‘The Case for Extending CReDo to transport’

Summary

Climate change is causing increasingly severe and frequent weather events that the UK’s infrastructure is not prepared for. Storms, floods, heatwaves, and other extremes disrupt essential services like power, water, and transportation, often creating a domino effect across sectors.

The Climate Resilient Demonstrator (CReDo), led by Connected Places Catapult, is developing a digital twin of interconnected infrastructure to model the cascading risks of climate-related failures. By simulating the impact of floods and heat on energy, water, and telecoms networks, CReDo helps operators optimise resilience investments, ensuring service continuity at minimal cost.

CReDo now aims to expand into the transport sector, addressing the vital role of road and rail infrastructure in maintaining societal and economic stability during climate disruptions.

This document makes the case for transport as the next sector to be connected into CReDo. What follows is an exploration of the economic, environmental, and societal impacts to Road and Rail. It is an extension of the Strategic Outline Case for CReDo published in 2023 and highlights the critical dependencies between the transport and wider infrastructure sectors.