The Antiplanner

High-Speed Rail Part 2: Europe

9th September 2008

High-Speed Rail Part 2: Europe

posted in Planning Disasters, Transportation |

Many Americans who visit Europe return gushing over the high-speed rail lines. If only our country had the foresight to build such wonderful trains! It is too bad that America is being left behind the high-speed rail revolution.

A German InterCity Express (ICE) train in Leipzig station.

Fast, frequent rail service may be a boon to tourists. But it does not play a significant role in overall European travel. Eurostat’s Panorama of Transport says that, as of 2004, rails in the 25-member European Union carried just 5.8% of passenger travel — down from 6.2% in 2000 — while automobiles (including motorcycles) carried 76.0%, up from 75.5% in 2000 (see p. 102).

Italy was the first European country to start high-speed train service, with a 160-mile-per-hour train between Rome and Florence in 1978. France’s TGV began service in 1981. Today, high-speed trains run on more than 3,000 miles of track in Europe. France is the leader: its trains carry 54 percent of Europe’s high-speed rail riders, followed by Germany at 26 percent and Italy at 10 percent. Spain, the U.K., and other countries are all below 5 percent.

At the same time, page 106 of the Panorama of Transport says rail carries only 8.6% of passenger travel in France, with 85% going by car. German rails have 7.1% of the market, with 85% by car; Dutch rails are 8.1%, 84% car; U.K. is 5.5% rail, 87% car, and so forth. Even in Eastern Europe, with the exception of Hungary (where rails have 13% of the market), rails carry only 6 to 8 percent of travel. (These numbers don’t count air travel; adding that reduces rail’s shares even further.)

Regulations set by the European Union are supposed to prevent member states from gaining an unfair advantage over other members by subsidizing their transport networks. Yet most of the capital costs of high-speed rail has been covered by government subsidies, sometimes (as in Japan) in the form of “loans” to the state-owned rail companies that will probably never be repaid.

“Rail is heavily subsidized,” says French economist Rémy Prud’Homme. “Users pay about half the total cost of providing the service.” Prud’Homme estimates that European Union nations give at least 68 billion euros in annual subsidies to their rail systems.

Despite the speed of the trains, the extent of the subsidies, and the punitive taxes on driving, high-speed rail has not reduced highway congestion. “Not a single high-speed track built to date has had any perceptible impact on the road traffic carried by parallel motorways,” says Aria Vatanen, a member of the European Parliament.

Two 185-mph Thalys trains pass one another on their journeys between Paris and Amsterdam.

The introduction of subsidized high-speed rail has caused some airlines to end service paralleling rail routes. Before France opened high-speed rail service between Paris and Marseille in 2001, nearly four times as many people flew this route as took the train. Today, trains carry more than two people for every person flying, and at least one airline has abandoned the route. Airlines have completely abandoned Paris-Brussels service, and at least one airline has left the Paris-London market, since high-speed rail service began between those cities.

Japan’s high-speed trains operate on a different track gauge (the distance between the rails) than its low-speed trains. This means the two networks never interconnect. Europe countries use the same gauge for both of their networks. In major cities like Paris, the two systems are separate. But in the hinterlands, the high-speed trains often operate at conventional speeds on tracks shared with other passenger and freight trains.

For example, TGV trains can be seen throughout France and into several bordering nations. But they only operate at high speeds between Paris and a few other major cities including Marseille, Le Mans, St. Pierre Des Corps, London, and Brussels.

As in Japan, the emphasis on passenger trains has meant a de-emphasis on freight trains. In 2004, rails carried just 16.5% of freight (compared with 37% in the U.S.), while highways carried 72.5 percent (compared with 28.7 percent in the U.S.). As in Japan, rail’s share of European freight is shrinking, while in the U.S. it is growing.

Billions in subsidies, dwindling market share, successful only in putting formerly profitable competitors out of business. These are hardly the hallmarks of a program worth envying or emulating.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Planning Disasters, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. 1 On September 9th, 2008, Hugh Jardonn said:

    Those are “Thalys” trains in the second photo, not Eurostar. Go to railpictures.net and search for Photo ID: 248935 to see what I mean. See also Photo ID: 242183.

    posted on September 9th, 2008 at 10:04 am

  2. 2 On September 9th, 2008, Francis King said:

    There is a massive amount of controversy over high-speed rail in the UK, along these lines.

    Depending on who is doing the maths, it is either a very good idea or a very bad idea.

    A lot of opposition has come from people who notice that slow-speed (90mph) rail use is booming, and it is now highly congested, and are asking if putting money into these services wouldn’t be a better idea.

    posted on September 9th, 2008 at 11:30 am

  3. 3 On September 9th, 2008, gecko55 said:

    Dear ROT

    Greetings from old Europe where I must take exception to your flaccid arguments.

    “Fast, frequent rail service may be a boon to tourists. But it does not play a significant role in overall European travel.”

    Ha-ha. Then why are the trains always so crowded. And why aren’t we agitating to cut back on trains. In Switzerland where I live, what the citizens are agitating against is a big highway project.

    By all objective measures, Switzerland enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. And Zurich, where I live, is regularly top of the table in quality of life rankings. Go me!

    And the quality of the public transport system (the beloved SBB) is a big part of this.

    As you note, some air routes in Europe have been quit. Because they can’t compete. From a user standpoint, the rail option is much, much better than flying (or driving) on many well-traveled routes — e.g., Zurich-Paris, Zurich-Frankfurt, Paris-London, London-Brussels.

    Also, Euro generalizations, like yours here, tend to be, well, general. Some countries are obviously better than others when it comes to the transportation infrastructure. France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Denmark are great to good. Italy, Spain, UK, Nordics are OK. Poland, Czech Republic, Greece are poor.

    “These are hardly the hallmarks of a program worth envying or emulating.”

    OK, suit yourself. But to be completely obnoxious about it, when it comes to my lifestyle, and the huge influence the transportation infrastructure has on that lifestyle, you should be envious.

    Best regards,

    posted on September 9th, 2008 at 11:39 am

  4. 4 On September 9th, 2008, the highwayman said:

    Though the genie is out of the bottle since the advent of motorways. HSR lines could also be built in the centre of motorways too.

    Then again the AP mostly puts out stuff from a policy perspetive that’s pretty much BDOA(Brain Dead On Arrival).

    posted on September 9th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

  5. 5 On September 9th, 2008, The Antiplanner said:

    gecko55,

    Thank you for your insights. The Swiss trains are indeed admirable and I do envy them. However, few of them can be classified as high-speed trains. Instead, the Swiss railroads offer frequent service over the relatively short distances between many cities in the country. Switzerland, after all, has a population greater than Ohio in an area only a little larger than West Virginia. The only U.S. states whose densities are close to or greater than Switzerland’s are in the Boston-Washington corridor.

    On my one visit to Switzerland, I was surprised to find that the country was so small that I could ride something like 10 or 11 different trains in one day, including tourist trains (like the Cento Valley) but mainly regular SBB trains. I was particularly impressed by the IC 2000 doubledecker trains.

    At the same time, I did not find the trains to be “always crowded.” In fact, I was sometimes one of only two or three passengers on some of the trains I rode. Not that crowding proves anything other than that rail officials are doing a good job of yield management.

    According to the OECD, 13 percent of Swiss travel is by rail and 80 percent by auto, with the rest by bus. So the Swiss use rail a little more than most other countries in Europe, but the auto is still dominant.

    Just as important, the Swiss’ slight preference for rail is not because of high-speed rail, which is the subject of my article. Instead, it is more likely due to the short distances and, as you say, the density of urban transit services at many of the destinations. Neither of those can be found in much of the U.S.

    posted on September 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

  6. 6 On September 9th, 2008, The Antiplanner said:

    Hugh,

    Thank you for the correction. The Thalys trains use the same track as the Eurostar trains, but I should known the difference — Eurostar trains are yellow.

    posted on September 9th, 2008 at 1:36 pm

  7. 7 On September 11th, 2008, the highwayman said:

    Even with the auto trips not all of them are of the same distance or purpose.

    Transit boardings can be the same too.

    Though let’s be clear, Mr.O’Toole’s objective is to cause problems, not fix them.

    posted on September 11th, 2008 at 8:03 pm

  8. 8 On September 13th, 2008, » The Antiplanner said:

    [...] High-Speed Rail Part 2: Europe [...]

    posted on September 13th, 2008 at 11:24 pm

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