scholarly journals Infrastructure costs and benefits of European high-speed rail

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Nedžad Branković ◽  
Aida Kalem

The development of new technologies has significantly influenced railways modernization and has caused the appearance of high-speed rail which represent a safe, comfortable and ecologically sustainable way of transportation. The high-speed rail present a big step in a relation to conventional railways, where the biggest difference is speed which even entails a change of other organizational and operational parameters, better utilization of trains, higher performance of manpower and better service to users.  That is visible in many cities around the world where high-speed trains are used by billions of users. In the EU there is no unique high-speed railway network, besides that in many EU member countries various operational models are applied. The future of the high-speed railways market depends on political, economical and technical factors and challenges as high infrastructure costs, various rates of return on investment and the negative effects of economic crises. The main objective of the paper is to analyze infrastucture costs of high-speed rail in Europe and benefits such us  time savings, higher reliability, comfort, safety, reducing pollution and the release of capacity in the conventional rail network, roads and airport infrastructure.

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Branko Davidović ◽  
Milivoje Vuković

Many countries investment and building high speed rail (HSR) infrastructure becouse produces social benefits and costs. The potential benefits are basically time savings, higher reliability, comfort, safety and the release of capacity in the conventional rail network, enviromental roads and airport infrastructure. The costs are high, and sunk in a significant proportion; therefore, the social profitability of the project requires that HSR users’ and other beneficiaries’ willingness to pay is high enough to compensate the sunk and variable costs of maintaining and operating the line plus any other external cost during construction and project life. Problem for our country, is number of passengers to justify a new high speed line. It is very variable, ranging from 3 millions to 17 millions in the first year of operation under possible assumptions examined, but typically even under favourable conditions at least 9 millions passengers per annum will be needed. The economic evaluation of long-lived infrastructure requires a careful construction of the contrafactual and there are many assumptions that might seriously bias the results. This is the case of transport pricing during the lifespan of the project. Pricing policy needs to be explicitly treated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-33
Author(s):  
Dayana Bitigova ◽  
Dinar Bekzhanov ◽  
Saule Bekzhanova

Modern high-speed trains in normal operation develop speeds of up to 350-400 km / h, and in tests they can even accelerate to 560-580 km/h. Due to the speed of service and high speed of movement, they seriously compete with other modes of transport, while maintaining such a property of all trains as low cost of transportation with a large volume of passenger traffic. For the first time the regular movement of high-speed trains began in 1964 in Japan under the Shinkansen project. In 1981, VSNT trains began to run in France, and soon most of Western Europe, including even the island of Great Britain, became connected by a single high-speed rail network. At the beginning of the XXI century, China became the world leader in the development of a network of high-speed lines, as well as the operator of the first regular high-speed maglev.In Russia, the regular operation of high-speed trains "Sapsan", on common tracks with conventional trains, began at the end of 2009. Since 2013, the idea of building the first specialized high-speed railway Moscow-Kazan (cargo-passenger) for the national high-speed traffic system has been discussed.Most of the high-speed trains carry passengers, but there are varieties designed for the transport of goods. For example, the French service La Poste has used special TGV electric trains for 30 years, which served to transport mail and parcels (their operation was completed in June 2015 due to the decrease in the volume of mailings in recent years).


Author(s):  
Eric Kroes ◽  
Fons Savelberg

In this paper we present the results of a study that aims to establish the potential for high-speed train travel as a substitute for short distance air travel at Amsterdam Airport. We investigated the 13 most important destinations that offer direct flights to and from Amsterdam Airport. Almost 40% of the air passengers travelling to/from these destinations are transfer passengers. Empirical evidence reveals that high-speed trains dominate the market for journeys of 2 hours or less, such as between Paris and Brussels. However, trains claim only a tiny market share of journeys longer than 5 to 6 hours; air travel dominates that market segment. Using these findings, we developed a model to estimate the substitution of air travel with high-speed train travel. The explanatory variables in this model are travel time, daily departure options, fares, and the inconvenience associated with transferring at airports. In a “minimum” scenario, we predict that in 2030 high-speed trains could replace approximately 1.9 million air journeys. This calculation is based on feasible reductions of train travel times and increased train frequencies for part of the rail network. In this scenario, Amsterdam–London accounts for more than three-quarters of the predicted substitution. In a “maximum” scenario, substitution could increase up to 3.7 million air journeys per year, provided that inconveniences for passengers when transferring at airports from plane to train are resolved and train ticket fares are reduced by 20%. These two scenarios imply a reduction of 2.5 to 5% of all flights to/from Amsterdam Airport in 2030.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Lukáš Týfa ◽  
David Vodák

The paper first describes high speed rail generally and explains the relationship between high speed and conventional railway networks (according to the vehicle types in operation on the network). The core of the paper is comprised of the methodology for choosing the best route for a railway line and its application to the high speed railway connection Praha – Brno. The Algorithm used assumes the existence of more route proposals, which could be different in terms of the operational conception, line routing or types of vehicles used. The optimal variant is the one with the lowest daily cost, which includes infrastructure and vehicle costs; investment and operational costs. The results from applying this model confirmed the assumption, that a dedicated high speed railway line, only for high speed trains, has the same or lower investment costs than a line for both high speed and conventional trains. Furthermore, a dedicated high line also has a lower cost for infrastructure maintenance but a higher cost for buying high speed multiple units.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (7) ◽  
pp. 1566-1576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cawas Phiroze Nazir

To meet the growing expectation of traveling public, world railways are going ahead in a big way to introduce high speed trains Electric railways require huge amounts of energy. Many rail networks run their own dedicated power plants. With a view to augment the capacity of the rail networks grid connection so as to make the railway self-reliant, a grid tied PV solar plant with battery storage has been proposed. The present concept is based on installing solar panels along the length of a HS rail network so that the ballast-less tracks could be used as energy carriers. Ballast less tracks require little or no maintenance, and the space along the tracks provides a large surface area on which arrays of PV modules can be mounted to generate electricity from sunlight. An example demonstrates that a 330 MW grid connected PV solar plant with battery storage for the Mumbai–Ahmedabad high speed rail link, generates electricity at $1.67  106 /MW output and levelized electricity cost at 12.05 c/kWh. Net saving in tariff after payback period is about $ 58 million per annum.


2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1750126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yutong Liu ◽  
Chengxuan Cao ◽  
Yaling Zhou ◽  
Ziyan Feng

In this paper, an improved real-time control model based on the discrete-time method is constructed to control and simulate the movement of high-speed trains on large-scale rail network. The constraints of acceleration and deceleration are introduced in this model, and a more reasonable definition of the minimal headway is also presented. Considering the complicated rail traffic environment in practice, we propose a set of sound operational strategies to excellently control traffic flow on rail network under various conditions. Several simulation experiments with different parameter combinations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the control simulation method. The experimental results are similar to realistic environment and some characteristics of rail traffic flow are also investigated, especially the impact of stochastic disturbances and the minimal headway on the rail traffic flow on large-scale rail network, which can better assist dispatchers in analysis and decision-making. Meanwhile, experimental results also demonstrate that the proposed control simulation method can be in real-time control of traffic flow for high-speed trains not only on the simple rail line, but also on the complicated large-scale network such as China’s high-speed rail network and serve as a tool of simulating the traffic flow on large-scale rail network to study the characteristics of rail traffic flow.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 2141
Author(s):  
Xueqiao Yu ◽  
Maoxiang Lang ◽  
Wenhui Zhang ◽  
Shiqi Li ◽  
Mingyue Zhang ◽  
...  

The rapid and stable development of China’s economy has driven the increasing demand for express transportation. Based on network operation, China Railway Corporation of High-speed Railway launched high-speed rail products, which have attracted wide attention from all walks of life. With the application of high-speed express trains, the market structure of express transportation in China will change dramatically, from highways as the main mode of transportation to high-speed railway transportation relying on a high-speed railway network, which will effectively reduce the environmental pollution caused by express transportation and further improve the sustainable development of the economy and the logistics industry. At present, the freight Electric Multiple Units (EMU) has been successfully developed and has entered the final test stage. In the last paper, we have introduced the theory and method of the high-speed rail express train operation plan. In addition, a train diagram is an important foundation of railway transportation organization. In order to ensure the sustainable development of high-speed rail express trains after they are put into use, based on the operation plan of high-speed rail express trains, this paper establishes a comprehensive compilation model of a high-speed rail express train diagram, considering train running time, freight flow distribution scheme, and the operation plan of freight multiple units, and an exact solution algorithm based on the Lagrange relaxation algorithm is designed. The computational results are encouraging and demonstrate the effectiveness of the model and solution method.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-238
Author(s):  
K. Grębowski ◽  
Z. Ulman

Abstract The following research focuses on the dynamic analysis of impact of the high-speed train induced vibrations on the structures located near railway tracks. The office complex chosen as the subject of calculations is located in the northern part of Poland, in Gdańsk, in the proximity of Pendolino, the high speed train route. The high speed trains are the response for the growing needs for a more efficient railway system. However, with a higher speed of the train, the railway induced vibrations might cause more harmful resonance in the structures of the nearby buildings. The damage severity depends on many factors such as the duration of said resonance and the presence of additional loads. The studies and analyses helped to determinate the method of evaluating the impact of railway induced vibrations on any building structure. The dynamic analysis presented in the research is an example of a method which allows an effective calculation of the impact of vibrations via SOFISTIK program.


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