Managing the end-of-life of railway vehicles for resource recovery

The railways transport has to be further implemented in the medium and long term to reduce traffic on the road and greenhouse gases emissions. The aim of the paper was the analysis of the end-of-life (EOL) of rolling stock and the evaluation of its management taking into account the sustainable use of resources and the reduction of waste. Considering that, at present, the EOL of this sector has been not much investigated, this case study was an attempt to show as the information regarding the flows on the material composition of railway vehicles and the material basis of the EOL are helpful for decision makers to carry out profitable, as well as, sustainable strategies of EOL in the medium and long term. In this way, the case study allowed to verify the feasibility of a practically application of the industrial ecology theory and the closed loop concepts.