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For Australia to achieve net zero by 2050, there is an urgent need for a national rollingstock decarbonisation strategy to decarbonise the rail sector. We collaborated with the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) to develop a critical pathway for stakeholders to follow that would accelerate rollingstock decarbonisation efforts.
The decarbonisation of Australia’s rollingstock supply chain is a matter of great urgency. About half of the country’s rollingstock are due to be replaced in the next 8 to 13 years, and the replacement rollingstock are expected to be in use well beyond 2050. The next generation of rollingstock will need to harness low and zero emissions technologies for the rail industry to keep in step with the country’s goal of achieving net zero by 2050.
We were engaged by the ARA to develop a rollingstock decarbonisation pathway that outlines how the rail industry will phase out its use of diesel-powered rollingstock. The project aimed to identify the requirements, timeframes and collaboration opportunities between industry and government to accelerate progress towards rail decarbonisation.
We approached the project with a whole-systems outlook and worked closely with the ARA, its working groups and government stakeholders to co-create a holistic, collaborative strategy. This strategy involved three stages: desktop analysis and discussion paper preparation, workshops and stakeholder engagement, and critical path report preparation and publication.
We used information from published studies to estimate the number of diesel-powered locomotives currently in operation. This helped establish the scale of decarbonisation efforts.
We collated data on rollingstock decarbonisation trials and technologies and conducted an initial assessment of the likely suitability of technologies, including:
These potential technology solutions have implications for policies and regulatory frameworks, financing mechanisms, supporting infrastructure, labour skills development and supply chain capabilities that would need to be addressed.
We identified significant opportunities and challenges the rail industry may face and considered learnings from overseas rollingstock decarbonisation strategies.
These findings were then synthesised in a discussion paper to support workshops with ARA working groups and engagement with key stakeholders.
Our collaboration with the ARA led to ‘The critical path to decarbonise Australia’s rail rollingstock’ report, presenting a clear and comprehensive understanding of the priority actions and challenges that need to be addressed over the next five years. It provides direction for all stakeholders to support rail decarbonisation and Australia’s transition to net zero.
The report identified a range of challenges for stakeholders to overcome, including:
The report recommends eight critical path priorities to overcome these challenges and accelerate rollingstock decarbonisation.
With a critical pathway outlined, both government and industry can move forward together with confidence to boost the decarbonisation of Australia’s rollingstock supply chain and help meet the country’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050.