Fast facts: high speed rail – Part Two

By Jennifer Perry

To read Part One click here

High speed rail systems require very significant investments and public funding; “very strong” public control and guarantee is always necessary.
Historically, high speed costs have been paid with public funds, as is the case in Japan, Europe and Korea. In some cases, the trend is to share funds and responsibilities between different public entities such as the recent line LGV East Europe (Paris to Strasbourg).
“This has been 100 per cent publicly financed, but with a shared system that provides transparency and better control of the expenses,” the UIC’s director high speed rail Ignacio Barrn de Angoiti said.
In recent times, private funding can be attracted for part of the total investment, providing ROI for private funding and social benefit for public contribution. Two current successful cases using this formula is the PPP used in the Spain-France link and BOT systems used in Taiwan.
Since starting out as the world's first high speed rail servive in 1964, Japan’s Shinkansen has carried 8.2 billion passengers; and today transports 350 million passengers per year.
A number of other countries that have subsequently joined the “high speed rail club” including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, United Kingdom, Korea, China, Taiwan and USA.
The evolution of high speed rail in Europe began with the construction of the first line from Paris to Lyons, and since then a very “important investment effort has been realised by several European States,” Barrn de Angoiti said.
France alone has carried 1.4 billion passengers in 28 years of operation and today carries 100 million passengers per year. It also set the world rail speed record of 574.6 km/h in 2007.
Barrn de Angoiti explained that as of July 2009, 5821 kilometres of new high speed lines have been built in Europe, operating at speeds up to 320 km/h.
“That means an average of inauguration of about 208 kilometres of line per year,” he said.
As a consequence of this success, and as a result of environmental and energy considerations, Barrn de Angoiti said that all countries in Western Europe are developing new high speed rail projects, with more than 554 kilometres of new lines to be built per year in the European network for the next 20 years.
With the network having the potential to grow to 18,000 kilometres by 2025, Barrn de Angoiti said that interoperability is the most important challenge for the European system as the need for trains from different countries to operate on lines belonging to several systems are “basic requirements for the extension of high speed lines and services”.
“The inauguration of a new high speed lines also holds important changes in modal split, he said.
“For high speed train travel time that takes three hours for a round trip, the market share for high speed rail is always more than 75  per cent, with 25 per cent or less for air transport.”
Other countries with advanced projects to develop high speed rail systems include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
“The world high speed rail network (where trains can operate at 250 km/h or more) could arrive to nearly 42,000 kilometres of lines by 2025,” Barrn de Angoiti said.
Looking forward, high speed rail will advance on higher commercial speeds, reaching maximum speeds in the range of 320-350 km/h; see new conceptions of high speed tracks (ballasted or unballasted) and the standardisation and modularity of rolling stock; improve on environmental concerns such as noise and energy efficiency as well as safety, security and comfort; and incorporate new technologies such as telecommunications, WiFi, etc, Barrn de Angoiti said.

The UIC’s High Speed Department will hold its next World Congress on high speed in December 2010 in Beijing. The UIC’s next high speed training seminar will be held in June 2010 in Paris, and it's world high speed technical workshop will be held in November 2009 in Korea.

For more information visit: www.uic.asso.fr