Prospects for improving the environmental sustainability of the rail transport sector are picking up speed with the availability of open-source software developed to advance deep decarbonization. The Advanced Locomotive Technology and Rail Infrastructure Optimization System (ALTRIOS), publicly available for download, aims to help freight rail operators transition to clean locomotive technologies and support the economical evolution of associated clean-energy infrastructure.

ALTRIOS was designed by researchers from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, BNSF Railway, the U.S. Southwest Research Institute, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas at Austin to produce and analyze realistic deployment scenarios for both battery-electric and conventional Tier 4 diesel-electric trains. The program simulates real-world rail network operations over a timeframe of decades to enable evaluation of energy supply technologies that support both decarbonization and operational cost goals.

An initial deployment of the platform demonstrated that adding battery-electric locomotives on a BNSF taconite-hauling route could reduce the railway’s greenhouse gas emissions. The software is now being applied to a freight decarbonization project launched to develop autonomous, battery-electric, platooned rail vehicles with flexible routes with the goal of potentially shifting freight from trucks to rail. Increased reliance on this more efficient transport mode is expected to contribute to significant emission reductions.

An additional application of ALTRIOS lies in engineering new cost-effective and decarbonized passenger rail projects and addressing equity and environmental justice concerns, such as air quality in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods near freight hubs.