Quantifying the Scale of Air/Rail Complementarity and Air/Rail Competition in Europe and the United States

A key issue in the American debate about investment in high speed rail is the possible impact on airports, and specifically the diversion of significant numbers of air passengers away from congested airports. This paper examines the scale of markets for both inter-city rail as a feeder to airports, and for inter-city rail as a source of diversion from air to rail. In the United States, the authors did not find a significant role for inter-city rail feeding airports, with airports in Newark and Baltimore having mode shares of less than one percent. In Europe over 23 million trips to airports by long distance rail are documented. In the Northeast Corridor of the United States, over a million rail passengers might have used air if the travel time improvements in rail had not been made. In Europe, an estimated 7 million trips in this category can be documented. The available European data supports the rule of thumb that rail terminal to terminal travel times of under 3½ hours are associated with rail capturing more than 50% of the air plus rail market for travelers with both origin and destination in the subject corridor.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 12p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01365430
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 12-3925
  • Files: TRIS, TRB
  • Created Date: Mar 20 2012 12:16PM