Social profitability threshold of high speed railway: a benefit-cost analysis

In this study, the benefit-cost analysis technique for projects evaluation is applied to determine the minimum level of demand that makes a high-speed rail project economically viable in Spain. To get this goal, it is nec- essary to take into account not only the costs and benefits of the high speed...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Coto Millán, Pablo|||0000-0002-8126-0394, Inglada López de Sabando, Vicente, Casares Hontañón, Pedro|||0000 0003 5636 2740
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2011
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Cantabria (UC)
Repositorio:UCrea Repositorio Abierto de la Universidad de Cantabria
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unican.es:10902/4399
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10902/4399
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:High speed railway
Benefit-cost analysis
Passenger transport
Descripción
Sumario:In this study, the benefit-cost analysis technique for projects evaluation is applied to determine the minimum level of demand that makes a high-speed rail project economically viable in Spain. To get this goal, it is nec- essary to take into account not only the costs and benefits of the high speed railway but also the analysis of the costs and benefits linked to other alternative transport modes, such as plane, private car or bus. The re- sults show that the high-speed rail studied is socially profitable from a traffic volume of 6.5 million passen- gers and for a social discount rate of 4%. Given the benefits associated with network effects, which magni- tude grows parallel to the extension of the high-speed network, this threshold could be significantly reduced in subsequent projects.