GB-London: T1186 Clear Rail Emissions and Air Quality Mapping

RSSB has established an Air Quality Steering Group comprising of members from across the rail industry and is in the process of developing a Rail Air Quality Strategy. The strategy will be launched in Spring 2020 and will be underpinned by the Clean Air Research Programme (CLEAR).

CLEAR was developed by RSSB, in liaison with the Air Quality Steering Group. The programme directly supports the development, delivery and implementation of the Rail Air Quality Strategy; and supports government initiatives such as the Clean Air Strategy 2019.

CLEAR incorporates the following workstreams:

CLEAR will incorporate robust research to measure air quality on the rail network and gain a better understanding of rail's contribution to pollution levels in Air Quality Management Areas, Clean Air Zones and other sensitive areas. As well as informing the development of the Rail Air Quality Strategy, this research will also support the industry in establishing a 'baseline' from which improvement measures can be implemented and evaluated against.

Knowledge of rail's impact on air quality at a local level is limited. Although rail's contribution to total emissions at a national level is relatively low (~4% of total NOx emissions and ~1% of PM emissions), it is unclear how this figure changes at a local level. The rail industry is keen to improve its knowledge of emissions at a local level in order to target improvement measures where these may be required.

This project will be partly informed from the findings of 'CLEAR: Fleet wide assessment of rail emissions factors' (T1187) which will be developing in the same timescales an updated and improved resolution emissions factors for the GB diesel and passenger rail fleet.

Additional information: The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement.