Transportation Deployment Casebook/2018/EU High Speed Rail (HSR)

Introduction
High Speed Rail (HSR) has been a subject of interest for many years. The first trials of High Speed Trains occurred in 1903, with a trial run of trains reaching 210km/h between Zossen and Marinfelde in Germany. The first to realize the potential of the HSR were the Japanese with the New Tokaido line opening in 1964, it took until 1981 for the opening of the first line in European Union (EU) the TGV (Train à Grand Vitesse) from Paris to Lyon in France.

High Speed Rail doesn’t have a universal definition as there are many varying components. However, high speed can be defined by the infrastructure (new lines designed for speeds above 250km/h and in some cases existing lines for speeds up to 200/220km/h), rolling stock, operating conditions and equipment.

Market and Advantages of HSR
The high speed rail was initially created for inter-city travel. For France when putting the TGV in place this meant the ability for commuting between cities. But it also allowed for travellers to move between cities for less and for cheaper than air. As time has progressed it has come to include the tourism market. The current HSR market was introduced due to the following advantages of time, frequency, cost and the environment.

Time
The HSR system is stronger than the air when the journey times are under four hours, and this can be observed in figure 1. This is due to no need for check-in and security lines as well as moving out of the city to reach an airport. Therefore, the HSR system has had a significant impact on these routes. An example of this is the TGV line from Paris-Strasbourg; when opened the train travel time went from four hours to two hours and twenty minutes. The market share of the train went from 35% to over 60% in the space of five months.

Frequency
The HSR network can be modified easily according to demand, to allow for more frequent connections where necessary such as in peak hour. Whilst air transport must generally be planned well in advance without the ability to make last minute adjustments. This additional flexibility has been effective for HSR.

Cost
When comparing the costs of HSR and air transport on competing routes HSR is generally cheaper than air travel. Take the HSR route from Paris to Amsterdam, the cost of train is $110 for the minimum and $463.20 for premium economy for air travel (there is no economy on this route).

Environment
HSR runs on electricity, therefore is very flexible in the nature of energy supply. This supply currently comes from a mix of fossil fuels, non-fossil fuels and renewable depending on the location of the HSR. An example of this is in Germany currently the power for the country is from solid fuels (54%), this leads to a large carbon footprint. However, unlike air transport HSR can transfer fully to renewable sources and quickly adapt to other energy sources which are discovered whilst air is currently only able to use fossil fuels. The major carbon emissions of HSR currently is from the construction phase of the project, however with the use of renewable electricity sources can potentially become carbon neutral.

History
Prior to High Speed Rail there was many modes of transport used for distance travel in the European Union. Transportation which was used across the EU include air, conventional rail, bus, and car. A split in the limitations of these modes of transport can be seen. Whilst conventional rail, bus and car are inexpensive they are slow and take time, air transport was expensive (relative) although it did take less time than the other modes. The market was looking to evolve at the time to a transport which was fast yet less expensive than that of the air transport. With the advent of the Shinkansen (‘Bullet Train’) the Japanese HSR this market niche was fulfilled.

Technical expertise
The implementation of HSR rail required the collaboration of experts. Regarding high speed rail there were experts in the area due to the many years of testing of the viability of the options but also from the Shinkasen, the Japanese high speed rail but there also needed to be international standards for the system. The European Commission has issued directives as well as standards for the system particularly in the communication area.

Technological advances
The technology required for High Speed Rail included improvements in the track, signalling and the powering of the trains. Although as aforementioned there was an additional aspect of cooperation that was needed which wasn’t necessary with the Japanese HSR.

Track Design for High Speed Trains
For High Speed Trains to maintain high speeds certain requirements are required and they can be seen in Table 1. To manage this stronger material was required, particularly in the case of Germany’s reduced curvature. The cant of the curve would have required many new calculations, especially when the rail is mixed use.

Signalling for High Speed
As early as the 1930’s concerns were being raised about signal visibility at high speeds. However, when it came to the European Network the existence of multiple train control systems caused many issues, with the average speed of cross-border rail freight of 16km/h. To tackle this issue the systems needed to be transformed to harmonize with each other. This was done through the European Rail Transport Management System (ERTMS). The ERTMs has two basic components European Train Control System (ETCS) and GSM-R a radio system. The ETCS is an Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System. The ETCS shows the signals without the driver actually having to observe the signal outside the train. The ECTS is the latest phase in the development of safety systems which have been developing through history from the initial timetable-based systems, to the “block system” to the national ATP systems. The ERTMS system there is three levels of operation and the description of these levels can be found in Table 2.

Braking High Speed Rail
Signalling for High Speed trains, it is possible to update the current rail infrastructure as seen in level one of the ERTMS. This can potentially cause issues as these signals are designed for slower vehicles, and therefore don’t allow for alteration for longer stopping distances required for high speed trains. Therefore, HSR needed to develop brakes which could solve this problem. Initial designs for braking systems included vacuum breaks, which moved to air brakes finishing with disc brakes. Once disc brakes were reached alternative design for the application of the brakes. However, in the case of the TGV one disc is not sufficient and five are required to ensure rapid deceleration.

Growth Curve
Within transport and other areas there is a life-cycle of in this case a transport mode. The four phases of this life cycle are the Birthing, Growth, Maturity, and Declining Phase. This life cycle follows an S-curve. HSR is currently in the growth phase and is yet to reach maturity. This can be seen in the Quantitative section, as well as in the growth section below where it displays the HSR tracks that are currently under construction in the EU.

Birthing Phase 1981-1990
When High Speed Rail was introduced to Europe policies were required to ensure that HSR operated safely and efficiently. Many of the policies were borrowed from the precursor model of conventional train. These account for most of the embedded policies in the system during this phase particularly relating to management and operations of the railroad. There was also the requirement of updating some of the policies from conventional rail to meet the needs of the HSR. These policy changes including the updating of those regarding design and construction. The policies were predominantly imposed by the government.

Growth Phase 1990 - Present
The growth of HSR led to the involvement of the European Commission as the interaction went from internal (country government based) to external as the networks began to connect with other countries. As the networks started to connect issues arose such as gauge differences and differing signal system. This is where the ERTMS was brought in, this system was described in the technological advances section.

Additionally, another issue that has arisen during this stage is the funding of the projects. As the projects become larger in size the government can not necessarily afford the entirety of the project. Therefore PPP (Public Private Partnerships) are starting to be offered as a solution, although this is still very in the development phase. These PPP would offers private and public organisation a share of knowledge, know-how and financial advantages.

The growth of the EU High Speed Rail network continues, and this can be seen in the Table 3 below with many projects completing construction within the next few years. As stated in the European Parliament’s 2015 briefing there is a commitment to the “tripling the length of the existing HSR network by 2030”. * Stated completion date in European Statistical Handbook a 2017, revised to 2018

Quantitative analysis
As mentioned above technology follows a life-cycle in the shape of an S-curve. This can be used to determine at what phase the technology is currently within. This was done for the European HSR through data regarding the length of HSR track and this data can be seen in Table 5. This data was collected from the European Commission’s Statistical Pocketbook 2017, this had data that to 2016. It was then researched as to which lines opened during 2017.

To obtain the prediction of track length the following formula was used.

$$S(t)=\frac{K}{1+e^(-b(t-t_0))}$$

The calculated value of constants and description of the variables can be seen in Table 4. This was then used to produce the predicted track length data found in Table 5, and graphed as seen in figure 2. When statistically analysed the result produce an R-square value of 0.989 indicating a close level of fit and value of over 2 regarding the t-statistics. However, there is an issue with this form of analysis. As has already been discussed the EU High Speed Rail network has clearly not reached maturity as mentioned in growth phase section. This curve is meant to represent all phases of the life cycle, and therefore looks for a mature phase whether there is one or not. This can be seen in the plateauing of the graph seen in figure 2. Consequently the results are skewed and therefore the value of K, t0 will be wrong.