Titolo della tesi: POTENTIAL OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE SUSTAINABILITY OF URBAN RAILWAY SYSTEMS
Due to the significance of sustainability in the development of the cities, there is a crucial need to pay attention to thoroughly and investigate the role of energy consumption in the transportation system. Therefore, this research intends to define methods explicitly aimed at sustainable urban railway systems. The targeted parts of the urban railway system in the present thesis are the tramway, light rail, rapid rail and regional rail. The analysis of the railway system can promote ways to overcome the causes of the current problems by fossil fuel consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions. Above all, this research aims to determine the potential opportunities offered by the cities and systems for reducing energy consumption. In this thesis, the energy consumption analyses, and sustainable measures involve diesel and electric powered systems. Therefore, a closer look at projects in Rome, Berlin, Florence, and Leeuwarden/Groningen is highlighted that some methods and opportunities bring significant benefits to urban rail energy efficiency. In particular, the thesis begins with an overview of the theme and its background concerning framing the scientific problem. Within this framework, the goal of the research was to define a plan to determine a method, classify opportunities and define solutions based on the data provided by four projects. In addition, this section indicates the research question and methodology. Accordingly, it is proceeded in chapter 2 by describing the various energy calculation approaches in the urban railways and their evaluations to identify the best course of action. Sustainable solutions for the electric urban railway are presented in chapter 3, the studied project is the tramway of Florence. Sustainable solutions for non-electrified regional railways to an optimised combination of energy storage systems for diesel-electric multiple unit trains and charging possibility in stations is investigated in chapter 4. The study was executed on the Leeuwarden/Groningen line. Chapter 5 includes an energy efficiency assessment of the urban freight transport using tramways in the case of Berlin's freight tram of the KoMoDo joint micro depot. The result of the work including strategies, guidelines and operational indications represent the conclusions in the final chapter of this thesis.