November 2018                                         
                                                                 Issue 4  
      


 
Project Coordina tor
Paul Doherty
 
Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions Ltd (GDG)
 
Project  Partners

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
Horizon 2020 project
    
SAFE-10-T has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 723254.
  
 

The SAFE-10-T project has completed 18 months of research activities and is now midway through the project. The following sections provide a summary of the research activities undertaken in each of the main Work Packages.

Work Package 1 - Monitoring and Modelling
Work Package (WP1) is focused on the development of advanced safety assessment models for transport infrastructure assets. The project is developing probabilistic methods of safety analysis for bridges, tunnels and earthworks, and is exploring novel machine learning applications for real-time condition monitoring of these assets. For bridges, a large proportion of the research activities have been completed and a summary of probabilistic system-based bridge analysis methodologies will be provided in D1.4 Report on Advanced Safety Model for Bridges, which will be published in the coming months. This WP has also explored methods of resilience assessment for transport networks, which is summarised in D1.1 Probabilistic Consideration Resilience.

Work Package 2 - Network Analysis
The activities undertaken in WP2 to date have focused on determining current and future demand for road, rail and inland waterway transport along the TEN-T network. D2.1 Report on User Demand Analysis has been produced, which reviews existing transport demand studies and describes a methodology to evaluate current and future user demand for transport services. A series of online surveys have been developed for the purposes of data collection, which will be made available on the project website and social media profiles. Additionally, a series of dedicated stakeholder meetings are being organised to gather data in relation to transport demand and user requirements.Significant progress has also been made in this WP in relation to the development of a European-scale, multi-modal traffic analysis simulation model. 
Work Package 3 - Global Safety Framework
WP3 is focused on the development of the Decision Support Tool (DST) that will be underpinned by a global safety framework and which will support decision making regarding the management of transport infrastructure along the European TEN-T network. These decisions primarily relate to medium- to long-term interventions on road, rail and inland waterway transport infrastructure, to increase safety and to maximise network capacity.
Work Package 4 - Demonstration Projects
WP4 is applying the methodologies and tools developed in the SAFE-10-T project to three demo sites as follows:
          1.Port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands
The port of Rotterdam is one of the busiest in the world, which supports the transportation of goods via rail, road and inland waterways throughout Europe. SAFE-10-T will examine the impact of disruption to the port due to the failure of a critical bridge that provides an important transport link from the Maasvlakte, where the majority of containers are stored, to the mainland.
The project will conduct a safety assessment of this critical bridge and will determine the impacts on multi-modal freight transport along the European TEN-T network due to a potential failure. Future scenarios will be considered in terms of economic growth and associated traffic increases.


          2. Port of Rijeka, Croatia
The port of Rijeka is located on the Kvarner Gulf in the northern Adriatic Sea. There is an ongoing redevelopment project to improve the transport connection from the port with the international road and rail corridors in Croatia. The Brajdica tunnel provides an important rail connection that links the port to the TEN-T Mediterranean corridor, and is currently undergoing redevelopment to support increased traffic capacity.
The project will demonstrate the short- and long-term benefits of installing a structural monitoring system for the Brajdica tunnel to support optimised maintenance planning through the integration of a whole life-cycle cost assessment model. The impact of various tunnel failure modes will be considered in terms of the multi-modal traffic flow, particularly on passengers who use this route during holiday season and freight transport across Europe. 
Maintenance  strategies will be considered from the perspective of economic and societal costs. 



 
          3.Severn River Crossing, United Kingdom
The Severn Crossing provides an important transport link between south-west England and the south of Wales under the estuary of the River Severn, which supports significant traffic flow, particularly daily commuters. The rail connection consists of a brick-lined tunnel that was constructed in the 19th century. The tunnel suffers from the ingress of water and significantly relies upon a pumping station. Furthermore, the tunnel lining is prone to loose bricks and requires substantial condition assessment monitoring to be routinely conducted.
The project will explore the potential use of an automated condition survey method based upon image recognition algorithms, as opposed to the more traditional labour intensive visual surveys. The DST developed in the project will be used to quantify the impact of a potential tunnel failure in terms of the multi-modal traffic flow in this region, and to determine optimised maintenance strategy planning.


Summary of Dissemination Activities

The SAFE-10-T project has conducted various dissemination activities during the first 18 months of the project to maximise the impact, including a stakeholder workshop, as well as engagement with infrastructure managers and owners. The target audience of the project includes road, rail and inland waterway infrastructure managers and owners, industry professionals, policy makers, researchers, standards bodies, as well as transport users.
A series of presentations have been given by the project participants at selected industry and research conferences to generate interest in the project, as follows:
Transport Research Arena conference in Vienna;
  • TEN-T Days 2018 in Ljubljana;
  • Civil Engineering Research in Ireland Conference 2018 in Dublin (see Figure 1);
  • 6th International Symposium on Life-Cycle Civil Engineering conference in Ghent;
  • 5th International Conference on Road and Rail Infrastructure in Zadar.
Research outputs from the project have been disseminated through the FEHRL Infrastructure Research Magazine (Issues: 10, 11 ,12) that is published every six months, as well as through the publications in various journals and conferences. An overview of publications is shown below:
  • Probability Based Resilience Assessment of Infrastructure. Civil Engineering Research in Ireland Conference 2018 (CERI2018), 29th and 30th of August, Dublin.
  • Probabilistic Resilience of Infrastructure. The Sixth International Symposium on Life-Cycle Civil Engineering (IALCCE 2018) conference, 28-31st October 2018, Ghent, Belgium.
  • Transport Network Risk Analyses. Civil Engineering Research in Ireland Conference 2018 (CERI2018), 29th and 30th of August, Dublin.
  • Railway Bridge Self-Assessment Using Real-Time Loading Data. Civil Engineering Research in Ireland Conference 2018 (CERI2018), 29th and 30th of August, Dublin.
  • Application of Monitoring Data to Risk Assessment of Bridges. Civil Engineering Research in Ireland Conference 2018 (CERI2018), 29th and 30th of August, Dublin.
  • SAFE-10-T: Safety of transport infrastructure on the TEN-T network. 5th International Conference on Road and Rail Infrastructure (CETRA 2018) 17 - 19th May 2018, Zadar, Croatia.


Civil Engineering Research in Ireland Conference 2018


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For more information see www.safe10tproject.eu or contact Project Coordinator Paul Doherty, Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions Ltd. at pdoherty@gdgeo.com