Territorial Implications of High Speed Rail

A Spanish Perspective

José M. de Ureña

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317046141
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Transportation Industry
• Index: Business

High Speed Rail's (HSR) main objective is to attract air passengers between big metropolitan areas however the main territorial implications in many cases occur not in these metropolitan areas but in the intermediate cities. These implications open up new spatial planning possibilities such as decentralization, new regional centres and urban renewal projects. This book presents the experience of 20 years of HSR in Spain including some explicit information, arguments and conclusions derived from HSR in other European Countries. It debates the HSR territorial implications at three scales: national, regional and local, thus being of interest for strategic debates at those scales, such as the decision of new national lines, the pros and cons of deviating the line to reach minor intermediate cities or the selection of precise locations for new stations and the development projects in their surroundings. Comparisons with the recent changes in accessibility, spatial distribution of population and activities, are made with mobility for working purposes and with the characteristics of the HSR passengers. This book also examines the actions, strategies and urban projects that medium size cities can use to make best use of HSR opportunities, synthesising the experience of HSR medium cities in Spain and Europe. The book's conclusions will be of interest, over and above scholars, to transport infrastructure decision makers, city and regional planners and managers, and transport companies.

Chapter 1
High-Speed Rail and its Evolution in Spain

José M. de Ureña¹

1.1 The First High-Speed Rail Lines

High-speed rail (HSR) is only one of the numerous transport innovations that can be observed over the last 200 years (Knowles, 2006) and was designed as an alternative to inter-metropolitan transport systems, many of which were functioning close to their maximum capacities with growing traffic demand (Vickerman, 2009). Thus, governments have been urged to develop alternatives to tackle this increased demand.

During the 1950s, the main Japanese inter-metropolitan rail line Tokyo–Osaka was already functioning at its maximum capacity. To alleviate this problem, the design of a bullet train, Shinkansen, began in 1958 (the idea was introduced just before World War II). The Tokyo–Osaka HSR line started operation in 1964, just before the Tokyo Olympic Games and six years before the Osaka World Exhibition, and covered 400 km, reaching a maximum commercial speed of 210 km/h (see Chapter 2).

In 1971, the French government approved the HSR Paris–Lyon line, which began operation in 1981 as the first HSR line established in Europe, reaching a maximum commercial speed of 260 km/h. The surplus electrical energy in France and the petroleum crisis of the 1970s prompted the French government to choose an HSR alternative to cope with the increase in inter-metropolitan traffic demand using their own energy, while an air alternative would had have increased dependency on foreign energy sources.

These HSR services in operation, along with new special HSR tracks in both Japan and France, rapidly improved their maximum commercial speeds to about 300 km/h.

The first Spanish HSR line started operation in 1992. What was initially going to be an improvement of the conventional Madrid–Seville rail line became the first HSR line, with a maximum commercial speed of 300 km/h. Spanish accession to the European Economic Community was of great relevance for inducing this change.

The commercial speeds of the HSR services were approximately twice the commercial speeds of the existing conventional rail services. For instance, the best Spanish conventional rail services since 1986 had a maximum commercial speed of 160 km/h, while the first HSR services reached a 300 km/h maximum commercial speed.

Recently, several countries have discussed the possibility of increasing the maximum commercial speed of their HSR. Greater speeds allow for the possibility of running efficiently over larger distances, but they also mean higher energy consumption and maintenance costs. The present speed of 300/350 km/h is sufficient for distances up to 600/700 km (see Section 1.3 and Chapter 7) and thus for most European countries’ inter-metropolitan connections. However, these speeds may not be sufficient for internal inter-metropolitan relations in larger countries, such as China or the USA, or for trans-European lines.

1.2 High-Speed Rail Systems

The three HSR lines described in the previous section were based on a new rail infrastructure that differs from the conventional and uses a new type of HSR rolling material. Nevertheless, one of the objectives for the French HSR lines is to connect them with conventional rail networks such that HSR services can continue at lower speeds along these conventional tracks.

At the same time, other European countries, including Britain, have begun to establish faster rail services along conventional lines, although their maximum commercial speed was much lower than 300 km/h, generally 200 km/h in the best conventional rail tracks. These other fast rail services were established even earlier than the French or Spanish HSR in some cases. For example, Britain’s Intercity 125, which was intended for the UK’s main lines, such as the East Coast Mainline, entered service in 1976.

With globalisation and transport innovations Knowles (2006) indicates that many researchers have mistakenly assumed a simplistic and uniform shrinkage in the time and cost of travel and some models of spatial development have incorrectly assumed cost-distance relationships to be linear. Murayama (1994) showed that the introduction of HSR in Japan increased the accessibility of most cities but also increased the differential between HSR cities and peripheral non-HSR ones, the first ones gaining the highest location advantages.

Progressively, HSR has been defined as rail services having a certain minimum commercial speed, depending on whether they use special rail infrastructure (300-km/h maximum commercial speed) or conventional standard or improved infrastructure (200-km/h maximum commercial speed) (see Chapter 2 and Charlton and Vowles, 2008). This definition, together with the possibility of HSR services using the conventional rail infrastructure and of traditional rail services using the special new HSR infrastructure, has led to a more diversified concept of HSR (Campos and de Rus, 2009b).

Figure 1.1 HSR systems

Source: Campos and de Rus (2009b).

A HSR classification based on the relations between HSR and conventional rail services and infrastructure is adequate to understand the spatial implications of the HSR. As it will be indicated in Chapters 7, 8 and 9 of this book, these implications are deeply dependent upon elements that can be highlighted by HSR and conventional rail services and infrastructure relations. These elements are the number of possible stops (stations) and their location in relation to each specific city (central, peripheral, etc.), the number and timetable of services, the speed, fare, comfort and reliability of HSR services and the intermodality between HSR and traditional rail (and other means of transport), and most of them are well discriminated if HSR uses conventional or new infrastructure and if HSR and conventional services are mixed or separated.

Conceptually, there are four models of HSR infrastructure and services with improved commercial speed, and how they relate to conventional rail infrastructure and slower rail services (Figure 1.1).

The first model consists of two independent infrastructure networks used by two independent types of rolling material (see Model 1 in Figure 1.1), with the HSR infrastructure used exclusively for passenger services. In this model, new HSR tracks are normally built for very high speeds, 300 km/h or more, and they have adequate slopes (not exceeding 0.2% to 0.4%), curvature radii (7-km radius for horizontal curves and 14-km radius for vertical curves) and very few stations (about one every 100 km). The new HSR infrastructure also normally incorporates other improvements, such as security and management systems.

In general, new HSR infrastructures that use metal tracks and HSR rolling materials that use metal wheels and electric or petrol engine traction have some level of interoperability with traditional rail systems, even though they may use slightly different rail gauges and considerably different voltages for electric traction. Special HSR rolling materials with multiple-voltage operability and with some degree of automatic gauge-change capacity allow both systems to be somewhat interchangeable (see Chapter 2).

Other HSR systems envisaged for developing even greater commercial speeds (more than 400 km/h) based on magnetic levitation require a very different type of track and traction system, which makes interoperability almost impossible. The development of these other systems has been almost halted in most countries except for a few very special settings, i.e., the magnetic-levitation train between Shanghai Airport and the city.

The relevance of interoperability with traditional or conventional rail services and infrastructure, resulting in a number of services that use both infrastructures and transport many passengers, has undoubtedly influenced this reduction in magnetic-levitation projects. From the very beginning the French HSR system was designed to be compatible with the existing conventional rail network (Menerault, 1998). Thus, HSR trains can run on a much wider network than just the dedicated HSR lines.

The second HSR model consists of two connected networks, a newly built HSR network and the conventional one, which are connected only in one sense. The first network is used exclusively by HSR, almost always for passenger trains, and the second is used both by traditional rolling stock for all types of transport (passengers and freight, long distance, regional and suburban) and by HSR rolling material (see Model 2 in Figure 1.1).

This is the HSR model used in most countries. In France, the interoperability of HSR rolling material is complete in all electrified conventional rail infrastructures, as in many other countries. However, in Spain and a few other countries, interoperability is not complete, but it is becoming easier; the conventional rail tracks are slightly wider (about 0.2-m difference), and the improvement of the guage-changing mechanism in passenger HSR rolling material allows the change to be made at 20 km/h in about nine places in Spain (Japan also has a different HSR gauge to its conventional railway gauge). Railway services using both gauges (HSR and conventional) account for around 15% of total HSR services² (see Section 1.3).

This second HSR model can be subdivided into two sub-models based on the number of new HSR lines employed. In the first case, the HSR rolling material uses mainly new HSR infrastructure, and conventional infrastructure is only used to serve places without the new infrastructure. In the second case, the HSR rolling material mainly uses conventional tracks, which have been improved in some cases, and only occasionally uses the few HSR infrastructures that have been built in special areas (e.g., congested corridors). In the first sub-model, most HSR services do not coexist with conventional rail services, thereby assuring punctuality and better service, while in the second sub-model, HSR services are often affected by other rail services, and become less reliable (because they are subject to conventional rail service incidences). The first sub-model resembles the situation in France and Spain, while the second better resembles the situation in Germany (see Chapter 2).

The third HSR model also consists of two connected networks, a newly built HSR network and the conventional one, but they are connected only in the reverse sense, as in model two (see Model 3 in Figure 1.1). This model is rarely used. One exists in Spain near the Spanish–French frontier, where new HSR tracks are going to be prepared to admit conventional freight trains towards the harbours of Barcelona and Bilbao.

The fourth HSR model is a combination of the second and third (see Model 4 in Figure 1.1). HSR networks that were initially composed of a few lines, often independent of conventional rail infrastructures, are progressively evolving into complex networks of model four, combining all possibilities.

HSR models consisting of new HSR infrastructure with the initial objective of connecting distant metropolitan areas only needed a few stations. Therefore intermediate stations were only built if major cities were along the route, or for security reasons. Stations were established every 150/200 km whereas conventional rail networks have stations approximately every 15/30 km. Under these conditions HSR networks based on new infrastructure and independent services (Model 1) do not serve a great percentage of the intermediate places between metropolitan areas, thus reinforcing polarisation in a few places and increasing its ‘tunnel’ effect (Plassard, 1991). Whereas HSR models based on conventional lines (Model 3) would have stations much closer to eac...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1 High-Speed Rail and its Evolution in Spain
• 2 High-Speed Rail – The European Experience
• 3 Territory and High-Speed Rail: A Conceptual Framework
• 4 Demographic and Socio-economic Context of Spatial Development in Spain
• 5 Accessibility Evaluation of the Transportation Network in Spain during the First Decade of the Twenty-first Century
• 6 Mobility Characteristics of Medium-Distance High-Speed Rail Services
• 7 Territorial Implications at National and Regional Scales of High-Speed Rail
• 8 The High-Speed Rail in Spanish Cities: Urban Integration and Local Strategies for Socio-economic Development
• 9 High-Speed Rail and Regional Accessibility
• 10 Economic Assessment of High-Speed Rail in Spain
• 11 Afterthoughts: High-Speed Rail Planning Issues and Perspectives
• Bibliography
• Index