The SustainAbility of Stations – M. Loonen
The Sustainable Stations Scan is an assessment tool which measures the sustainability of a railway station. It was developed for NS and ProRail, the two largest companies in the Dutch Railway sector. The tool gives a quick yet extensive overview of a station but currently it is too multi-interpretable and therefore the reliability can be questioned. This is because, questions are ambiguous so assessors are too much able to include their own insights. The questions in relation to ‘energy’, ‘environment’ and ‘health’ are usually completed uniformly. The items related to ‘quality of use’ and ‘future value’ show more variation in scoring. Improvements for the tool should be made for (a) the tool itself, (b) the process and (c) the manual. These improvements will significantly enhance the tool whilst keeping it user friendly and straightforward.
