Figure 10: KTMB train derailed due to rail buckling and had landed on its side, trapping
the driver and injuring about five passengers just before the Kempas, Johor station
southern part of Malaysia46.
of Science, Technology and Innovation and
several universities. However, there were only
a few studies on the threat of climate change to
infrastructure particularly in the railway industry.
Research conducted by universities in Malaysia
centred on the climate change impact on
agriculture.
The Climate Change Act 2008 is an Act of
the Parliament in the United Kingdom by which
statutory authorities, such as Network Rail,
are required to comply with formal reporting
requirements in respect of climate change
adaptation. According to Lane and Dora14, in order
to undertake the required reporting process, it is
firstly necessary to identify the key activities that
are required, to develop a reliable method for the
prediction of climate change impact as shown in
Table 1.
In this case, Malaysia HSR could adopt this
planning process and perhaps this policy can
be the guidance to the other rail operators such
as KTM and Rapid KL. The assessment on the
risks and consequences of the critical weather
events to HSR Malaysia and possible adaptation
measures is thus shown in Table 2.
Concluding Remarks
The Paris Agreement in late 2015 strengthens the
collaborative work on global warming reduction. As
climate change is real and unequivocal, Malaysia
is required to assess the risks of climate change
especially to railway operation. There is a lack of
studies on the effects of climate change to the
Malaysian railway operation and as well to railway
infrastructures. Now that Malaysia is planning
to build a new HSR, mitigation and adaption
measures to the risk of climate change are a must
to ensure that we can achieve and deliver:
●●
A safe railway
●●
A highly reliable railway
●●
Increased capacity
●●
Value for money
●●
A predict and prevent ethos
Such measures can be integrated into the
design and preparation stages so that the
infrastructure resilience is built in, improving
public safety and reliability.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to Malaysia Land Public
Transport Commission (SPAD) for the information
and the financial support throughout this study.
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