Enhanced non-urban passenger rail infrastructure
Enhancing non-urban passenger rail infrastructure may involve improvements to existing infrastructure or building new infrastructure. Improvements may range from electrifying existing lines to upgrading lines to high-speed rail corridors allowing speeds over 200 km/h. Currently, the most developed non-urban passenger networks are in Asia and Europe.
Providing enhanced/expanded rail infrastructure may aim to:
- Provide an attractive and more sustainable travel alternative.
- Cover unmet travel demand by improving mobility and accessibility to activities and opportunities for a wider public.
- Make rail operations more energy-efficient and therefore less costly for the operator, such as increased capacity, transitioning to electric, using renewable energy production or storage systems, or energy efficiency improvements for stations and other buildings.
- Enhance the service quality of existing or new rail trips by increasing speed and capacity, improving access and transfer between rail and other transport modes, and enhancing network coverage. All these measures can reduce travel time and increase reliability.
Where upgrades to the rail network can achieve mode shifts from more carbon-intensive modes like road-based transport or aviation, CO2 emissions reductions stemming from passenger travel can be expected. Increasing the energy efficiency of rail operations by electrification will also lead to CO2 emissions reductions, especially where the carbon content of the supplied electricity is low.
The primary CO2 emission reduction impacts of enhancing and expanding non-urban rail infrastructure for passengers will come from mode shifts from more polluting modes such as road and air transport, where this is achievable.
The exact CO2 emissions reductions from a shift from road or air transport, on a per-kilometre basis, depends on the energy mix and its carbon content used to fuel the alternatives. The differential between the different options is due to change as electricity from renewable sources grows and there is increasing use of low-carbon fuels or electricity to power air and road transport. The differential also depends on the life-cycle emissions from different alternatives. Life-cycle accounting can measure the emissions embedded in the required infrastructure, the vehicles and the emissions stemming from their end-of-life scrapping. Currently, rail is the only transport mode where electrification is a tested, mature and widespread solution.
A 2011 study by the Union of Railways estimated that high-speed rail in Europe emitted around 50% less than buses, and about 85% less than cars, on a per passenger kilometre (pkm) basis (or 17 gCO2/pkm). This applies when assuming a load factor of 75% for rail and considering “direct” emissions only, i.e. tank-to-wheel emissions for cars and buses and upstream emissions from energy provision for rail. Similar findings were obtained in a 2015 study, which finds that rail emits 3.7 times less than road transport and 4.3 less than air transport. The same 2011 study also finds that the emissions related to railway construction are estimated between 3 and 9 gCO2/pkm.
Comparisons of different transport modes on specific origin-destination pairs in Europe also show that, on a life-cycle basis, accounting also for emissions from vehicle, infrastructure build and energy provision, rail is around 5-15 times more carbon-efficient than the car on a pkm basis (UIC, 2015; UIC, 2011). While the range of these estimates is large, the prevailing CO2 advantage of rail is apparent, at least as long as road transport is not wholly reliant on low- or zero-carbon fuels. Rail assets also have a longer lifespan – 30 to 60 years for the rolling stock - than road assets, making their life-cycle comparisons often beneficial compared to road infrastructure.
Where rail improvements cater for unmet travel demand, which may be socio-economically desirable, they can also increase total transport emissions, as is the case with any new transport infrastructure provision. The GHG emissions associated with the construction of any new infrastructure are embodied in the materials used, like steel and concrete. Clear policy and requirements for full life-cycle assessments with low-carbon design and construction techniques can lead to significant innovation and reduction in embodied carbon.
Costs of adapting and expanding passenger rail infrastructure vary greatly by region and the prevailing terrain. Costs will also depend on the type of infrastructure that is built or enhanced.
In general, costs for the expansion or enhancement of passenger rail infrastructure can include expenditure for all the following:
- For new or upgraded ‘hard’ infrastructure:
- Railway lines.
- Stations: car park expansions, upgraded passenger facilities, new retail spaces or residential development.
- Depot buildings to increase capacity.
- Tunnels and bridges.
- Track enhancements: new junctions, flyovers, sidings.
- Electrification assets: catenary.
- Energy storage and charging points for partially electrified lines: reducing electrification costs for the operation of bi-mode trains.
- For new and upgraded digital infrastructure:
- New and upgraded signalling systems including train control systems and related line-side assets.
- New and upgraded telecommunication and signalling systems and rail operations centres like Transport Management Systems.
- New and upgraded passenger service systems like charging information systems (CIS), closed-circuit television (CCTV), enhanced WiFi.
Where new infrastructure is built in relative proximity to residential areas, costs may also be incurred to obtain building consent via environmental surveys and the mitigation of impacts. Costs may also occur where compensating or even resettling residents is required.
Examples for cost estimates for some of the above items, as identified in the available literature, are as follows:
- New, single track, electrified line per km: EUR 5 million depending on the region and project requirements. Extensive bridges or tunnels increase this cost significantly.
- Overhead line electrification (catenary) per km: EUR 0.5-2 million. Reduced electrification costs can be achieved by using alternatives like composites for support masts, which are quicker and easier to install and last twice as long as equivalent steel structures with minimal maintenance like painting.
- High-speed rail construction cost per km: EUR 10-100 million per kilometre, depending on region and terrain - whether tunnels or bridges are required - and if the rail is dedicated to passenger transport only, or also to freight, which is more expensive.
Costs for rail infrastructure, a public good, have traditionally been covered by the public purse. Typically these costs can be partly recovered by fare receipts or concession charges where rail services that use the publically-built infrastructure are run privately. Where applicable, funds for rail infrastructure may also stem from land value capture - mechanisms used to monetise increases in land values that may arise in the catchment areas of transport projects - or from leveraging the commercial value of rail assets, like rail stations.
Private players may also construct rail infrastructure based on arrangements similar to public-private partnership models that have to date been more common for road infrastructure projects. These models require careful assessment of the different possible modalities between the stakeholders involved, especially regarding risk allocation.
Railway improvements can provide many socio-economic benefits. These typically include:
- Associated benefits of modal shift including reduced road congestion and associated air quality and road safety improvements.
- Travel time reductions and related improvements in travel reliability.
- Better accessibility.
- Better operational safety.
- Reductions in land requirements compared to road transport with similar passenger throughput.
- Creating highly-skilled jobs during construction and operation.
- Potential stimulus for regeneration and economic growth and supporting regional inequality.
Building new railway lines and related supporting infrastructure has a negative local environmental impact as it affects the landscape and generates noise and vibration during construction and operation. Clear policy requirements for environmental impact assessments and environmental mitigation and compensation mechanisms like noise screening and landscaping schemes can reduce this impact.
New railway lines can also generate regional accessibility inequality where regions are not equally connected to the rail network.
Many policies can complement the enhancement of passenger rail infrastructure and ensure their uptake, and drive the modal shift towards rail. For example:
- Urban passenger rail services can feed non-urban rail services.
- Intermodal hubs, connecting rail to bus, air, (electric) shared car/scooter/bicycle hire/rental or micromobility services, can encourage inter-modality and hence the use of rail services and other sustainable modes.
- Pricing or taxing measures can increase the attractiveness of rail.
ITF (2021), Transport Climate Action Directory – Enhanced and expanded rail infrastructure for passengers
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