Passenger Welfare Effects of Relocating High-Speed Rail Stations from City Centres to Outskirts in the European Network
B. van der Hoeven (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
Oded Cats – Mentor (TU Delft - Transport and Planning)
Maarten Kroesen – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Transport and Logistics)
Jorik Grolle – Graduation committee member (Royal HaskoningDHV)
B. Goni Ros – Graduation committee member (European Commission)
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Abstract
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.