High-speed rail (HSR) is gaining increasing attention due to its sustainability and transport capacity, aligning with ambitious European transport goals for 2030 and 2050. Despite its potential, the creation of a unified European HSR network faces challenges rooted in poor coordination and national interests. This study addresses the absence of a comprehensive, long-term strategy for establishing such a network, with a specific focus on critical infrastructure development. It introduces an iterative network growth model to determine where, when, and at what cost HSR infrastructure should be built under centralized decision-making processes given current budget allocations. The approach analyses the dynamic interaction between infrastructure expansion and the long-distance transport market demand distribution. Results emphasize the benefits of adopting centralized decision-making and appraisal processes, highlighting that achieving these goals requires a comprehensive, collaborative effort, as well as a proper European institutional investment management with more spending power.

While the romantic appeal of historic, centrally-located railway stations is undeniable, their efficiency in accommodating high-speed rail (HSR) services for passengers is questionable. The allocation of centrally-located stations benefits passengers who start or end their journeys in major cities, but imposes longer travel times for traversing passengers because trains generally reduce their speeds in urban environments. The majority of Europe’s HSR-stations are located in these urban centers, where expansion options are severely restricted. Therefore, this study investigates the passenger welfare effects of relocating HSR-services from city centers to city outskirts, which could be an alternative to capacity expansion in existing stations. It does so by utilising a combined route-choice model, with the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) policy for 2050 as input. This study forecasts the station bottlenecks for 2050 and examines various HSR-service relocation scenarios. A logsum-based economic appraisal method evaluates the impacts on passenger welfare of these relocations. The findings reveal substantial potential welfare benefits when HSR services are relocated to peripheral stations. The order of magnitude of these benefits to the European economy ranges from tens of millions of euros per year to a couple of hundred million euros per year. This range depends on the traversing passenger volumes and the comparative in-vehicle time savings and distance savings between peripheral and urban routes. Both of these savings originate from the most important predictor of passenger welfare effects: the network design. It is recommended to policymakers to not instantly dismiss the possibility of peripheral HSR stations from a protectionist point of view, but to consider the option for its relatively low construction costs and externalities, and especially the potential for substantial passenger welfare effects.