Space weather climate impacts on railway infrastructure

Space weather is a phenomenon in which radioactivity and atomic particles is caused by emission from the Sun and stars. It is one of the extreme climate events that could potentially has short-term and long-term impacts on infrastructure. The effects of this phenomenon are a multi-fold process that include electronic system, equipment and component failures, short-term and long-term hazards and consequences to astronauts and aircraft crews, electrostatic charge variation of satellites, disruptions in telecommunications systems, navigational systems, power transmission failures and disturbances to the rail traffic and power grids. The critical infrastructures are becoming interdependent to each other and these infrastructures are vulnerable if one of them is affected due to space weather. Railway infrastructure could be affected by the extreme space weather events and long-term evolution due to direct and indirect effects on system components, such as track circuits, electronic components in-built in signalling systems or indirectly via interdependencies on power, communications, etc. While several space weather-related studies focus on power grids, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and aviation sectors, a little attention has focused towards probability of railway infrastructure disruptions. Nevertheless, disruptions due to space weather on signalling and train control systems has documented but other systems that railway infrastructure dependent upon are not very well studied. Due to the advancements in digitalization, cloud storage, Internet of Things (IoT), etc., that are embedded with electronic equipment are also possible to prone to these effects and it is even become more susceptible to the extreme space weather events. This paper gives a review of space weather effects on railways and other transportation systems and provide some of the mitigation measures to the infrastructure and societal point of view.