Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
(CEC, 1993). Consequently, savings in land use are in favour of APT compared with
HSR, since while most of the airports already exist and only require expansion, new
land would need to be acquired to build a completely new HSR line.
The above analysis shows that substitution of particular APT by HSR services
may produce a wide spectrum of significant savings, mainly in terms of operating
cost, energy consumption, user time-to-distance cost, noise and air pollution. The
savings in infrastructure cost and land use appear not to be in favour of HSR com-
pared with APT, even though relatively short distances are concerned.
C
ONCLUSIONS
This chapter has addressed the problem of potential substitution of air passenger
transport (APT) by high-speed rail (HSR) services. Such substitution should be
expected to take place strongly on short-haul routes from 300-600km. The relation-
ships between the two modes have been analysed and it has been shown that there is
opportunity for substitution through competition, as well as for complementarity.
In fact, such competition has, indeed, taken place and has been justified in the
market corridors with high volumes of passenger demand. In these cases, depending
upon the competitive power, the market share of particular modes (ie modal split)
has changed. On shorter station-to-station travel distances, HSR has managed to take
a significant portion of traffic from APT. On longer routes, HSR has managed only
to slow the growth rates of air traffic. In some specific cases, APT has recovered after
significant loss of market share by increasing flexibility of services. However, these
processes have occurred during the medium-term period.
Complementarity between HSR and APT has been shown to be at a rudimentary
stage in Western Europe, despite some recent promising developments. One reason
has been the need for building expensive HSR infrastructure at large hub airports
with high volumes of connecting (ie transit/transfer) traffic. In addition, some schemes
for further development of complementarity between HSR and APT have been
elaborated.
Substitution of particular APT by HSR services, particularly on the shorter dis-
tances, has seemed to be able to provide specific added value for airport and airline
operators, as well as overall savings for particular actors, users/passengers, operators
and the public. These savings are proportional to the volume of traffic and are mainly
achieved in operating cost, energy consumption, user time-to-distance cost, noise
and air pollution.
N
OTES
1
The French railways launched the first high-speed rail (HSR) service in 1981 on the
Paris-Lyon line. One of the main reasons for starting the HSR in France was the oil cri-
sis in 1973, which resulted in huge fuel deficits. It was expected that the electrically pow-
ered HSR would reduce the dependence of the transport sector upon crude oil and
reduce overall fuel consumption by substituting for aviation in particular market seg-
ments. In addition, HSR services were launched in other countries. In Spain, Talgo has
operated since the 1970s; in Britain, the advanced passenger train was planned to enter
