high speed rail revolution

The High Speed Rail Revolution: History and Prospects

Terry Gourvish

T h e h i g h S p e e d R a i l R e v o l u T i o n : H i s t o ry a n d P r o s P e c t s

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1. Introduction: Railways and the High Speed Revolution

High-Speed Railways (HSRs) have been one of the most innovative elements affecting passenger transport since the Second World War. At the same time, HSRs are expensive to construct, represent a considerable sunk cost in the transport infrastructure, and produce economic and social effects which are difficult to predict. It is therefore important to be aware of existing research on the impact which new lines have had on the economy, on transport and employment patterns, regional economies and so on. In this report we review the development of the world’s HSR network, survey the lines which are under construction or in the planning stage, and summarise the literature which has examined the impact of this technology.1

First of all, we should note that there has been considerable diversity in railway infrastructure, trains, average and maximum train speeds, and the type of service provided. In particular, a distinction must be made between the maximum or top speed of a given train technology, often attained on a special run or on a test track, and the average speed of regular public services. Service requirements clearly impose a considerable restraint on the possibilities offered by new railway technologies, since the competitive attraction of faster railways does not lie purely in their speed, but also in their capacity, frequency, reliability and comfort. These characteristics have a special attraction in developed economies where good transport provision is required to link cities located in densely populated, congested, conurbations. The attractions multiply where land is relatively scarce and expensive, and where environmental benefits may be calculated in comparison with alternative modes, chiefly air and road transport. In these conditions, journeys of up to 800 kilometres and up to four hours are generally considered to be competitive with road and air.2

‘High speed’ is a relative concept, of course, and has changed radically over time. Since the birth of the railway age in the 1830s, when 30mph or 50kph was considered ‘fast’, rail speeds have increased dramatically. As early as 1845 Britain’s Great Western Railway, built to Brunel’s broad track gauge (7 foot or 2140mm), introduced the fastest rail service in the world with its London to Exeter expresses, which averaged 70kph. Later in the decade its ‘Flying Dutchman’ train covered the 53 miles from Paddington to Didcot at an average speed of 90kph. At the turn of the 20th century both British and American operators claimed top speeds of 160kph on their systems,3 and competitive pressures induced companies to reduce the journey times of passenger services. In Britain the Great Western introduced the first scheduled service at c.110kph (70mph) in the late

1 For a general introduction to HSRs see, inter alia, Strohl (1993); Givoni (2006); Campos and de Rus (2009); Hall (2009); and Preston (2009).2 Cf. JORSA (2008); SNCF (2009).3 These runs were unverified and have been disputed. The Great Western’s City of Truro claimed a top speed of 102.3mph or 165kph in 1904. In Germany

an electric train was run at 203-210kph in 1903 on a special test track. See Hughes (1988), pp.16, 189, Allen (1992), pp.7-12, 37, and also Simmons and Biddle (1997), p.465ff., and Hall (2009), 59.


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1920s: the ‘Cheltenham Spa Express’.4 In the inter-war years there were several runs with steam locomotives at average speeds in excess of 125kph and top speeds of 160kph, but the future clearly lay with diesel and electric traction. In the mid 1930s German and American diesel-powered streamliner trains set new standards of speed and comfort, notably the ‘Flying Hamburger’ of 1933, which ran between Berlin and Hamburg at an average speed of 125kph, and the ‘Burlington Zephyr’, which in 1934 covered the 1,633 kilometres from Denver to Chicago at the same speed (top speed: 181kph). In 1936 another Denver-Chicago Zephyr averaged 134kph. Other pre-war highlights include the apogee of steam traction, Mallard’s high speed run on Britain’s East Coast Main Line in 1938, when a speed of 203kph (126mph) was attained, and the Italian ETR200 electric trains of 1936, which served the Bologna-Rome-Naples route. In 1938-39 these trains not only matched Mallard’s 203kph in a demonstration run but produced average speeds of 165 and 176kph on the Florence-Bologna-Milan route.5

Pre-war speeds were increased by deploying improved locomotive technologies on the existing infrastructure. In the post-war period combinations of new trains and new railway lines were introduced. As Campos and Rus note, four types of HSR may be identified:

i. a complete separation from other rail services (e.g. the Japanese Shinkansen);

ii. a mixed high-speed system, in which trains run on both high-speed and upgraded conventional infrastructure (e.g. the French TGV: expensive duplication of infrastructure is avoided, especially at Paris termini, and when trains run onto existing parts of the network where a TGV may not be justifiable);

iii. a mixed conventional system, used in Spain, in which AVE trains are run at high speeds on new, standard gauge lines [4ft 81/2in or 1435mm], while others [ALVIA] run on both the new infrastructure and Spain’s older, non-standard gauge of 1668mm [c.5ft 6in], using the Talgo gauge-changing technology; and

iv. a fully mixed system (e.g. the German ICE trains, and Italy’s Rome-Florence line), in which both high-speed and conventional trains, including freight trains in Germany, can utilise the infrastructure provided.

In addition, there are systems based on the use of tilting trains, for example in Italy, Sweden, and on Britain’s West Coast Main Line, and the promise offered by the emerging MAGLEV (magnetic levitation) technology.6

4 In 1929 the ‘Cheltenham Flyer’ was timed to run from Swindon to London at 106kph and in 1932 at 115kph, with one run reaching 131kph: Allen (1992), p.16.

5 Directory (1965-6), pp.599-600; Hughes (1988), p.18; Allen (1992), pp.41, 47, 53.6 Campos and de Rus (2009), 21-2; Givoni (2006), 595-7.


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Clearly, there is a considerable degree of diversity. But however we choose to define a HSR, currently [autumn 2009] higher speed railways, viz. those providing for speeds of 200kph [125mph] and above, a common definition,7 have been established on at least 12,000 kilometres of route. Of these, a significant proportion [30 per cent] represents services which have been accelerated by means of new rolling stock on conventional lines, e.g. tilting trains, and/or by upgrading the existing infrastructure. If we limit the definition to lines providing for speeds of up to 250kph [155mph], most of which require a dedicated and largely segregated infrastructure, then the current HSR network extends to about 8,500 kilometres.8

The first of these new pieces of infrastructure was Japan’s Shinkansen, a new trunk line with a ‘bullet train’, introduced on a dedicated, standard-gauge infrastructure from Tokyo to Osaka in 1964. It was followed by an extension westwards to Kyushu and by lines east of Tokyo to Morioka and Niigata. In Europe the European Union encouraged the creation of a high-speed network in Europe in policy documents in the early 1990s, which culminated in the identification of Trans-European Networks (TENs) in 1992, and then in its Directive 96/48 of 1996, part of a market-harmonising objective. However, practical support in the form of investment was comparatively modest until the 1990s.9 In fact, network planning on the whole reflected the national considerations of single countries, the notable exception being the PBKA network linking Paris, Brussels, Köln and Amsterdam, with London added after the construction of the Channel Tunnel. In Europe the pioneer was clearly France, which introduced its Train à Grande Vitesse or TGV on a new Paris-Lyon line in 1981, using the existing infrastructure (formation classique) for the approaches to main stations. By 1983 it was providing a two-hour service for the 430 kilometre journey. Later, in both Japan and France, attention turned from adding capacity on the most heavily used transport arteries to the establishment of improved links between more remote regions of the country and the metropolitan centre.10 In other countries, the initial emphasis was on optimising the existing infrastructure, especially where networks and conurbations were denser. Thus, in Britain the first high speed rail services, running at up to 125mph or 200kph, were provided by diesel-powered High Speed Trains or HSTs, introduced in 1976. A more adventurous tilting train, the Advanced Passenger Train or APT, made a record-breaking run of 261kph in 1979 but was abandoned in the mid 1980s, only for this technology to be subsequently developed for service by Sweden, with its X2000, and by Italy, with the Pendolino. France’s lead was followed by three countries in particular: Italy, Germany and Spain, though their approaches differed.

7 Adopted by the EU in EC Directive 96/48 of 1996, which defined three types of HSR: lines specially built for speeds of 250kph+; specially upgraded conventional lines for 200kph+; and upgraded conventional lines with special speed constraints. Cf. Givoni (2006), 594, and Nash (2009).

8 UIC database, July 2009, supplemented by the addition of main British 200kph+ lines. The UIC data omit several sections of conventional infrastructure which have been upgraded for 200kph maximum speeds, e.g. in Portugal, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Cf. Campos and Rus (2009), 19, who suggest that the total HSR network of 200kph+ is around 20,000kms.

9 In 1993-2001 about h50bn was distributed in loans, subsidies and grants for the transport infrastructure as a whole: Stevens (2004), p.190.10 Vickerman (1997), 22; Gourvish (2006).


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In Italy, which had pre-war experience of high-speed running, engineering and other difficulties hindered development, and it took until 2008 before its primary Milan-Florence-Rome-Naples route was properly upgraded for modern conditions. In Germany, where the intention was to improve particularly slow sections of the existing network, and to accommodate freight as well as passenger traffic, progress was also slow before the 1990s, and the amount of new railway is still relatively modest. In Spain, which was a relative latecomer to HSRs due to its choice of broad gauge, the need to accommodate gauge variations was an important element in railway policy. However, investment in new standard-gauge lines became an imperative after Spain joined the European Union in 1986, and there has been a considerable investment in such lines since 2003. Indeed, over the last decade the pace of change has picked up sharply and several countries have emulated these pioneering developments. In Europe, Belgium and the Netherlands are building lines which will enhance the PBKAL Thalys services; Switzerland, Portugal, Sweden and Russia are also either constructing new HSRs or planning new routes. HSR services now account for around a quarter of passenger rail travel within the European Union.11 In Asia, Turkey, South Korea, Taiwan and China, and in the Americas the United States have introduced faster services. China, in particular, has taken the eye. After suffering a steep decline in its rail transport - the market-share of passenger traffic fell from 77 per cent in 1950 to six per cent in 200712 - it has opened 1,200 kilometres of HSR in the last two years and is currently constructing over 9,000 kilometres more.13 In established systems passenger capacity has also been increased with the introduction of duplex [double-deck] trains in Japan, from 1994, and in France from 1996.14

Table 1 indicates that over the period 1964-83 3,300 kilometres of high speed line were established, activity which was dominated by Japan’s Shinkansen, which made up more than half of the total. Next came Great Britain, with 28 per cent, but these services were improved with new trains rather than with new lines. In 1984-2009 there was a much higher rate of development, with 8,700 kilometres of new high speed services, more than half (4,750kms) being introduced in the last six years. Activity was divided among several countries, led by Spain with 18 per cent, France (17 per cent), Germany (15 per cent), and a newcomer, China (14 per cent, all of which was opened in 2008-09). Table 2 indicates that the high-speed network is set to more than double in only three years, to nearly 25,000 kilometres. Asia, having led the way with Japan in the 1960s, is now challenging Europe as the leading contributor of HSR technology. In the autumn of 2009 it represented 35 per cent of the total network. If the railways under construction are completed

11 Preston (2009), 13.12 Wang et al. (2009), 766.13 UIC data, mid-2009.14 JORSA (2008); www.transport.alsthom.com


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on schedule, this figure will rise to 57 per cent by 2012, when China’s contribution will be no less than 41 per cent. This said, we must introduce some caveats into our celebration of the progress of HSRs. Europe’s HSRs, which amounted to some 7,100 kilometres in the autumn of 2009, are less than four per cent of the rail network in the European Union.15 In many countries, the proportion of high speed trains is low in relation to the total provision of rail services. And in Britain, which has a relatively dense rail network, we should distinguish between the principal long-distance services, which have become faster, and shorter-distance, commuter services, which have changed little in terms of speed since the war.16 Furthermore, most HSR lines are currently operating services at well below the maximum permitted speed (Table 3). While at least nine countries are operating services at an average speed of 200kph and over, only two – France and Japan, the high speed pioneers, are offering services at average speeds in excess of 250kph.17

Table 1. High Speed Rail development, 1964-autumn 2009 (kms)

PeriodRoute Open kms

Countries:

Japan Britain France Italy Germany Spain China Other

1964-73 676 676 - - - - - - -

1974-83 2,639 1,128 942 419 150 - - - -

1984-93 1,459 31 - 412 98 447 471 - -

1994-2003 2,522 214 74 709 - 428 598 - 499

2004-09 4,754 127 684 332 496 410 530 1,194 981

Total 1964-83 3,315 1,804 54%

942 28%

419 13%

150 5% - - - -

Total 1984-2009 8,735 372 4%

1,130 13%

1,453 17%

594 7%

1,285 15%

1,599 18%

1,194 14%

1,480 17%

Total 1964-2009 12,050 2,176 18%

1,700 14%

1,872 16%

744 6%

1,285 11%

1,599 13%

1,194 10%

1,480 12%

See Appendix, Tables 1 and 2. Data to Autumn 2009.

Table 2. HSRs under construction, 2009-12 (kms)

Period China Spain Russia Turkey All

2009-12 9,031 1,634 650 510 12,686

Grand total in 2012 10,025 41%

3,233 13% 650 745 24,736

See Appendix, Table 3.

15 EU27, calculated from UIC and Preston (2009), 15.16 Leunig (2008/9), 20, and performance data by route, 1946-2008, from the author.17 Taylor (2009).


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Table 3. Scheduled services running at an average speed of 200kph and above, September 2009

Country No: of services Speed: range [kph] Highest speed: No: of services Speed

France 10 251-272 3 272

Japan 9 225-256 2 256

Taiwan 77 207-245 1 245

Belgium-France 55 229-236 1 236

Spain 29 202-236 2 236

China 119 202-236 107 236

Germany 39 200-226 15 226

Britain-France 24 213-219 10 219

Britain-Belgium 1 201 1 201

S. Korea 2 200 2 200

Source: Railway Gazette International (October 2009), 63-4.

2. Development of the high speed network

i. Japan’s Shinkansen

Japan has introduced an impressive, 2,000-kilometre network of high-speed, high-capacity railways by following a long-established and coherent system of planning. In 1964 the 515-kilometre Tokyo-Osaka line – the Tokaido Shinkansen - was opened to overcome severe capacity constraints with existing services in Japan’s major transport corridor.18 In many ways the concept was innovative: a new, segregated railway built to the standard 1435mm gauge [historically, Japanese railways had been built mainly to the narrow, 3ft 6in or 1067mm gauge]. Route segregation, together with the decision to operate exclusively the line for passenger traffic, optimised safety – no passengers have been killed in train accidents since the service began - and made possible the use of lighter, less crashworthy vehicles, which facilitated both high capacity (first with 12-car, then with 16-car trains) and higher speeds. In fact, the new railway was operated initially at what now seems a relatively leisurely maximum operating speed of 210kph - but in 1964 this was far ahead of other rail operators. The journey time from Tokyo to Osaka was cut from 61/2 hours to 4 hours in 1964 and 3 hours 10 minutes in 1965. By 1992 the journey took only 21/2 hours, by which time the maximum speed had been increased to 270kph. Construction costs were high – ¥380 billion, double the estimate.19 Engineered to provide a straight, flat route with 69 kilometres of tunnel and 173 kilometres of bridges and elevated sections,20 the project

18 Tokyo’s staging of the Olympic Games in 1964 provided a further impetus.19 Hood (2006), p.94.20 Hood (2006), p.92.


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was justified by the high population density of the Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka corridor (over 45 million people), and the problems for road transport presented by a narrow, mountainous, earthquake-prone archipelago. In fact, the Tokaido line was a phenomenal commercial success, and as early as its third year of operation its revenue exceeded its costs including interest and depreciation. Further Shinkansen building was undertaken, with government financial support, in accordance with a policy of geographically-balanced development, pursued via the National Development Plan of 1969 and the National Shinkansen Network Development Law of 1970.21 The policy, which envisaged some 7,200 kilometres of Shinkansen, continued despite the adjustments required by the oil crisis of 1973 and its aftermath; the financial difficulties of Japan National Railways (JNR), the state-owned railways, which prompted their quasi-privatisation on a regional basis in 1987; and Japan’s financial difficulties in the 1990s. West of Osaka, the San’yo line to Fukuoka, was opened in 1975. Operating at first at 210kph, train speeds were increased to 270kph in 1992 and 300kph by 2005. It serves Kobe, Hiroshima, Kokura and Hakata. East of Tokyo the Tohoku and the Joetsu Shinkansen opened to Morioka and Niigata in 1982. Here the maximum speed was soon 240kph, and it was increased to 275kph in 1990. In addition, high speed services received an important stimulus from investment in additional lines and/or upgrades which extended the range of existing services. Thus, the Tohoku and Joetsu Shinkansen trains, which had started at Omiya, 31 kilometres from central Tokyo, were brought into the capital, first to Ueno in 1985, then to Tokyo Central in 1991, though the maximum speed on these extensions was pegged at 110kph. And in the 1990s ‘Mini Shinkansen’ were introduced to extend the range of JR East’s Tohoku line, with the addition of a third rail to the narrow gauge, a mixed-gauge device echoing the action taken by Britain’s Great Western Railway in the mid 19th century. Operating at a maximum of 130kph, the Mini Shinkansen served Fukushima-Yamagata (87kms, 1992), Morioka-Akita (127kms, 1997) and Yamagata-Shinjo (62kms, 1999).22

Japan’s newer investments in high speed lines cost more per kilometre to construct and were less profitable than those of the 1960s and 1970. Returns were more elusive since the population density served was much lower than that of the Tokyo-Osaka corridor. Furthermore, costs were higher owing to formidable engineering challenges as well as the greater demands of environmentalists for noise reduction and improved segregation. The San’yo, for example, had 56 per cent of its 400 kilometre Okayama-Hakata section in tunnel, and most of the Tohoku and Joetsu Shinkansen were either elevated, bridged, or in tunnel.23 Developments in the far east of the country were inhibited by the escalating cost and severe delays in completing the 54-kilometre Seikan Tunnel. The Tunnel, which cost ¥1.1 billion and was 14 years late when completed, was opened to conventional trains in 1988, and proved as much a saga as the Channel Tunnel between

21 Steer Davies Gleave (2004); JORSA (2008).22 Strohl (1993), pp.55-68; Aoki (2000), pp.138-46; Perl (2002), pp.15-21; Hood (2006), p.18ff.; Smith (2003), 222-37.23 Allen (1992), pp.70-2; Hood (2006), p.92.


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Britain and France. Although the momentum for new Shinkansen slowed in the 1980s and 1990s investment in rail was consistent with Japan’s long-term energy policy, which sought to reduce the country’s dependence on oil, though some lines, especially the Joetsu line to Niigata, were as much the product of political, as of economic, pressures.24 Following the privatisation of 1987, four of the regional companies purchased the existing Shinkansen in 1991.

The distinguishing point of the major Shinkansen lines is their ‘classic simplicity of railway operation’ and high level of automation,25 which permit a high train frequency with flexible services. The Tokaido line, for example, runs both express [Nozomi and Hikari] and stopping [Kodama] trains on a simple two-track railway with passing loops. Fully segregated and with in-cab signalling, it permits minimum ‘headways’, i.e. train intervals, of only three minutes and provides 323 trains x 1,300 passengers per day between Tokyo and Osaka. A beacon of the modern high-speed railway, it offers a safe, punctual, ‘365-day railway’, since maintenance work is conducted between midnight and 6am.26

ii. France: the TGV

France, like Japan, had a clear plan for HSRs, where political and strategic factors were important policy drivers. Determined to make a mark in rail transport, the French broke the speed record several times from the 1950s, raising the bar to 243kph in 1954, 331kph in 1955, 408kph in 1988, and 515kph in 1990. More recently France established a new record on 3 April 2007 with 574.8kph (357.2mph).27 But with some notable exceptions,28 the existing network and its train services were scarcely of high quality, and attention naturally turned to the planning of a new network, which in the autumn of 2009 amounted to 1,872 kilometres, second only to Japan. Much of what has been constructed was consistent with an SNCF Master Plan, Objectif 2000, formulated in 1976. The Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV) was introduced on the first, largely dedicated, Ligne à Grande Vitesse (LGV), the Sud-Est, in 1981, linking Paris with Lyon. For the first two years, trains travelled at conventional speed over a third of the route, but in 1983 the new line was fully operational and journey times were cut to two hours. Investment in this major French transport corridor, which served c. 40 per cent of the French population, was prompted by severe congestion on the existing

24 The extension to Nagano was built for the Winter Olympics in 1998.25 Allen (1992), p.69.26 Morimura (2009), and see also JR Central (2008); Mitchell (2008); JORSA (2008). Tokaido punctuality is impressive: train delays averaged 0.1 min. per

train in 2003, 0.3 min. in 2006.27 Allen (1992), pp.55-60, 166-7.28 E.g. the Mistral (Paris-Nice, 1958) and Aquitaine (Paris-Bordeaux, 1971) express services: Allen (1992), pp.60-4.


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rail route.29 An additional consideration was the desire to create a major transport network which was economical in terms of energy use and independent of oil supplies.30 And the opportunity was subsequently taken to extend services beyond the confines of the TGV line itself, by taking the new trains on to towns in the South-east (e.g. St. Etienne, Grenoble, Besançon), to the far south (Avignon, Marseille and beyond) and to Switzerland (Lausanne, Geneva, Bern). Like the Japanese Tokaido line, the new line quickly paid for itself, its cost (c.13.8 billion francs, including the trains) being fully amortised by the end of 1993, after only 12 years’ operation.31 And as in Japan, the economic case for some of the subsequent investments in HSR lines was weaker, since population densities and traffic levels were lower. Nevertheless, after the TGV-Nord project was shelved when the British government abandoned the first Channel Tunnel in 1975, the French pressed ahead with the LGV Atlantique from Paris to Le Mans and Tours, opened in 1989-90, with the intention of improving services to Brittany [Nantes, Rennes and Brest] via Le Mans, and the south-west [Bordeaux, Toulouse, etc.] via Tours. Here the population served amounted to some 25 million, around 45 per cent of the French population, although the density was comparatively low, and the investment required a 30 per cent subsidy from central government funds.32 In the following year approval was given to a revised rail plan, which identified 16 new projects for development by 2015. In 1992/94 the Rhone Alpes TGV provided improved services to Valence, avoiding Lyon, and thence to Avignon and beyond. There was a greater economic rationale for two investments: the Nord-Europe line of 1994/96, linking Paris with Lille, Calais, Brussels and beyond, and London (via the Channel Tunnel); and the Méditerannée in 2001, which extended the Paris-Lyon route from Valence to Marseille and Nîmes.33 Connections in Paris were improved with the construction of the ‘TGV Paris Interconnections’, a 104-kilometre route from the TGV-Nord line via Roissy (Charles de Gaulle airport) to the Sud-Est at Moisenay and the Atlantique at Valenton. Finally, the Est project began in 2003 and was opened to Lorraine and Baudrecourt, 100 kilometres from Strasbourg, in 2007. As with Japan’s investments in Tohoku and Hokuriku, some of France’s later LGVs promised a much lower rate of return, necessitating a substantial amount of public subsidy. And as in Japan the planning or project development continued through a major reorganisation of SNCF, in which the infrastructure management and train operating functions were separated in 1997, though both remained in the public sector, and the introduction of a broader funding regime for new projects, including the participation of the private sector.34

29 Strohl (1993), pp.74-5; Perl (2002), p.24.30 Pol (2002), p.159.31 Strohl (1993), p.83; Vickerman (1997), p.26.32 Gerondeau (1997), p.123.33 Ardui and Ni (2005), 22-8, and see also Strohl (1993), pp.69-107, Streeter (1993); Troin (1995).34 SNCF (2009). Reseau Ferré de France [RFF], France’s infrastructure operator, has a limited capacity to invest. The organisational separation of

infrastructure and operating, which was introduced elsewhere (e.g by Italy in 2000), was a response to EU directives 91/440 of 1991 and 95/19 of 1995.


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Unlike the Tokaido Shinkansen, the Paris-Lyon LGV was the product of an integrated infrastructure and train design. The introduction of high-powered, articulated, lightweight trains enabled the engineers to build a straight double-track route traversing the contours, thereby minimising earthwork costs. Noise reduction costs were also low. As a result the construction cost was lower than with most other countries’ projects. In 2005 Ardui and Ni put the cost at around $4 million per kilometre, and even the more expensive French projects cost only $10-15 million, a figure which compares very favourably with the $25 million per kilometre in Italy, and the $74 million in the UK for the first stage of its expensive Channel Tunnel Rail Link.35 As in Japan a fairly dense service pattern was introduced: on the Sud-Est, 120 trains a day, with a minimum four-minute interval. Today the number of trains is approximately 220.36 Gradients were reduced on the TGV Atlantique, opened in 1990, but the intention was to permit an increase in speed using new Alsthom-built trains. The maximum operating speed was increased to 300kph, with 320kph on the newer Méditerranée and Est routes. Currently SNCF operates the fastest regular scheduled service, with one of the TGV Est services averaging 272kph between Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne (Table 3).37 At the same time, energy consumption per seat-kilometre is comparatively low. SNCF claims that energy costs are only four per cent of its total operating costs, and that it consumes only 0.7 litres of diesel fuel per 100 passenger-kilometres, a figure which compares favourably with 3.3 litres for private motoring and 7.14 for air travel. On the other hand, there is a fairly sharp contrast between TGV services and railway services elsewhere in SNCF’s operations (there are over 4,000 smaller stations in France), though the contrast is mitigated to a significant extent by the fact that TGV trainsets run over a further 7,000 kilometres of conventional track. All this may explain why the TGV’s share of rail traffic in France is a high 59 per cent (2008 data).38

iii. Great Britain

High Speed Rail lines have a rather chequered history in Britain. British Rail’s APT project – designed to maximise speeds without introducing expensive new infrastructure - was innovative, but teething troubles resulted in its abandonment after short periods in service in 1981-82 and 1984, before the Italians made the technology work. In the event, more conventional, second-best technology was introduced. The HSTs operated at 125mph [200kph] on the Great Western Main Line (from October 1976) and the East Coast Main Line (from 1978), and were to prove the mainstay of British Rail passenger operations for over two decades. Indeed, they produced record runs for a diesel train – 180kph in 1979, 181.5kph in 1984 and 238kph in 1987 – and are still performing useful service out of Paddington.39 A new rail link between the Channel Tunnel and London was

35 Ardui and Ni (2005), 22-3.36 Strohl (1993), p.83; information from Benoît Chevalier.37 Taylor (2009), 65. 38 SNCF (2009); Preston (2009), 13; information from Benoît Chevalier.39 Gourvish (2002), pp.85, 218-23; Allen (1992), pp.88-96.


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part of the Channel Tunnel project progressed in the period 1960-75. Unfortunately, it became a casualty of the difficult economic conditions which followed the oil crisis of 1973. The British government’s anxieties about the escalating cost of the British Railways Board’s Channel Tunnel Rail Link [CTRL], the estimated cost of which trebled from £123 million to £373 million in little more than a year, contributed substantially to its decision to withdraw from the Tunnel project in January 1975.40 The second, and ultimately successful, CTRL, now called High Speed 1 [HS1], was opened in part in 2003, and in full to London St. Pancras in 2007. To date it represents the high point of passenger rail travel in Britain. However, it also represents a major example of all the risk-reward challenges inherent in Public-Private-Partnerships and Private Finance Initiatives. Promised a measure of public sector support when construction was estimated at £2.7 billion in 1994, the extent of the Government’s financial assistance increased sharply, not least in 1998 and 2001, and the total cost of the project was in excess of £5 billion.41

The DETR’s Transport 2010 [10 Year Plan] of 2000 made no reference to new high speed rail lines, though it anticipated time savings from existing projects, and especially the completion of the CTRL and the modernisation of existing lines, and especially the West Coast Main Line (WCML).42 Indeed, for some time the emphasis of rail policy was on upgrading the existing infrastructure of the major routes. As recently as 2006 the Eddington Transport Study argued that because Britain’s urban centres were comparatively close to one another, in contrast with those in France and Spain, existing rail services could provide adequate services. Eddington suggested that Britain should not be ‘seduced by grands projets with speculative returns’, and should only pursue HSR options where they were demonstrably ‘the highest value for money option to relieve congested corridors’. This position was supported by the British Government in a white paper.43 Major upgrades have enabled modestly higher speeds to be introduced on two of the country’s main arteries: the East Coast Main Line (ECML, implemented by the British Railways Board in the late 1980s); and the WCML (by the privatised Railtrack and Network Rail, completed in 2008). On the latter, the deployment of Pendolino tilting trains by Virgin Trains has helped to improve journey times, even though the maximum operating speed is restricted to 200kph. Indeed, the upgrade cost so much that with hindsight the money (some £9 billion) might have been better spent on a new line.44 Relieving congestion was a major motive for the upgrade, of course, but there were numerous disputes about sharing the capacity among the various users while the work was continuing, and all the indications are that further capacity will be required on the southern part of the route.45

40 Gourvish (2006), 159, 167. 41 Gourvish (2006), pp.379-82.42 DETR (2000), p.47; Gourvish (2008), pp.47-8.43 Eddington (2006), vol.2, p.70, vol.3, pp.141, 208-9; DfT (July 2007), p.62.44 Cf. HC Transport Committee (2008), para.27. 45 Gourvish (2008), pp.202-9; Network Rail, Capacity analysis (2009).


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iv. Germany, Italy and Spain

In Germany, as in Britain, train speeds were restrained by the limitations of the infrastructure and by the railways’ traffic characteristics, with a mixed operating system of freight and passengers on the main network. Germany competed with France in the breaking of speed records, achieving 346kph in 1986 and 407kph in 1988,46 but its scheduled services were generally run at a British pace on conventional tracks. With rail traffic declining, the government decided in 1969 to upgrade and extend Germany’s inter-city network. The main thrust of the plan was to build new lines to reduce bottlenecks on the most heavily patronised route, the long-distance, 950-kilometre railway from Hamburg to Munich, via Hannover, Frankfurt and Stuttgart. Here new sections, from Hannover to Würzburg and from Mannheim to Stuttgart, were opened in 1991 with a maximum speed of 280kph and the first InterCity Expresses (ICEs) were introduced. The network served by ICE services was then just over 1,000 kilometres.47 More construction followed, after the east and west German railways were merged as Deutsche Bahn AG in 1994: Hannover-Berlin in 1998; Köln-Frankfurt in 2002/04, Germany’s first 300kph line; and Hamburg-Berlin in 2004 (this latter route was also earmarked for a MAGLEV project, which was abandoned in 2000).48

In policy terms the Germans have steered a mid-course between the French and Japanese approaches, building both new lines and upgrading others. Progress has been made incrementally with small enhancements to major routes. Policy was also affected by the need to embrace reconstruction and unification objectives following the collapse of the East German State in 1989, which was a critical factor in the Hannover-Berlin and Hamburg-Berlin projects, and by Germany’s position at the centre of Europe, which encouraged a higher proportion of international train services. A mountainous terrain, and the requirement to build sections to easier gradients so that freight could also use the new infrastructure, made construction costs comparatively high. In addition, expenditure was affected by Germany’s heightened environmental awareness and concern, and by a more complex, decentralised political milieu.49 All this meant that construction costs were inevitably higher than with the French TGV – as much as three times higher per kilometre. At the same time the more limited impact of the ICE, in comparison with that of the TGV and Shinkansen, means that the pay-off in terms of traffic generation has not been as great as in Japan and France.50

46 Allen (1992), pp.115-16; Ebeling (2005), 37.47 Sands (1993), 203-4.48 Perl (2002), pp.37-40.49 Sands (1993), 203, 209; Dunn and Perl (1994), 325ff.; Perl (2002), pp.32-4; Ebeling (2005), 37-8.50 Perl (2002), p.35.


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Italy had pioneered the approach taken by the Germans, i.e. the upgrading of sections of the basic infrastructure, but had also led the development of an interim approach to HSRs, the use of tilting trains. The main network is a T-shape with a West-East route in the north from Turin to Milan and Venice, and a North-South route connecting Milan, Florence and Bologna with Rome and Naples. As early as 1913 Italy had taken steps to improve the infrastructure between Bologna and Florence with a new direttissima, and a second line, shortening the Rome-Naples route, was completed in 1927. By 1939 Italy was one of the railway leaders in Europe, but progress was slow after the war. For several decades train performance was constrained by the limitations of the infrastructure,51 and achievement trailed behind aspiration. A plan of 1962 envisaged train speeds of 250kph, and in 1969 work began on a further improvement of the Rome-Florence line. The engineering challenges were formidable, and progress was slow. Some sections were opened in 1981 and 1984, but speeds did not increase materially, and it was not until 1992 that the new Rome-Florence line was completed with the capability to handle speeds of up to 250kph. And it was sometime before additional lines were opened: in 2006, Rome-Naples and Turin-Novara; and in 2008, a new Milan-Bologna section (all these at a maximum of 300kph). Much earlier, in 1976, the Pendolino tilting train had first been put into commercial use on the Rome-Ancona line. Public reception of the train was little better than the British experience of the APT, however, and the technology was not perfected until 1988, when the ETR-450 Pendolino was successfully introduced on the Rome-Milan route. The new trains covered the distance at just under 150kph and cut an hour off the previous best scheduled time. Then the decision was taken to build HSRs and the non-tilting ETR-500 was deployed on a new service on the route in late 2008. In 2009 the fastest Milan-Bologna service averaged 178kph, and the Milan-Rome service 163kph.52

Spain was rather late in developing HSRs, but this was scarcely surprising. A relatively poor country for much of the post-war period, it gained substantially from joining the European Union in 1986. Its broad gauge [1668mm] railways contributed to its isolation, and RENFE’s prospects were hampered by the comparatively large distances between the major population centres. The development of interchangeable gauge equipment for rolling stock by the Spanish company Talgo facilitated through traffic to France and beyond,53 but the extent of this was limited. A comprehensive rail plan was drawn up in 1987 and a series of further plans followed in 1993, 1997 and 2005. The decision was taken to build new lines to the standard gauge, and the first of these, the 471-kilometre line between Madrid and Seville, was opened in 1992. As in Japan and France, the easing of capacity constraints was a major stimulus, but the new AVE service produced

51 See Allen (1992), pp.122-4.52 Taylor (2009), 66.53 Allen (1992), pp.172-4.


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a dramatic reduction in journey times and the impact in terms of traffic generation and abstraction from the airlines was large and instantaneous. Encouraged by this success Spain completed a new 621-kilometre line serving its main artery, Madrid-Barcelona, which was opened in stages in 2003, 2006 and 2008, and a Madrid to Valladolid line in 2007. In the same year Malaga was connected to the new network via Cordoba on the Madrid-Seville line. Some of the changes have been dramatic. The journey-time between Madrid and Seville was cut from 61/2 hours to 2 hours 32 minutes. Barcelona, which is 150 kilometres further from Madrid than Seville, can now be reached in 2 hours 38 minutes, which has reduced the airlines’ share of the traffic from 88 to 52 per cent.54

v. Asia

After Japan Asian HSRs have been built in South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and mainland China. South Korea’s KTX, based on the TGV model, began operating from Seoul to Dongdaegu at up to 300kph in 2004. It reduced the journey-time from Seoul to Busan to 2 hours 40 minutes. In the following year Taiwan began a high-speed Shinkansen-type service from Taipei to Kaohsiung. Turkey has this year opened the Ankara-Eskisehir section of its main route from Ankara to Istanbul. China’s headlong industrial revolution has embraced the substantial upgrading of its large rail network. As one commentator has observed, there is an ‘incredible potential market’ for HSRs here.55 Pursuing a ‘corridor-building’ approach, China has opened 1,194 kilometres of HSR in 2008-09 (Table 1, and Appendix, Table 2), including the 120-kilometre Beijing-Tianjin line, where the maximum speed is 350kph. China has also developed MAGLEV technology for commercial operation over a short route from Shanghai Airport to Shanghai’s financial district, opened in December 2003. The maximum speed reached is 430kph. With a further 9,000 kilometres of HSR under construction and due to be completed by 2012 and plans for a final network of 25,000 kilometres [out of a total of c.80,000kms] there is no doubting the ambition of this state-sponsored railway industry.56

vi. Rest of the world

Elsewhere HSRs are comparatively rare. Australia appears to have abandoned plans for faster railways after a decision taken in 2002, while in the USA only the north-eastern corridor from Boston to New York and Washington is remotely fast, using tilting trains on Amtrak’s Acela Express. Nevertheless, the service has helped to capture more than half of the rail-air market between Washington and New York, and around 40 per cent of the Boston-New York market.57

54 Givoni (2006), 600; Nadal (2009).55 Gerondeau (1997), p.134.56 Wang et al. (2009).57 Black (2005), 18; Givoni (2006), 599-600.


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3. Prospects: HSRs under construction and in the planning stage

In 1996 about 5,000 kilometres of railway were operating at 200kph+, and by the autumn of 2009 the network had increased to some 12,000 kilometres. Both figures are however dwarfed by the 13,000 under construction and due to be completed by 2012 (Appendix Tables 1-3). Plans have been produced for a further 17,000 kilometres by 2025. If all of these plans matured the network would be an impressive 42,000 kilometres. As have seen, China is leading the way. It has 9,000 kilometres under construction, including the Beijing–Shanghai and Beijing-Wuhan lines (1,300 and 1,100kms respectively); planning extends to a further 2,900 kilometres. Japan is currently constructing a further 590 kilometres, including Hachinohe-Shin Aomori, and Hakata-Shin Yatsushiro, the latter completing the line on Kyushu from Kagoshima to Hakata. It is also planning a further 583 kilometres, including the completion of the link to Sapporo on Hokkaido island. Turkey hopes to complete the 533-kilometre Ankara-Istanbul line by 2011, and has plans for c.1,700 kilometres more railway. The United States has identified a number of rail corridors for planning purposes, and the Transportation Department has published an ambitious strategic plan.58 However, the only serious scheme appears to be the 837-kilometre route from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Recently President Obama lent his support to the rail plan, but the prospects of any investment seem remote. The US Government Accountability Office has concluded that the economic viability of rail projects was difficult to ascertain, and that the high construction costs provided an immense challenge to project development.59 Limited plans are in existence elsewhere, in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, India, Iran, Argentina, and Brazil. In Europe Spain will be the most active country over the next decade. Aiming to connect all its provincial capitals with HSRs by 2020, it is constructing 2,200 kilometres, 75 per cent of which are to be completed by 2012, and has plans for 1,700 kilometres more.60 France will add only 300 kilometres by 2012, but has ambitious plans in place for 2,600 more by 2025. Four projects have been declared ‘publicly useful’: Phase 2 of the LGV Est from Baudrecourt to Strasbourg; the Nîmes-Montpellier by-pass; Le Mans-Rennes; and Tours-Bordeaux. Germany has 400 kilometres under construction, with an additional 700 kilometres in the planning stage. Other plans involve Poland (700kms), Portugal (1,000kms), and Sweden (750kms).

58 US Department of Transportation (2009). 59 US GAO (2009), p.12ff.60 Nadal (2009).


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In Britain concerns about future capacity following a 40 per cent increase in rail traffic in a decade, and the operational success of the CTRL or High Speed 1, where reductions in travelling times led to traffic increases in both 2003 and 2007, have stimulated a consideration of the possibilities offered by more HSRs. Proponents of a change in policy were able to draw on a study undertaken by the consultants W.S. Atkins for the Strategic Rail Authority in 2001-03. Asked to examine the prospects for a North-South line, Atkins concluded that there was both a good transport case and a good business case for the new line: by freeing up capacity on existing lines, the line would provide ‘substantial benefits to the national and regional economies’.61 In October 2007 a Department for Transport white paper entitled Towards a Sustainable Transport System included a high-speed rail line as one of the possible options for the London-Birmingham-Manchester corridor, and an updated and still optimistic version of the business case for a North-South line was produced by Atkins in March 2008.62 In June the Department for Transport asked Network Rail to examine options for Britain’s main rail corridors. Thus, in the following month the House of Commons Transport Committee was able to report more favourably on the prospects for high-speed railways, noting that by this time the government had become more receptive to the idea.63 Network Rail studied four rail corridors in depth: the ECML; WCML; Midland Main Line [London-East Midlands/Sheffield]; and the Great Western Main Line. A capacity analysis led it to conclude that on the WCML there was ‘a significant demand-capability gap in 2020’ and that the route was ‘now effectively full over key route sections’.64 Consequently a new line from London to Birmingham, named High Speed Two [HS2], is currently in the planning stage and a company was established to prepare a case under the chairmanship of Sir David Rowlands. The company has also been asked to provide advice on a wider network up to Scotland. Early work suggests journey times from London of 49 minutes to Birmingham, 1 hour 20 minutes to Manchester and 2 hours 40 minutes to Edinburgh and Glasgow. One of the network options identified in a preliminary study by Network Rail, with a notional cost of some £54 billion, indicated revenue and benefits of a similar amount over the 60-year life of the project.65

61 Atkins (2003); SRA (2005). The report’s detailed findings were made public in April 2009: www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/researchtech/research/atkinshighspeed.

62 DfT (October 2007); Atkins (2008).63 HC Transport Committee (2008), paras.23-5; DfT (2009).64 Network Rail, Capacity analysis (2009), 1.7-1.8.65 Network Rail, Case for New Lines (2009). N.b. this study was over-optimistic about achievable journey times.


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4. The impact of HSRs

Impact studies have been fairly limited in the academic and professional literature, mostly confined to cost-benefit and costing exercises ex ante, rather than backchecks ex post. Some early efforts were made to measure the effects of new lines, based on the experience with the early Shinkansen and TGV services. For example, in 1987 Bonnafous examined the effects of the first TGV on the regional economy of Lyon and the Rhône-Alpes region in the mid 1980s. Later, Gutiérrez et al. undertook a forecasting exercise in order to determine the areas which might benefit most from HSR construction. Vickerman and Nash have contributed several papers on the impact of high-speed rail services in Europe, Preston and Wall have examined the impact in Britain, and Spanish scholars have been particularly active, notably De Rus, Inglada and Nombela.66 In this section we examine the arguments made for and against investment in higher-speed railways.

Transport effects:

i. Time savings

One of the easiest elements to compute, time savings have been generated by all HSRs, although the precise extent depends on whether the primary aim is to reduce the time between urban centres, or to increase transport capacity, and on which transport modes one is comparing. Old and new rail times yield straightforward calculations. Here, some of the more dramatic time savings are reproduced in Table 4. For example, the Tokaido Shinkansen slashed the time for a Tokyo-Osaka journey from 7 hours to 4 hours, and it now stands at 2 hours 25 minutes, a third of the original time. On the Madrid-Seville journey, the time taken fell from 61/2 hours to just over 21/2 hours, a saving of nearly four hours. The building of the Channel Tunnel more than halved the time taken by the combined rail and sea operators from London to Paris, and achieved much more than that on the London-Brussels route. Of course, on some routes savings have been more modest, for example in Germany between Köln and Frankfurt, and on Britain’s West Coast Main Line, but in overall terms, new HSRs, as opposed to upgrades, have shaved some 30-60 per cent off the original journey-times. It is a fairly simple matter to compute the value of the time saved, although some of the assumptions made by transport economists engaged in this process are contested. Nevertheless, Japan’s time savings were put at h3.7 billion a year in the early 1990s, and given the investment in HSRs since then, the savings must be higher than this today.67 The calculations become more complicated when we compare a new railway service with the motor car and the airline. A recent study based on evidence from seven countries suggested that where conventional rail services were running at 130kph, the introduction of HSR services would yield a

66 Bonnafous (1987); Nash (1991); Gutiérrez et al. (1996); Vickerman (1995, 1997, 2007, 2009); de Rus and Inglada (1997); de Rus and Nombela (2007); de Rus (2008); Preston and Wall (2008).

67 Givoni (2006), 600.


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time saving of 45-50 minutes on journeys of 350-400 kilometres.68 However, when we turn to road transport, the time savings gained from using the railway may be offset in whole or in part by the additional time taken to reach the precise destination. This is likely to occur with comparatively short journeys (of up to 80 kilometres), especially where road congestion levels are lower than average. With air transport the opposite applies. The longer the journey, the more likely it is that the convenience of rail in terms of final destination will be offset by the time savings offered by air services. This is certainly the case with journeys of longer than 800 kilometres.

Table 4. HSR time savings: some examples

Route Before [min]

After [1: initial] [min]

After [2: now] [min]

Saving 1 [min] % gain Saving

2 [min] % gain

Tokyo- Osaka 420 240 145 180 43 275 65

Paris-Lyon 227 160 115 67 30 112 49

Madrid-Seville 390 152 140 238 61 250 64

London-Paris 380-420 195 135 185-225 49-54 245-285 64-68

Source: various.

ii. Demand

When Britain’s West Coast Main Line was electrified in the 1960s, patronage increased as a result of what was called the ‘sparks effect’: a 26 per cent reduction in the London-Manchester journey time produced a 27 per cent increase in demand.69 This phenomenon has been replicated with all subsequent HSRs, most of which use electric traction. The increase in frequency/capacity, speed and city centre-city centre convenience – have all stimulated the demand for passenger rail services, and in several countries have halted the railways’ secular traffic decline. In Japan, the Tokaido line’s traffic increased from 11 billion passenger-kilometres in 1965 to 32 billion in 1987, and 46 billion in 2008. Total Japanese Shinkansen traffic reached 74 billion in 1991 and is now over 80 billion; the Shinkansen’s share of the total Japanese passenger rail market doubled from 15 per cent in 1970 to 30 per cent in 1990, then remained fairly stable at just below this figure, and is now about 23 per cent.70 In France, the contrast between pre-TGV and post-TGV operation was marked. In 1980, 12.2 million passengers had used the old Paris-Lyon line; within five years passenger numbers had increased to 19.2 million, with 75 per cent of them TGV customers. By 1992, numbers had increased to 23 million, and the railway’s market-share of Paris-Lyon traffic had increased to about 90 per cent.71 Total TGV passenger numbers increased from 6.5 million 1982 to 73.1 million

68 Steer Davies Gleave (2004), pp.23-4.69 Evans (1969), cit. in Nash (1991), 13.70 UIC data to 1997 cit. in Perl (2002), pp.20-1; more recent data from JR East and Central.71 Bonnafous (1987), 129; Vickerman (1997), 24; Meunier (2002), p.224.


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in 1998, and as a percentage of SNCF passengers, rose from under 1 per cent in 1982 to nearly 9 per cent in 1998. Market-widening effects were also evident in France, with the TGV’s impact extending well beyond the confines of the upgraded lines themselves, either by running on over conventional tracks or via an interchange with conventional trains. Thus the new Paris-Lyon line had a stimulating effect on impact on demand much further afield, for example to St. Etienne, Marseille and Annecy. In 1997 Vickerman noted that the investment in 500 kilometres of new line had transformed services over a network of some 2,500 kilometres, while the TGV-Atlantique served a similar network with only 300 kilometres of new construction, producing a 50 per cent increase in Paris-Bordeaux rail traffic.72 Thus, if passenger-kilometres are used, the TGV’s share of total rail traffic is of course much higher than for passenger numbers. According to Perl, it rose from under seven per cent in 1982 to 75 per cent in 1998.73 However, these calculations appear to be based on long-distance journeys. SNCF’s data for 2008 shows that TGV network traffic amounted to 50 billion passenger-kilometres in that year: this was 83 per cent of the long-distance traffic, but only 59 per cent of all railway passenger-kilometres.74

Germany presents a more complex picture. Without the dominance of a single major urban hub such as Tokyo, Paris or London, the transport effects of its investment in improved inter-city services are spread across a network of smaller cities and are therefore more difficult to capture. It appears that the impact of its investment in HSRs has been less dramatic than in Japan or France, and in 1999 the ICE share of total German rail traffic was only 16 per cent, half that in Japan and a quarter of the figure for France. Nevertheless, after the initial investments in 1991 the number of ICE passengers increased from six million to 26 million in 1996 and 36 million in 1999, and there were further gains in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2004 its high-speed passenger traffic amounted to 19.6 billion passenger-kilometres, more than double the level in 1994 (Table 5).75 In Italy and Spain there have been more modest levels of passenger numbers and passenger-kilometres travelled: in 2004 only 7.9 and 2.8 billion passenger-kilometres respectively. Here, as elsewhere, some of the demand represents a diversion from existing rail services.76 In Britain, patronage of the Channel Tunnel services has grown as its new high-speed line was opened in stages. Eurostar passenger traffic increased from under three million in 1995 to about seven million in the five years before the opening of the first section of High Speed 1 in September 2003. Patronage increased to nearly eight million in 2006, and the completion of HS1 in November 2007 provided a further stimulus. Passenger numbers were 21 per cent up in the first quarter of 2008, but since then have been affected by the world-wide recession.77

72 Vickerman (1997), 26, 31; Streeter (1993), 185-7.73 Perl (2002), p.27-8.74 SNCF (2008).75 Perl (2002), p.35; Campos and de Rus (2009), 27. Vickerman (1997), 28-9 gives ICE passengers as 10 million in 1991 and under 23 million in 1996.76 Vickerman (1997), p.30.77 Gourvish (2006), p.370; Preston and Wall (2008), 405; Eurotunnel data.


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A further demonstration of the potential for HSR trains has been the increased use of the services for commuting purposes. In Japan, significant growth has been observed in the use of the Shinkansen for commuting into Tokyo from Takasaki (Joetsu line) and Utsonomiya (Tohoku line). In Spain, commuter traffic has been attracted to the AVE services, for example between Segovia and Madrid and between Ciudad Real, Puertollano and Madrid. In Britain the recent introduction of a 37-minute domestic commuter service from Ashford to St. Pancras on High Speed 1 has quickly exceeded initial expectations. Although priced at a premium rate the new service, which was opened on a ‘preview’ basis in June 2009, saw traffic build up quickly, so that some trains lengths had to be doubled.78 The variations in HSR traffic levels and growth rates in Europe are evident from recent calculations made by Campos and de Rus. Analysing data for 1994-2004, they showed that the traffic more than doubled over the period. France had the lowest growth-rate and Italy the highest rate, but both Italy and Spain experienced growth from a very low base in 1994. In terms of absolute levels in 2004, France, with 41.5 billion passenger-kilometres, contributed over half of Europe’s traffic; Italy and Spain together provided only 14 per cent (Table 5). A recent calculation of the share HSRs have in total rail traffic in Europe is given in Table 6 for 2000 and 2006. It is not clear what definition of HSR has been used, but given the results, it appears to be confined to new high-speed lines, and excludes higher speed services running on conventional tracks. On this basis, the HSR share of the rail market has risen from 16 to 23 per cent. France has the highest share, followed by Spain and Germany; Britain has the lowest share. The most spectacular growth has been in Spain, where the share has increased four-fold from under 10 to over 38 per cent.

Table 5. Growth in HSR traffic in Europe, 1994-2004 (bn. Pass-kms)

Year France Germany Italy Spain Europe

1994 21.9 8.2 0.8 0.9 32.1

1999 32.2 10.2 4.4 1.7 52.7

2004 41.5 19.6 7.9 2.8 75.9

Growth 1994-2004 89% 139% 888% 222% 136%

% share of Europe’s traffic in 2004 55% 26% 10% 4%

Source: Campos and de Rus (2009), 27.

Table 6. HSRs share of the total European rail market, 2000-2006 [%]

Year Europe (EU27) France Germany Spain Italy UK

2000 16.0 49.7 18.5 9.6 10.8 0.0

2006 23.4 57.2 27.4 38.3 19.2 1.0

Source: Vickerman (2009)

78 Eguchi (2008); Vickerman (1997), 30; Southeastern Railway press releases, 2 July-19 November 2009. The British commuter service is to open in full in December 2009, when it will be extended to Canterbury and the Kent Coast.


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iii. Modal shares

Several factors determine the extent to which HSRs not only generate new traffic, but also capture traffic from airlines, road transport, and existing rail services. These include the density of the population served, the number and location of stations, the location and quality of airport and motorway infrastructures, and the design of HSR services. The most quoted changes in modal shares are those for Paris-Lyon, 1981-84 and Madrid-Seville, 1991-94 (Table 7). Here the introduction of high-speed services had a swift and significant impact. In these markets, where the total traffic went up by 37 and 35 per cent respectively, the proportion travelling by air declined sharply, and in the Paris-Lyon case has all but disappeared. A report by Steer Davies Gleave in 2004 noted that the TGV now enjoyed 91 per cent of the Paris-Lyon rail-air market, 89 per cent of that between Paris and Nantes, and about 60 per cent of the Paris-Bordeaux and Paris-Marseille markets. A relatively generous pricing policy for TGV services also contributes to these relatively high market-shares.79 In northern Europe the Eurostar services between Paris and London, Paris and Brussels and London and Brussels have also produced a dramatic shift away from short-haul air services. For example, Eurostar now has around 71 per cent of the London-Paris rail–air market, and 64 per cent of the London-Brussels market.80 In general, the contemporary data indicate that high-speed railways customarily take at least 70 per cent of the rail-air market on journeys below three hours.81 More recently, the emphasis seems to have switched from competition with short-haul and other air services to modal complementarity. Some of the newer stations opened on HSRs, for example that at Paris-CDG airport (1994) and Frankfurt (1999), are designed to facilitate improved interchange between the two modes of transport. London-Heathrow is another candidate for this kind of approach.82

Table 7. Changes in modal traffic shares for Paris-Lyon and Madrid-Seville [%]

Mode Paris-Lyon Madrid-Seville

Before/1981 After/1984 Before/1991 After/1994

Air 31 7 40 13

Train 40 72 16 51

Car/bus 29 21 44 36

Source: EC COST 318 (1996), cit by Givoni (2006), 601.

79 Steer Davies Gleave (2004), appendix B2.80 Gourvish (2006), p.371; Preston and Wall (2008), 405.81 Nash (2009) cit. Steer Davies Gleave (2006).82 Ulrich et al. (2009), 27.


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iv. Investment costs and returns

HSRs are expensive to build, and much of the investment represents sunk costs in fixed and unsubstitutable assets. The returns on these investments vary. They depend on the extent of engineering and environmental costs, and in turn on the extent and nature of the demand for passenger transport. Case studies indicate that costs have varied widely over time and over different projects. Earlier we quoted some figures assembled by Ardui and Ni in 2005, which indicated a construction cost per kilometre ranging from $4 million for the LGV Sud-Est, to $74 million for Britain’s High Speed 1.83 Their sources are not revealed, but De Rus and Nombela have used W.S Atkins data to show that infrastructure costs per kilometre ranged from h12 million in Spain to h32 in Germany and over h45 in the Netherlands. They have also suggested that rolling stock cost a further h1.2 million per kilometre.84 Calculations have also been made by Steer Davies Gleave and, more recently, by Campos and de Rus. The latter gathered data on 45 HSR projects and found the cost range per kilometre to be h6 to h45 million, with an average of h17.5 million; for the 24 projects which were in operation the range was h9 to h39, with an average of h18 million (all in 2005 prices). These figures exclude the cost of planning, land, and rolling stock. The highest costs were found in Italy, the lowest in Spain and France. With the exception of China, construction costs were generally higher in Asia than in Europe, though the British and Dutch projects examined by Steer Davies Gleave, viz. HS1 and the HSL Zuid, were found to be generating exceptionally high costs, their final cost estimated to lie in the range c.h50-70 million per kilometre.85 Campos and de Rus also observed that prior experience of construction did not lead to economies. In Japan, as we have already noted, the Tokaido line, while thought expensive at the time, was economical to build in comparison with the lines that followed. Campos and de Rus put the cost at h5.4 million per kilometre in 2005 prices, a figure which the more recent Shinkansen projects exceeded by three or four times.86 The same thing has happened in France, where the LGV Sud-Est cost h4.7 million while the LGV-Méditerranée cost h12.9 million.87 Turning to operating and maintenance costs, the variations by country do not appear to be as great as for construction. Campos and de Rus examined HSRs in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Maintenance costs were found to range between J28,000 (France) and J33,000 (Spain) per track-kilometre (in 2002 prices). Taking both operating and maintenance costs together, the lowest cost per seat-kilometre was found to be for the French TGV Duplex and Réseau trains - h0.08 and h0.10 respectively. The highest was for the Italian ETR-500 and the German ICE-2 trains, where the cost was 0.18 and 0.19.88

83 Ardui and Ni (2005), 22-3.84 De Rus and Nombela (2007), 5-6; Atkins (2003), and supporting papers.85 Campos and de Rus (2009), 22-3; Steer Davies Gleave (2004), 32-3.86 Campos and de Rus (2009), 23. Hood (2006), 94 draws a sharper distinction, the Tokaido and Sanyo lines costing c.¥3 bn per km, while the extensions

from Omiya and Ueno into Tokyo cost ¥26 and ¥37bn per km.87 Campos and de Rus (2009), 23; Streeter (1993), 193-4, draws a similar contrast between Sud-Est [7.77 bn FF] and Atlantique [16.34 bn FF, 1986 prices].88 Campos and de Rus (2009), 25.


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Returns to investment are more difficult to compute, but it is clear that the Japanese Tokaido and the French Sud-Est investments, which were not subsidised by the State, were successful in financial terms. As we have seen, the $550 million Tokaido line was an instant financial success, though remaining part of a loss-making national state railway system which was privatised (while still retaining substantial government support) in 1987. After three years’ operating, the Tokaido’s revenue stream was greater than its costs including interest on debt and depreciation. In France the investment in Paris-Lyon service was justified by expectations of a 12 per cent financial rate of return which was exceeded (c.15 per cent); and as we have noted, capital investment in the line was fully amortised after only 12 years.89 But these are lines with over 10 million passengers per annum; Madrid-Seville, for all its trumpeting, has only carried five million passengers, and most of the other lines built have required some degree of government support, and in many cases have needed full support. More recently, the waters have been muddied in Europe by the EU requirement that the railways’ infrastructure and operating functions should be separated. In these conditions, transactions between the two or more railway institutions are critical, and the financial prospects for HSRs often turn on the level of access charges which operators pay.90 Nevertheless, recent computations of French rates of return indicate a seven per cent return for TGV-Atlantique, 6.5 per cent for the Paris Interconnexion, but only 2.9 per cent for TGV-Nord. The social rates of return appear much higher, of course: 30 per cent for Sud-Est, 14 per cent for Paris Interconnexion, 12% for TGV-Atlantique, and five per cent for Nord.91 In general, it can be said that HSRs have produced financial returns, but with the exception of the most promising early investments, have not been particularly profitable. It is safe to assume that future projects are unlikely to make the kind of profits which would attract unequivocal private sector participation.

5. The impact of HSRs: broader socio-economic effects

HSRs can generate broader benefits. These may accrue to users of the railway in the form of reduced accident levels, higher comfort levels and other externalities, and for non-users there may be benefits arising from an increase in economic growth derived from a change in the level and composition of economic activity. For example, the provision of more comfortable city centre-city centre access is a clear benefit, even if quantification is not straightforward. Furthermore, there is little doubt that where a high-speed service attracts private motorists to the railways, the result will be a reduction in costly transport accidents. Conventional measures of safety, such as the number of fatalities per billion passenger-kilometres, reveal a clear advantage for rail and air over

89 Vickerman (1997), 26; Pol (2002), p.155.90 Nash (2009).91 Vickerman (2009), cit. CGPC (2005).


26

road transport.92 However, the calculation is not entirely straightforward, and it has been pointed out that the millions saved from the avoidance of road fatalities are offset by the cost of the infrastructure separation which a railway requires. Savings may also be made in the form of reduced congestion, not only on the roads, but also in crowded air corridors and at the main airports.93

6. The impact of HSRs: more contested effects

Several of the imputed socio-economic effects of HSRs are contested, that is to say that some economists, geographers, planners and other professionals consider them to be exaggerated or not to exist at all. Here we rehearse the main areas of debate.

i. Economic growth

Do HSRs stimulate economic growth? It is often assumed that the improvements in accessibility which are created will enlarge markets and increase the competitiveness and productivity of firms within a newly-connected region. However, most studies indicate that it would be unwise to pin much faith in new railways as an engine of growth. This is not to say that a growth stimulus is entirely absent. In 1997 the European Commission estimated that the major TENs would add only 0.25 per cent to EU GDP, and 0.11 per cent to employment over 25 years. The literature review of Preston and Wall produced the conclusion that the growth impact of HSRs was likely to lie within the modest range of 1-3 per cent of GDP.94

ii. Regional and local economic effects, including regeneration

High-speed rail services theoretically reduce the locational imbalance between the core cities and the periphery, notably by bringing provincial centres within easier reach of the capital. On the other hand, the economic imbalance between the centre and the periphery may well increase.95 Consequently, much argument surrounds the regional and local impact of high-speed railway investment. Does a high speed line boost the image and accessibility of regional centres, with accompanying investment and employment effects? Or does a new line merely strengthen the competitive advantage of the dominant city, for example by extending the area of commuting, thereby producing detrimental effects on smaller cities, and in particular on those which are by-passed by the line? How do new lines affect property prices, office costs, and land and labour markets? Circumstances vary, and much depends on the positioning of HSR stations, both terminals and intermediate ones, and the pattern of services – whether the

92 Gourvish (2002), pp.360-2; DfT, TSGB (2009), Table 1.7.93 Cf. Givoni (2006).94 Preston and Wall (2008), 419; Karim and Matthewson (2008).95 Gutiérrez et al. (1996).


27

trains make few or several stops. In our review of the literature we start by considering the impact of the Paris-Lyon TGV from the early 1980s. One of the earliest contributions was from Bonnafous, who gathered survey data to examine the impact of the new line on the tourism and service industries of the Rhône-Alpes region. By the time of his study (1987) the TGV was serving Grenoble, in addition to St. Etienne, Dijon and Besançon. Bonnafous maintained that fears about Lyon’s growing dependency on Paris were exaggerated. The situation was once again complex. While Lyon’s hoteliers lost out when Parisians could comfortably do business there in a day, hoteliers elsewhere in the region saw a growth in demand as tourism was encouraged. Professional services such as consulting and market research were given a boost by the new line, and an analysis of 40 businesses in the Rhône-Alpes and Burgundy regions suggested that they, rather than enterprises in Paris, were the main beneficiaries. Medium sized enterprises in particular seized the opportunity offered by the TGV to penetrate the Paris market.96 Mannone’s subsequent study found that the Sud-Est LGV was only one of a number of factors in locational decision-making by businesses. The pattern of industrial location in France was shaped by broader economic forces, and the provision of a high speed line played only a secondary role in determining the economic development of cities along France’s south-east corridor.97 Further studies of French TGVs have indicated some growth nodes, for example at Valence, but in general they underline the limited impact the projects have had on the net redistribution of economic activity between Paris and the provincial cities.98

Japanese reports are often bullish about the developmental and regenerative impact of the Shinkansen services and Shinkansen stations. For example, developments at Kakegawa, 230 kilometres from Tokyo on the Tokaido line, have attracted attention. Apparently, the building of a station there in 1988 stimulated tourism and led to an eight per cent increase in commercial employment by 1992.99 On the other hand, disinterested observers are often more circumspect about the effects, noting that while population and employment growth may be higher in areas served by the Shinkansen, other factors are also at work, and some of the growth may have been ‘imported’ from other areas.100 After twenty years of data-gathering on the impact of the Tokaido line, the evidence indicated Tokyo’s continued growth but a much slower rate of growth in Osaka and Nagoya.101 As regards urban regeneration, in particular around the major termini, Lille is often cited as a success story, and expectations about the St. Pancras/King’s Cross area in London are high, as they are near Brussels Midi station and at Rotterdam Centraal. It has also been suggested that Britain’s creative industries would benefit from the agglomeration or ‘clustering’ effects which

96 Bonnafous (1987), 135-6; Meunier (2002), p.224.97 Bonnafous (1990), 35-8; Mannone (1995).98 Vickerman, ‘Recent Evolution’ (2007), 14-15.99 Okada (1994), 14-16, and cf. also Rietveld et al. (2001), 9.100 Sands (1993), 267-8; Givoni (2006), 603-4.101 Meunier (2002), p.221.


28

High Speed 2 would encourage.102 And yet caution persists. Mannone found that the revitalisation of areas around Lyon Part-Dieu and Grenoble stations produced locational shifts from within the region rather than new activity.103 And in Lille, the critical factors were not only the HSR service, but its location in northern Europe and the determination of the local authority planners to make the ‘Eurolille’ district a success. They gave considerable thought to internal transport links, including a tramway system, which stimulated development in the new commercial district, though we must be careful not to exaggerate its success.104 Preston and Wall’s work on Ashford, and other stations on HS1, suggests that wider economic benefits are ‘difficult to detect’, swamped by external factors and are more likely to result when complemented by supportive planning policies. The regeneration of Stratford in east London will surely owe as much to the growing importance of Canary Wharf as a business district and the preparations for the Olympic Games as to High Speed 1 per se.

Regional benefits, then, are not axiomatic, and while new railways and their stations may be a necessary condition, they are not a sufficient condition for successful development. As Vickerman and others have pointed out, there is a ‘mythical belief’ that HSRs can solve both transport and regional development problems, but in many cases the impact is to redistribute rather than generate economic activity.105 Indeed, as Banister and Berechman have observed, the most disappointing results are for the two intermediate stations on the Paris-Lyon line, i.e. Le Creusot and Mâcon-Loché, where growth has been modest. The same phenomenon may be seen at Haute-Picardie on the LGV-Nord, although traffic has built up there,106 in Limburg and Montabaur on the Köln-Frankfurt line, and at Ashford and Calais on the London-Brussels/Paris route, and, indeed, in Kent generally.107 We must not discount the prospect of a regional growth stimulus from HSRs but it would be wise to remain agnostic, following commentators such as Vickerman, Puga, Nash and Givoni, and we should emphasise that each project must be analysed carefully on its own merits.108 The choice of office location may indeed be influenced by the accessibility advantages offered by HSRs, but it remains likely that transport and labour costs are more important in determining location rather than whether there a high speed line is adjacent.109 The development of a high-speed rail network in Europe ‘may widen rather than narrow differences in accessibility between central and peripheral regions’.110

102 Bakker (2009).103 Mannone (1995).104 Cf. Van den Berg and Pol (1998), pp.86-93.105 Vickerman (1997); Vickerman et al. (1999).106 130m passengers in 1996, 325m in 2002: RFF (2005), p.30.107 Banister and Berechman (2000); Hay, Meredith and Vickerman (2004); Givoni (2006), 605; Preston and Wall (2008), 406; Kamel and Matthewman (2008);

Hall (2009), 65. 108 Nash (1991), Givoni (2006).109 Pol (2002), pp.124-6; Rietveld et al. (2001), 13.110 Vickerman et al. (1999), 12; Puga (2002) 396.


29

iii. The environmental impact

It must be acknowledged that the construction and operation of railways produce a range of environmental changes. First of all, there are obvious ‘downside effects’ in the form of ‘land take’, barrier effects, visual intrusion, noise, and local air pollution. The evidence tends to be somewhat fragmented, but there seems to be a consensus that noise is the most damaging element.111 From the time of the Paris-Lyon TGV in the 1970s opposition to construction was mounted by a range of interest groups, from road and air transport operators to landowners, farmers and householders. All lines have experienced delays, however smooth the planning process, and, as we have seen, opposition was more powerful in certain countries such as Germany. In France, the consumption of prime agricultural land for the TGV-Atlantique was a particular bone of contention.112 In Japan, where there was little or no opposition to the first Shinkansen, the impact of the new railway in terms of noise and vibration was clearly underestimated, and subsequent construction has had to conform with Environmental Agency requirements of 1975 on admissible noise.113 A similar situation was evident with the Paris-Lyon TGV, where insufficient attention had been paid to noise barriers.114 Current thinking is that the noise from high-speed trains is acceptable at speeds of up to 300kph, especially where there is a separation from the infrastructure of at least 150 metres, but that higher speeds produce more intrusive noise levels as a result of aerodynamic effects.115 As environmental concerns have grown, construction costs have risen to mitigate environmental damage, via noise barriers, cuttings and tunnelling.

The precise impact of HSRs on air pollution and CO2 emissions is difficult to gauge, and there are many factors which must be taken into consideration, including: the extent to which traffic is ‘abstracted’, i.e. diverted, from other, more polluting, transport modes; the extent to which new traffic is generated; the passenger loadings of trains, aircraft and road vehicles; and the manner in which the energy used (chiefly electricity) is generated, both in the construction and the operation of railways and competing transport modes. When operating, HSRs pollute the air with sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), but in general the problem is not considered to be serious.116 Many claims have been made in the railways’ favour. These point out that rail is environmentally friendlier, and has lower energy costs, than either air or motor transport. Campos and de Rus cite a study undertaken by INFRAS/IWW for the International Union of Railways (UIC)

111 Cf. Givoni (2006), 606, Campos and de Rus (2009), 25112 Strohl (1993), pp.85-6).113 I.e. 70 decibels in residential areas, 75 decibels elsewhere. Perl (2002), pp.19-20; Hood (2006), pp.85-90, 174.114 Strohl (1993), pp.76-7.115 Givoni (2006), p.26; Campos and de Rus (2009), 25.116 Cf. Givoni (2006), 606.


30

in 2000, to the effect that the energy consumed by high-speed railways, measured in litres of petrol per 100 passenger-kilometres, was 2.5, comparing favourably with 6 for the private car and 7 for aeroplanes. Furthermore, CO2 emissions were reported to be 4 tonnes per 100 passenger-kilometres for HSRs, 14 for cars and 17 for air.117 Greater disparities have been claimed by some of the rail operators. Thus, as we have seen, SNCF has put its fuel consumption at 0.7 litres of diesel fuel per 100 passenger-kilometres, compared with 3.3 litres for private road transport, and 7.14 litres for domestic air lines. Its CO2 emissions are put at 5.7 grammes per passenger-kilometre, which it notes are much lower than the 111 grammes for road and 180 grammes for air.118 Load factors and the method of generating electricity (France has substantial nuclear power plants) may explain these variations. Japanese sources have also reported positively on the CO2 effects of their trains, quoting, in one calculation, 19 grammes per passenger-kilometre, compared with 111 grammes for aeroplanes, and 173 grammes for the private car.119 Clearly, while this evidence points up the potential advantages of rail over road and air, we must recognise that comparisons can be affected by the occupancy rates of the vehicles being compared, the way in which energy is produced, and, above all, by the energy and carbon emissions used to construct a new railway in the first place. Some of the environmental gains may not always be justified by the scale of the infrastructure investment.120 Nevertheless, an attempt to aggregate the marginal external costs imposed by the various transport modes, undertaken by INFRAS/IWW in 2000, produced a positive result for rail. Accidents, noise, air pollution, climate change and urban effects were among the factors considered, but not congestion or capacity costs. The calculation revealed, for example, that the rail costs for the Paris-Brussels corridor were h10.4 per 1,000 passenger-kilometres, but h43.6 for the car, and h47.5 for air.121

117 Campos and de Rus (2009), 25.118 Loubinoux (2009).119 Eguchi (2008). More conservative comparisons – 100 rail – 500 air -750 car - are given in JORSA (2008).120 See Nash (2009).121 Campos and de Rus (2009), 26.


31

7. Conclusion

Do we need HSRs? In many ways the answer is as much a political as well as an economic one. The historical evidence indicates that in the development of HSR projects there has always been a significant political dimension.122 The most active countries – Japan, France, Spain, and, more recently, China - have all exhibited a long-term political commitment to modernisation, and included the enhancement of rail services as part of their agenda, although this is not to say that their pro-rail policies have enjoyed total support.123 HSRs are clearly important where demand for travel between large cities is high, as much as 12-15 million passengers per annum, and where a much higher capacity is required to link such centres over distances up to 800 kilometres. The rail corridor currently being explored by the HS2 project in Britain would seem to satisfy these criteria. Improved rail services providing journey times of up to four hours and a comparatively safe and reliable conveyance can offer positive economic and social benefits. The railway’s share of the market for travel of up to 800 kilometres can be 50 per cent, and for 500 kilometres as high as 80-90 per cent.124 More recently, the use of HSRs for longer-distance commuting of 100-200 kilometres has been evident. On the other hand, it must be conceded that capital costs are high, and some commentators are sceptical about the prospects for rail beyond a fairly narrow niche of journeys from 1-21/2 hours or about 250-600 kilometres, while others argue that the developmental gains from HSRs are far from certain.125 There is no shortage of enthusiastic support for HSRs.126 But while there is clearly scope for further construction, returns to investment will not normally be strong enough to attract private sector funding, and most projects will only thrive where there is a large market, a substantial public sector commitment, and some degree of network co-ordination.127

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank the following for their assistance in the preparation of this report: Mike Anson, Benoît Chevalier, John Dodgson, Tim Leunig, Henry Overman, Rod Smith, Kevin Tennent, and Roger Vickerman. The views expressed are entirely mine, of course.

122 Cf. Dunn and Perl (1994), 311.123 Cf. Perl (2002), p.15ff.; de Rus and Nombela (2007), 4.124 Hall (2009), 63.125 E.g. Gerondeau (1997), Vickerman (1997), Givoni (2006).126 E.g. in Britain, Greengauge 21 (2006, 2007), and Future Rail 300 (2009). For a more measured assessment see Segal (2009).127 Cf. Button (1998), 291; de Rus and Nombela (2007).


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Appendix

Table 1. High Speed Rail in operation, 1964-96

Date of Opening Line/Service Route Country Length

[km]Maximum Speed [kph]

1964 JNR Tokaido Shinkansen Tokyo-Osaka Japan 515 210 220 (1986) 270 (1992)

1972 JNR San’yo Shinkansen Osaka-Okayama Japan 161210 220 (1986) 270 (1992) 300 (2005)

1975 JNR San’yo Shinkansen Okayama-Hakata [Fukuoka] Japan 393210 220 (1986) 270 (1992) 300 (2005)

1977 BRB InterCity London-Bristol-Swansea Britain 310 200*

1978 BRB InterCity London-Edinburgh Britain 632 200* 225 (1991)

1981/3 SNCF LGV Paris Sud Est Paris-Lyon France 419 260/70 300 (1989)

1981/4/92 FS Rome-Florence Italy 248 250

1982 JNR Tohoku Shinkansen Omiya-Morioka Japan 465 210 240 (1985) 275 (1990)

1982 JNR Joetsu Shinkansen Omiya-Niigata Japan 270 210 240 (1988) 275 (1990)

1985/91 JNR/JR Tohoku extn Omiya-Ueno-Tokyo Japan 31 110

1985/91 DB Mannheim-Stuttgart Germany 109 280

1988 DB Fulda-Würzburg Germany 90 280

1989/90 SNCF LGV Atlantique Paris-Le Mans/Tours France 291 300

1991/4 DB Fulda-Hannover Germany 248 280

1992/4SNCF LGV Rhone Alpes (LGV Contournement Lyon)

Lyon-Valence France 121 300

1992 RENFE AVE Madrid-Seville Spain 471 270

1994/6 SNCF LGV Nord Europe Paris-Channel Tunnel/ Belgian Border France 346 300

1994/6 SNCF LGV IDF Paris inter connections France 104 300

Total in 1996 5,224

Source: UIC data 14 June 2009, with additions/modifications. Excluded: the Yamagata Mini Shinkansen in Japan [87kms opened in 1992, operating at 130kph]. *HSTs subsequently ran on several other British routes, including London-Penzance and London-Sheffield.


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Table 2. High Speed Rail in operation, 1997-autumn 2009


[km]

Maximum Speed [kph]

1997 SNCB Brussels-French border Belgium 72 300

1997 JR Hokuriku Shinkansen Takasaki-Nagano Japan 117 260

1998 DB Hannover-Berlin Germany 189 250

2000 Amtrak North east corridor Boston-New York-Washington USA 362 240

2001 SNCF LGV Méditerranée Valence-Marseilles/Nimes France 259 320

2002 JR Tohoku Shinkansen Morioka-Hachinohe Japan 97 260

2002 SNCB Leuven-Liège Belgium 65 300

2002/4 DB Köln-Frankfurt Germany 197 300

2003 DB Köln-Düren Germany 42 250

2003/6/8 RENFE Madrid-Lleida-Barcelona Spain 689 300

2003 RENFE Zaragoza-Huesca Spain 79 200

2003/7 High Speed One (CTRL) Channel Tunnel-London Britain 113 300

2004 JR Kyushu Shinkansen Yatsuhiro-Kagoshuima Chuo Japan 127 260

2004 DB Rastatt-Offenburg Germany 44 250

2004 DB Leipzig-Gröbers Germany 24 250

2004 DB Hamburg-Berlin Germany 253 230

2004 KORAIL KTX Seoul-Dongdaegu S Korea 330 300

2005 RENFE Madrid-Toledo Spain 21 250

2006/7 RENFE Cordoba-Antequera-Malaga Spain 155 300

2006 DB Nürnberg-Ingolstadt Germany 89 300

2006 Trenitalia Rome-Naples Italy 220 300

2006 Trenitalia Turin-Novara Italy 94 300

2007 SNCF LGV Est Paris-Baudrecourt France 332 320

2007 RENFE Madrid-Valladolid Spain 179 300

2007 SBB Frutigen-Visp Switzerland 35 250

2007 Taiwan Taipei-Kaohsiung Taiwan 345 300

2008 Trenitalia Milan-Bologna Italy 182 300

2008 NWR/VirginWCML upgrade London-Glasgow Britain 645 225

2008 Chinese railways Jinan-Qingdao China 362 200

2008 Chinese railways Beijing-Tianjin China 120 350

2008 Chinese railways Nanjing-Hefei China 166 250

2008 Chinese railways Hefei-Wuhan China 356 200

2009 Chinese railways Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan China 190 200


40

Table 2. High Speed Rail in operation, 1997-autumn 2009


[km]

Maximum Speed [kph]

2009 SNCB Liège-German border Belgium 36 260

2009 RENFE Madrid bypass Spain 5 200

2009 Turkish State Railways Ankara-Eskisehir Turkey 235 250

Total in Autumn 2009 6,826

Total 1964-2009 12,050

Source: UIC data 14 June 2009, with additions/modifications.Excluded: in Japan, the Akita Mini Shinkansen [127kms opened in 1997 and operating at 130kph], and the Yamagata Mini Shinkansen [62kms opened in 1999, operating at 130kph].

Table 3. High Speed Rail under construction, 2009/10-12



2009/10 NR HSR-Zuid Schipol-R’dam-Belg. border Netherlands 120 300

2009/10 SNCB Antwerp-Dutch border Belgium 36 300

2009/10 SNCF Perpignan-Spanish border France 24 300

2009/10 SNCF Haut-Bugey France 65 300

2009/10 RENFE Figueres-French border Spain 20 300

2009/10 Trenitalia Novara-Milan Italy 55 300

2009/10 Trenitalia Bologna-Florence Italy 77 300

2009/10 Russian railways Moscow-St. Petersburg Russia 650 300

2009/10 Chinese railways Zhengzhou-Xi’an China 458 350

2009/10 Chinese railways Wuhan-Guangzhou China 968 350

2009/10 Chinese railways Ningbo-Fuzhou China 562 250

2009/10 Chinese railways Fuzhou-Xiamen China 275 200

2010 DB München-Augsburg Germany 62 230

2010 Chinese railways Guangzhou-ShenZhen China 104 350

2010 Chinese railways Nanchang-Jiujiang China 92 200

2010 Chinese railways Changchun-Jilin China 96 200

2010 Chinese railways Guangzhou-Zhuhai China 142 200

2010 Chinese railways Hainan circle China 308 200

2010 Chinese railways Chengdu-Dujiangyan China 72 200

2010 Chinese railways Shanghai-Nanjing China 300 300

(continued)


41

Table 3. High Speed Rail under construction, 2009/10-12



2011 Turkish State Railways Eskisehir-Istanbul Turkey 298 250

2011 Turkish State Railways Ankara-Konya Turkey 212 250

2011 JR Tohoku Shinkansen Hachinohe-Shin Aomori Japan 82 /

2011 JR Kyushu Shinkansen Hakata-Shin Yatsuhiro Japan 130 /

2011 Chinese railways Wuhan-Yichang China 293 300

2011 Chinese railways Beijing-Shanghai China 1318 350

2011 Chinese railways Tianjin-Qinhuangdao China 261 350

2011 Chinese railways Nanjing-Hangzhou China 249 350

2011 Chinese railways Shanghai-Ningbo China 300 300

2011 Chinese railways Hefei-Bengbu China 131 300

2012 SNCF Nimes-Montpellier France 70 300

2012 SNCF Dijon-Mulhouse France 140 320

2012 RENFE Barcelona-Figueres Spain 132 300

2012 RENFE Madrid-Valencia-Alicante Spain 902 300

2012 RENFE Vitoria-Bilbao-S. Sebastian Spain 175 250

2012 RENFE Variante de Pajares Spain 50 250

2012 RENFE Santiago-Ourense Spain 88 300

2012 RENFE Bobadilla-Granada Spain 109 250

2012 RENFE La Coruña-Vigo Spain 158 250

2012 Chinese railways Mianyang-Leshan China 316 250

2012 Chinese railways Xiamen-Shenzhen China 502 200

2012 Chinese railways Beijing-Wuhan China 1122 350

2012 Chinese railways Haerbin-Dalian China 904 350

2012 Chinese railways Nanjing-An’qinq China 258 200

Total 2009/10-2012 12,686

Source: UIC data 14 June 2009, with additions/modifications.

(continued)

high speed rail revolution

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