01373324

Component

The European Union (EU) transport policy has considered since the early 1990s modal change from road to rail as a cornerstone of its strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although modal change is also relevant in urban and freight transport, this paper reviews a number of recent backcasting studies from the perspective of interurban passenger mobility, as the bulk of current transport infrastructure investment in the EU is focusing on the high speed rail network. The approach combines a general overview at the EU as a whole, and a more detailed study of Spain, justified by the fact that this country is making a particularly relevant effort in developing its high-speed rail network. The review of these backcasting exercises conducted in three steps. In the first step, some key existing trends are identified (the apparent stabilization of personal mobility demand by road; ageing of the EU population and changing interurban travel patterns), and the 2030 GHG emissions objectives are set. In the second step, the 2030 scenarios proposed by these studies are reviewed in detail, and their implications for the rail system in 2030 are analyzed. Finally, in the third step, different rail planning strategies are assessed, in terms of their ability to reach the 2030 scenarios and their feasibility for implementation. The review made suggests than, on its own, rail is unlikely to have a relevant impact on GHG emissions, as it would successfully compete, at most, with domestic air transport services, which currently represent only a small share of total interurban passenger transport emissions, and have good prospects to increase its efficiency in the future due to technological innovations and to their flexibility to adjust to demand needs. In order to increase its impact, rail should provide a more flexible array of services, in terms of tariffs, quality, origins and destinations so that it could become a more attractive alternative to private road transport. This would require also higher prices for road transport (which is likely to occur, as oil prices move upwards and technological innovations may result in higher purchase costs for road vehicles) and, most critically, the consolidation of multimodal transport systems, combining rail and road (coaches and innovative car services such as car sharing or on demand transport services) and offering convenient door-to-door seamless transport services. This context would require some rethinking of the current rail planning approaches, so that intermodal needs and potential could be fully integrated at an early design stage.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AR010 Intercity Passenger Rail

01362476

12-1598

English

16p

2012

Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References (22)

Air quality management; Climate change; Exhaust gases; Greenhouse gases; High speed rail; Highway transportation; Intercity transportation; Mobility; Multimodal transportation; Passengers; Pollution control; Railroad transportation; Technological innovations; Transportation policy; Travel patterns; Urban areas

Europe

Environment; Highways; Public Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration; I15: Environment

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2012 Paper #12-1598

TRIS, TRB

Feb 8 2012 5:03PM