grade), ballast quality and operated traffic loads. This results in deviations within the lifetime
and necessary maintenance measures within the life cycle which are distinguished using a dual process. First, we calculate the
technical behaviour over lifetime by using measurement data from various sources such as the standard measurement vehicle (Fell­
inger et al., 2021, 2020b). Second, we fill blank spots by analysing executed maintenance measures for this specific set of boundary
conditions or with the knowledge and experience from regional track engineers. As mentioned, this methodology was initially
established for quantifying LCC (Neuhold et al., 2020; Veit, 2007). However, we can also use the output from standard element
methodology as essential input within the inventory analysis of LCA.

2.1. Evaluating environmental impacts of turnouts

A detailed bottom-up approach is executed for turnouts in ballasted railway track considering Austrian boundary conditions and
supply chains. The LCA analysis is executed using GaBi software (Thinkstep database, 2021) and the CML-IA baseline method for
selected impact categories considering production, construction, and maintenance of railway turnouts. The software is used by many
practitioners and researchers. Herrmann et al. (Herrmann and Moltesen, 2015) validated this software and compared it to other
available alternatives. They conclude that all software tools have minor differences to each other within the calculation process. Hence,
the software used should be stated whenever life cycle assessment is conducted. Table 2 shows a list of materials and processes
considered for environmental impacts of production processes. The specific materials and processes are clustered into groups to
interpret the results more easily.
Table 3 represents the expected maintenance tasks and the associated service life over the life cycle of a simple turnout with a radius
of branch of 500 m, a traffic load of 55,000 gross tonnes per day and track, rails with a profile 60E1 and manganese crossing nose.
Turnout 1 and turnout 2 differ due to the fact that one is equipped with under sleeper pads (USP) (Landgraf, 2018; Neuhold and

Fig. 3. Process of life cycle assessment according to EN ISO 14040 used in the context of calculating environmental costs of railway turnouts.

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M. Landgraf et al. Transportation Research Part D 103 (2022) 103168

Landgraf, 2018) and the other is not. These types of turnouts represent the main types within the Austrian rail network. USP essentially
improves the overall load distribution of turnouts resulting in lower deterioration of components and consequently both a decreased
maintenance demand and prolonged service life (Enzi and Landgraf, 2017; Neuhold and Landgraf, 2018; Veit, 2007; Wilfling et al.,
2021). This causes significant variations of annual associated environmental impacts as well. Both scenarios are examined on locations
showing the same rail type, traffic load, type of turnout, and diverging radius to ensure comparability.
Turnout construction is executed with both, track-bound and non-track-bound machinery. In Austria, 80% of renewals are executed
with non-track-bound machinery (using excavators, compactors, trucks) and 20% with track-bound machinery (using sophisticated,
continuously working ballast cleaning and relaying machines). This relation is also represented within the calculation of the according
emissions of track work machinery. (Zeiner et al., 2021)
The calculation for any machinery as part of the turnout construction process should be shown by the example of GHG emissions
using

GHGa = WCO2 e + TCO2 e + PCO2 e

[( ) ]
nwu,t 1 ( ) 1
= (Ed + Eind )*twu *fcav *nwu,t + lt *(fret + 1)*fmult * * reld * *fcloco *(Ed + Eind ) + relel *EFloco,el + Eprod * *nwu,t
nwu,c vloco nwu,y *sl
(1)

where GHGa denotes emissions of track construction work a, WCO2e the emissions of the track work process, TCO2e emissions of all
associated transports of machinery and materials and PCO2e emissions of machinery production (all in kg CO2eq. per turnout). In regard
to track work process Ed and Eind denote direct and indirect emissions of fuel (in kg CO2eq. per litre), twu the duration of an average
work unit (in hours per work unit), fcav fuel consumption of machinery (litre per hour) and nwu,t the number of work units per turnout.
The latter is usually one except for welding machines as each turnout demands several welds. The basis for calculation of the working
emissions is the duration of working per turnout as well as the fuel consumption of the machine per hour. This includes the fuel
consumption per turnout and the efficiency of the internal combustion engine (ICE). This formula is used for calculating all impact
categories included in this paper using the according emission factors. The calculation of emissions from associated transports includes
the transport distances to the construction site lt (in km) and factor fret for return distance. Fmult considers the transport of several
machinery at once. The number of work units per construction site is considered with the factor nwu,c, the proportion of diesel loco
transport with reld, Vloco considers the average speed (in km per hour), fcloco the average fuel consumption per hour, relel the proportion
of electric loco transport and emission factor for electric locos is EFloco,el in kg CO2eq. per km. We were not able to assess or find
environmental declarations for the manufacturing of track work machinery itself. Hence, we included the EPD values of a repre­
sentative railcar (Bombardier Transportation GmbH, 2010), an electric loco (Alstom, 2014) and a milling machine (HypatiaAccesorios,
2017) and calculated environmental impacts based on their per-kilogram emissions within production, denoted in Eq. (1) as Eprod. Nwu,y
represents the number of working units per year and sl the expected service life of the machinery based on the EPDs.

2.2. Environmental pricing schemes

The approach of monetizing within LCA is a form of weighting (Pizzol et al., 2017, 2015) that allows for handling the trade-off
between impact categories. The result is a single-score evaluation based on a unified metric. This is an essential advantage as LCA
is one of the recommended management tools for quantifying environmental impacts along the life cycle for use in cost-benefit-
analyses (CBA), evaluating corporate-social responsibility and establishing environmentally driven benchmarks (de Bruyn et al.,
2018). The usual issue of trade-offs between the many impact categories within LCA can be solved by monetizing environmental
impacts. Until now, single-score evaluations only conform to ISO 14040/44 standards if used for internal communication within an
organization.
Several methods for monetizing environmental impacts have been developed since 1992; one of the first was that of environmental
priority strategies (EPS) (Steen and Ryding, 1992). Since then, many other approaches have been developed, such as LIME (Itsubo
et al., 2012) in Japan, environmental-costs/value-ratio (EVR) (Vogtländer et al., 2001b), the Environmental Pricing Handbook for EU-
28 (de Bruyn et al., 2018) or the Methodological Convention 3.0 for Estimates of Environmental Costs by German Environment Agency
(Matthey and Bünger, 2019).
Seven main peer reviewed investigations addressing monetization in LCA have been made to date. These range from analysing
single environmental pricing methods (Finnveden, 1999) to comparing several pricing methods quantitatively based on recycling in
Portugal (Ferreira et al., 2014). If LCA results are monetized, all impact categories should be monetized using the same cost perspective
(Finnveden et al., 2006). Moreover, based on this assumption, a method for monetizing environmental impacts called ecotaxes was
developed.
The two most comprehensive reviews until now can be summarized as follows: Pizzol et al. (Pizzol et al., 2015) classified several
different methods in terms of their monetization approach and impact categories. The conclusion was that Lime2 and Stepwise are the

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M. Landgraf et al. Transportation Research Part D 103 (2022) 103168

most suitable methods. Moreover, a small quantitative comparison was also carried out. Arendt et al. (Arendt et al., 2020) executed a
quantitative and qualitative comparison comprising nine methods and 18 impact categories. One of the main findings was that the
geographical reference area of the methods is an essential influence parameter (i.e. the richer the geographical reference, the higher
the monetization factors). Due to the variation in the monetization approaches of the assessed methods, varying monetary damage
values are obtained. It is thus crucial to consider the underlying geographical reference area for application of any monetization
method.
Two very recent reviews focused on monetizing climate change (Dong et al., 2019) and impact categories specifically within the
building sector (Durao et al., 2019). The latter study concludes that mid-point level monetization factors are the most suitable to be
used, as they cover CML-IA impact categories which are included in standardised environmental product declarations. However, none
of the existing monetary valuation methods specifically addresses LCA for railway infrastructure. In the railway industry context, some
of the discussed methods have been used to assess EC of railway passenger transport in Turkey (Banar and Özdemir, 2015). For this
study, in accordance to Schneider-Marin et al. (Schneider-Marin and Lang, 2020) the referred impact categories on mid-point level are
global warming potential GWP (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014; Joos et al., 2013), ozone depletion potential ODP
(World Meteorological Organization WMO, 2014), photochemical creation potential POCP (Jenkin et al., 2017), acidification potential
AP (Roy et al., 2012) and eutrophication potential EP (Ortiz-Reyes and Anex, 2018). Also, Hauschild et. al. (Hauschild et al., 2013)
classified these mid-point characterisation indicators as tier one (recommended and satisfactory) and tier two (recommended but in
need for some improvements).
Table 4 contains a list of statistical parameters based on a literature review for environmental pricing schemes (full list in

Fig. 4. The contribution of components showing superstructure with concrete sleepers and under sleeper pads in selected mid-point categories for
acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), global warming potential (GWP), ozone depletion potential (ODP) and photochemical
ozone creation potential (POCP).

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M. Landgraf et al. Transportation Research Part D 103 (2022) 103168

supplementary material) which are used to form the basis for calculating the environmental impacts of railway turnouts. Global
warming gains political importance, which is why in recent literature GWP is the most discussed indicator. ODP has been successfully
regulated by the Montreal Protocol. Within environmental pricing methodologies Stepwise (Weidema, 2009) and the European Prices
Handbook (de Bruyn et al., 2018) we can find high values for OPD. In contrast, EVR (Vogtländer et al., 2001a, 2001b) does not consider
it, as the substances causing ozone depletion are accounted for in the GWP prevention costs. The remaining impact categories differ
insofar as they cause local rather than global effects. Thus, resulting damages also strongly depend on local circumstances. The po­
tential for summer smog or the formation of tropospheric ozone known as POCP is considered to cause respiratory diseases and damage
to agriculture and forests. The maximum value for this impact category is represented by the methodology of Ecovalue (Ahlroth and
Finnveden, 2011) which is based on willingness-to-pay damage costs. Regarding AP and EP, the latter shows a higher deviation within
the considered environmental pricing schemes.

3. Results

The conducted LCA includes the materials, resources, supply chains and energy input for the manufacturing, construction, and
maintenance of railway turnouts. Associated emissions are transferred into mid-point indicators (acidification potential AP, eutro­
phication potential EP, global warming potential GWP, ozone depletion potential ODP, photochemical ozone creation potential POCP)
by classification and characterization using CML-IA baseline method (de Bortoli et al., 2020). We use monetary valuation to transfer
mid-point indicators into a single-score evaluation, as environmental costs provide an easy-to-understand basis for decisions. This
provides valuable information to stakeholders and policy makers when evaluating the overall environmental quality of projects,
products, or services.

3.1. Environmental impacts of turnouts

The in-depth modelling of environmental impacts of railway turnouts is carried out for the components listed in Table 2. Fig. 4
depicts the contribution of specific components for the selected mid-point categories. GWP, AP, EP and POCP show similar contri­
butions. Sleepers, switch & switch rails, rail support (mainly caused by base plates) and rails are the main contributors within the
manufacturing phase. The exchange of steel parts (crossing nose, half set of switches and check rails) plays a major role during op­
erations due to maintenance work and manufacturing of spare parts. Concerning manufacturing of railway turnout components, ODP
is only caused to a relevant level by the production of concrete sleepers. This is also in line with the results in the construction industry
in which concrete has been identified as the main contributor to ODP (Park et al., 2020). A comparison of EPDs for Austrian rail steel
and pre-fabricated concrete underpins this result, since concrete production results in 3.89E-7 kg CFC-11-eq. per tonne (Austrian
Concrete Association, 2015) whereas rail steel production results in 7.18E-9 kg CFC-11-eq. per tonne (voestalpine, 2019). Thus,
concrete production causes an ODP which is 54-times higher than for rail steel. This is mainly caused by the cement production process
(Austrian Concrete Association, 2015). In this study the effect is intensified as concrete represents 75% of the mass of a turnout,
followed by 24% of various steel grades and metals. For concrete sleepers without USP only 1% relate to plastics. This proportion
doubles when including USP, since under sleeper pads amount to 1% of turnout masses. Regarding track construction and mainte­
nance, ODP is almost exclusively derived from the production of track work machinery. In total, the contribution of ODP within the
construction sector is minimal, main source of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and CFC substitutes are plastic foams (32%), solvents

Fig. 5. Relation of manufacturing, construction, and operation within mid-point categories acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential
(EP), global warming potential (GWP), ozone depletion potential (ODP) and photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP).

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M. Landgraf et al. Transportation Research Part D 103 (2022) 103168

(21%), car air conditioning (20%), other refrigeration (17%), medical sterilants (7%) and aerosols (3%) (Diaz, 2013).
Fig. 5 clusters the selected impact categories into stages within the LC as listed in Table 2. The manufacturing process in general
causes an average of 47% within the selected impact categories. Maintenance represents the material manufacturing and exchange
(half set of switches and check rails, crossing nose and rail pads) as well as maintenance work including tamping, grinding, ballast
cleaning, overlay and repair welding. This results in an average of 43%. Construction shows the smallest impact with an average of
10%. Again, ODP deviates in its structure from the other impact categories showing a smaller proportion of component manufacturing.
ODP in construction and operation is almost exclusively caused by production of track work machinery.
Maintenance for open track accounts for approx. 5% of environmental impacts, depending on the underlying boundary conditions
(Landgraf and Horvath, 2021). This figure is higher for turnouts because there is a higher demand of component exchange during the
service life (Table 3). The components to be exchanged are mainly steel parts, which means that materials and their underlying
manufacturing processes cause the main impacts in maintenance.

3.2. Associated costs of environmental impacts

Based on the environmental impacts for the selected mid-point categories, the according environmental costs can be calculated
using cost-factors according to Table 4. The quantity of environmental pricing factors for the specific mid-point categories varies
between 11 (AP, EP, ODP and POCP) and 16 (GWP). Fig. 6 depicts the relation of environmental costs for turnouts with concrete
sleepers and under sleeper pads (USP). 100% relates to the environmental costs using the median values of environmental pricing
factors for the specific impact category. The deviation is based on the first and third quartile of environmental pricing factors. GWP
shows by far the smallest deviation, although GWP has the highest number of underlying environmental pricing schemes. This is an
indication that environmental pricing schemes are the most advanced in terms of GWP. AP shows the highest deviation with a range
from 19% to 358%. On average, the results deviate from 36% to 260%. This highlights the need to harmonize environmental pricing in
future.
The summation of environmental costs depicts the contribution of specific impact categories to the overall environmental impacts
of a turnout. One turnout is equipped with under sleeper pads, the other is not. The specific boundary conditions for the assessed
turnouts can be found in Table 3. The results in Fig. 7 show that for both, scenario EC_25% (25%-quantile of environmental pricing
schemes for impact categories according to Table 4) and scenario EC_75% turnouts with USP have the lowest environmental costs in
Euros per turnout and year. This is because the pads underneath the sleepers significantly improve the interaction between sleeper and
ballast. This leads to a decrease in ballast and sleeper degradation and consequently to higher service lives and lower maintenance
demands (Berghold, 2016; Gräbe et al., 2016; Neuhold and Landgraf, 2018). The annual environmental costs are thus lower with the
use of USP. This is because the additional environmental impacts in the manufacturing process for this plastic layer are compensated by
the effects. This result is conform with an analysis of the carbon footprint of sleeper types in the United Kingdom (Rempelos et al.,
2020) stating that the use of USP may achieve additional economic and environmental savings comparing to concrete sleepers. Also, at
high traffic loads, the concrete sleepers show lower lifecycle CO2eq. emissions than hardwood, softwood, and steel.
Both evaluation scenarios (EC_25% and EC_75%) show that GWP dominates with values ranging from 87% (EC_25%) to 97%
(EC_75%) of the environmental costs of turnouts. The second biggest contributor is AP with up to 9.6% of environmental costs. POCP
and EP show a maximum contribution of 1.6% and 2.2% respectively. The lowest contribution shows ODP with less than 0.0001%.
These relations can also be found in similar calculations for the building sector which is dominated by steel and concrete materials as
well. A monetary single-score valuation for the building industry shows a contribution of OPD lower than 0.000011% (Schneider-
Marin and Lang, 2020) for the maximum valuation of environmental pricing schemes. GWP contributes 92% to 94% to the overall EC.

Fig. 6. Relation of environmental costs for selected mid-point categories for turnouts witch concrete sleepers and under sleeper pads (USP).

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M. Landgraf et al. Transportation Research Part D 103 (2022) 103168

Fig. 7. Environmental costs of turnout with concrete sleepers with and without under sleeper pads (USP). The underlying environmental cost
factors used represent the 25% and 75% quantile of environmental pricing schemes.

AP shows the second highest contribution with a value between 4% and 6%. This is also underlined by a study on external costs in the
building sector stating that CO2 shows by far the greatest contribution to environmental costs (Adensam et al., 2002).

4. Discussion

This research shows that LCA of components is possible by using a bottom-up approach with specific input data rather than as­
sumptions and mean values. This allows for understanding all upstream and downstream processes which is the foundation for an
expression of environmental impacts in terms of monetary units. The calculation of environmental costs has potential for application in
the railway industry. It enables to consider several environmental indicators in one single value. This will help to communicate the
ecological quality of projects to clients and stakeholders. Monetary units are easily understood and thus offer the opportunity to
include environmental aspects into decision-making processes. Alternative solutions become comparable and can be included in cost-
benefit analyses by evaluating ecological aspects.
This evaluation methodology, however, identifies possible uncertainties at this point. From a technical point of view, the main
influencing parameter is the service life of the evaluated assets. To compare turnouts with different boundary conditions and com­
ponents, we must relate the results to annual environmental costs (EC) for reasons of comparability. The underlying service life plays a
vital role in any analysis (Landgraf and Horvath, 2021). The present study deals with expected service lives of turnouts under specific
boundary conditions (Table 3). The service life is estimated in a robust manner based on validated real-life data of turnouts in the
Austrian network rather than exploiting assumptions or mean values as most studies before. However, the underlying methodology
includes the assumption that optimum maintenance is always being carried out. This is valid on a system level but can differ for
turnouts on the element level. Too few maintenance actions will shorten service life as increased degradation of single components
leads to system failure. Too much maintenance may prolong service life but leads to uneconomical management of the asset as the
increasing impact of maintenance costs is no longer counterbalanced by decreasing costs of annuity (Neuhold et al., 2020). The same
effects can be seen for ecological aspects. Specific maintenance actions can play a major role in the assessment of environmental
impacts (Fig. 4). Thus, they should only be executed when needed to prolong the service life of the whole turnout. This significantly
highlights the importance of efficient and predictive maintenance strategies (D’Ariano et al., 2019; Fellinger et al., 2020b; Sasidharan
et al., 2020; Yan and Corman, 2020). Moreover, the probability of failure which may lead to disruptive change of maintenance demand
and/ or service life of single turnouts is not considered. This is in any case a feasible area for future research.
From an ecological standpoint, deviations in the LCA are caused by emission factors used for calculating environmental impacts of
processes, masses, and materials. In this study, we focus on publicly available and validated data such as EPDs, publications as well as
licensed data bases (Thinkstep database, 2021) to fill the gaps of publicly available data. Emission factors in licensed data bases vary
due to regional aspects, the age of the data as well as the underlying processes or cut-off criteria (Olugbenga et al., 2019). Publicly
available data such as EPDs also show uncertainties, a fact which has been intensively analysed for the European building sector
(Passer et al., 2015). It was found that there is a strong need for harmonisation in the areas of impact categories and assessment models,
system boundaries and service life of products and buildings, the definition of scenarios, allocation rules, end-of-life approach, and
data quality requirements.
From an economical point of view, the main influencing parameters are the underlying environmental pricing factors. In this study,
we analysed 11 (AP, EP, ODP, POCP) to 16 (GWP) environmental pricing schemes for the specific impact categories (Table 4). In
average, the first and third quartile deviate 36% and 260% from the median value, respectively. This underlines the need for
harmonization of environmental pricing schemes to include this methodology in the decision-making processes for a broad field of
application. GWP shows the highest number of environmental pricing schemes as well as the lowest deviation (56%, 135%). The
robustness for this impact category is far higher than that of the others. At the same time, GWP contributes 87% to 97% of envi­
ronmental costs for the evaluated turnouts which reduces uncertainty of the calculation significantly. The second highest proportion

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M. Landgraf et al. Transportation Research Part D 103 (2022) 103168

with up to 9.6% is caused by AP, showing the highest deviation in environmental pricing factors (19%, 358%). Thus, AP as the impact
category with the highest uncertainty could become decisive if values of GWP (highest contribution within railway infrastructure)
were in close proximity to each other. However, this is not the case for the evaluated turnouts in this study (Fig. 7).

5. Conclusion

This paper presents an assessment of environmental impacts of railway turnouts using life cycle assessment considering all up­
stream and downstream processes. Real-life input data is used when considering all components of the value chain, service life and
maintenance demands. Environmental costs are calculated using a single-score evaluation based environmental pricing. As a foun­
dation for that, numerous monetary valuation models are analysed for their use within railway infrastructure assessment. The main
findings show that turnouts equipped with under sleeper pads result in lower annual environmental costs (EC) of €429 than turnouts
with conventional concrete sleepers (€495). Of the assessed impact categories, global warming potential (GWP) is responsible for the
vast majority of EC with values ranging from 87% to 97%. The manufacturing process in general causes an average of 47% within the
selected impact categories. Maintenance represents the material manufacturing and exchange as well as maintenance work including
tamping, grinding, ballast cleaning, overlay and repair welding. This results in an average of 43%. Construction shows the smallest
impact with an average of 10%.
Main potentials for mitigation of environmental impacts can be identified in steel production, circular economy, use of alternative
fuels for heavy maintenance machinery and transports as well as prolongation of service life components and materials. An example for
the latter could be shown in this study as under sleeper pads (USP) can prolong service life and decrease maintenance demands, leading
to lower annual environmental costs. Steel parts of the evaluated turnouts amount up to 66% of environmental impacts. Consequently,
mitigation in steel production is one major potential. Production with basic oxygen furnace (BOF) process, as executed in Austria, has
lower potential of reusing ferrous scrap within the production process (circular economy) than the electric arc furnace (EAF) process.
Also, EAF uses electrical energy for the melting process. A study of polish steel production sites (Burchart-Korol, 2013) concludes that
EAF steel requires only 23% of the energy of BOF steel. However, EAF strongly rely on the energy mix in the region to effectively
mitigate environmental impacts of steel production.
Embracing the principles of circular economy in the railway system can also make an essential contribution to the mitigation of
environmental impacts. Several studies (Delgado et al., 2019; Esmaeili et al., 2017; Qasrawi, 2014) show that processed steel slag
could be used for railway ballast. This would decrease the amount of disposal within the steel production and decrease the amount of
natural ballast needed. Also, the installation of composite sleepers out of recycled materials (Ferdous et al., 2015) would strongly
contribute to the use of secondary raw materials within the railway system.
A major point for future research is also the harmonization of environmental pricing schemes. As we could show, there are sig­
nificant deviations within the costs associated to environmental impacts. A harmonization and regulation of environmental pricing
schemes would be a major step to consistent evaluations based on single-score values. This enables for including EC of products and
services within procurement processes to identify the most economically advantageous tender (Kromer et al., 2021). Quantification
and inclusion of environmental impacts within the procurement process may convince contractors and manufactures to invest in
environmental efficient production processes and services.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The Institute of Railway Engineering and Transport Economy of Graz University of Technology operates a data warehouse with
validated data from Austrian Federal Railways which served as viable input for the published research.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2021.103168.

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