The full cost of high-speed rail: An engineering approach

David Levinson, Jean Michel Mathieu, David Gillen, Adib Kanafani

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

88 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper examines the full costs, defined as the sum of private and social costs, of a high-speed rail system proposed for a corridor connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco in California. The full costs include infrastructure, fleet capital and operating expenses, the time users spend on the system, and the social costs of externalities, such as noise, pollution, and accidents. Comparing these full costs to those of other competing modes contributes to the evaluation of the feasibility of high-speed rail in the corridor. The paper concludes that high-speed rail is significantly more costly than expanding existing air service, and marginally more expensive than auto travel. This suggests that high-speed rail is better positioned to serve shorter distance markets where it competes with auto travel than longer distance markets where it substitutes for air.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)189-215
Number of pages27
JournalAnnals of Regional Science
Volume31
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 1997
Externally publishedYes

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