Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
old is moving, in rail's favour, towards four hours. One advantage of rail is
that it is not subject to the same rigour of post-9/11 security checks that
make air travel inconvenient. Another advantage is that rail-journey times
are city-centre to city-centre. This is an advantage in Europe, which has
generally good public-transport links inside cities linked to rail stations,
though less often the case in the US, where people anticipate, rightly or
wrongly, having to drive at their destination.
From an energy-saving perspective, the only foreseeable drawback of
high-speed rail, were it to be successfully implemented using “green” elec-
tricity, could be that its convenience creates extra demand - the rebound
effect we examined earlier.
