Global leaders, governments, regional and local authorities, companies and organisations discuss, analyse, adopt and then implement measures and projects with a positive impact on the economy, the environment and the society, prosperity being one of the greatest objectives of each of these players.
It is not easy to draft and then provide solutions, services and products to ensure the prosperity of a planet inhabited by 7.6 billion people, expected to increase by another billion to 8.6 billion until 2030. People are at the core of sustainable mobility, a process which, in turn, should frame within economic, social and technological standards based on criteria of harmonisation and harmony with everything that surrounds us.
In all this turmoil, every sector with implications in our lives tries to approach problems and challenges and leave its footprint in building a society that relies on strong sustainability principles, capable to choose in their favour and of those around them. When making a choice, it is important to think about future consequences, instead of just accepting ephemeral solutions.
Financial and social inclusion, industrial development, the increasing production capacity, access to services and infrastructures aimed to facilitate our activities, briefly, the whole process of transformation of our society, all these are influenced by transport, passenger and freight mobility, with impact on the economy, the environment etc. However, so far, the sector has begun to develop, but towards a less sustainable direction with statistics acknowledging that it is responsible for a quarter of the energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and these numbers are expected to increase if measures are not adopted. Even more, since governments agreed through the Paris Agreement to keep the global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius and to continue to focus its limitation to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The primordial solution consists in creating a low-emission mobility which is essential for social, economic and environmental transformation. Both in theory and in practice, this single alternative becomes difficult to implement, the challenges, as well as the opportunities being significant.
In this context, railway transport has a major contribution compared to other transport modes. After establishing above the “responsibility” of the whole transport system to GHG emissions, it is worth mentioning that, for the environment, in 2015, the sector represented only 4% of global CO2 emissions and 1.9% of the final energy demand (according to UIC IEA Railway Handbook). Although it accounts for a small share of emissions, railway transport reinvents itself constantly reaching the zero-emissions target through innovation and continuous development.
As global policies rely on principles of sustainable growth, railway transport has the biggest advantage of becoming the backbone of the transport system due to its investment in sustainability and innovation. The railway industry advances at a fast pace towards a transport system of the future…and we are even closer than we think.
Innovation and new technologies lead to a digital society where everything becomes possible and railway transport contributes to making things possible. Digitalisation becomes the “trigger” of the entire railway transport system and contributes to reducing emissions, saving time, developing a smart transport system with different connections and alternatives, creating a multimodal chain with easy access and new business models.
Thus, digitalisation becomes the fundamental element of the transformation of the transport industry, especially of the railway industry, which is ready to showcase its latest achievements and extraordinary alternatives to influence our choices.
The railway industry wants to prove to us the power of change in the environment we live in and comes with new projects, innovations, products and solutions at the most important transport technology fair – InnoTrans – whose previous edition gathered over 2,900 exhibitors from 60 countries.
The world’s transport technology premieres await us this year too in Berlin!
See you at InnoTrans 2018!
Editorial by:
Pamela Luica
Chief Editor
Railway PRO
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