Analysis of Mediarail.be - Signalling technician and railways observer
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26/01/2015
Today, 480 high-speed trains (Trains à Grande Vitesse, or TGV) radiate around France and to the Benelux countries from Paris. In Germany, more than 260 trainsets in five different versions called InterCity Express run with speed from 250 to 300km/h. Treno Alta Velocita is the name of the Italian’s high speed train of Trenitalia and his concurrent is called NTV-Italo. Spain had the biggest high speed line network in Europe. Recently, first works began in California while China continue his gigantic network. So, life seems to smile on the sector of high speed train. In reality, it’s depend. A brief overview.
An irreversible phase of decline?
A spectacular expansion
More news, in english en french, on the facebook page of Mediarail.be
26/01/2015
Today, 480 high-speed trains (Trains à Grande Vitesse, or TGV) radiate around France and to the Benelux countries from Paris. In Germany, more than 260 trainsets in five different versions called InterCity Express run with speed from 250 to 300km/h. Treno Alta Velocita is the name of the Italian’s high speed train of Trenitalia and his concurrent is called NTV-Italo. Spain had the biggest high speed line network in Europe. Recently, first works began in California while China continue his gigantic network. So, life seems to smile on the sector of high speed train. In reality, it’s depend. A brief overview.
An irreversible phase of decline?
Until years 60’s, nobody thought the
railways future would soon be threatened. This was the effect of building a
comfortable welfare state after world war II. But in years 70’s, it appeared
the idea of a irreversible decline of the railways, because people had reached
an adequate standard of living by combination of cars and airplane. Railway
became the unnecessary ground transportation and many plans were developed for
dismantle the railway network. The mentality and the spirit can be summed up
thus : we maintain just a necessary backbone for intercity trains, no more.
English still remember the famous Beeching Plan which identified 2,363 stations
and 8,000 km of railway line for closure in UK. Railway was in an irreversible
phase of decline, say all politicians. The subsidies were falling down
dramatically.
Renaissance
of railways
This was without reckoning with tenacity
of many ingenieurs and directors who have faith in the future. During the
mentality time of decline, they studies a new concept of train, helped by the
birth of the first high speed trains in Japan, in 1964. To ride at more than
200 km/h is not a theoretical dream, but became a reality. One condition : to
ride on a specific infrastructure able to accept high speed level. That was the
aim of the french which inaugurated his first high speed train in september
1981. Suddenly, railways changed their self-image dramatically : modernity of
TGV buried definitively the filthy and worn steam train of our grand parents.
Renaissance ?
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| A Duplex train set of SNCF (photo by Alain Stoll via flickr CC BY-NC 2.0) |
A spectacular expansion
The first country in Europe equipped with a high
speed network was however not France as mentioned but well Italy, with his Direttissima opened in 1977 linking Rome
with Florence. The top speed on the line was 250 km/h while the first
high-speed service was introduced in 1988-89 on the Rome-Milan line with the
ETR 450 Pendolino train at 250 km/h.
In France, the route Paris-Lyon in 1981 was followed by the Atlantic Route
toward Tours and Le Mans (1989-1990) and in 1993, the North line called
TGV-Nord toward Lille and Calais was open. In Germany, the 99 km line
connecting the cities of Mannheim and Stuttgart was officially opened on 9 May
1991 while the first regularly scheduled ICE trains ran on 2 June 1991 from
Hamburg-Altona to München Hbf.
In april 1992, Spain begins his great adventure of a new railways century, with his first high speed linking Madrid to Sevilla, but above all it’s first line with standard gauge (1,435mm). In November 1994, the first high speed train ran between London and the Continent, partially on high speed line. Success of France encouraged Belgium to build his own network, where first line L1 was open in 1997 : it was the first fully cross-border high speed service of the world, linking Brussels to Paris in 1h25. Thereafter, high speed network expands rapidly toward Marseille, Berlin, Naples, Amsterdam…
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| Frecciarossa ETR500 from Trenitalia (photo by Ricardo Zappala via flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) |
In april 1992, Spain begins his great adventure of a new railways century, with his first high speed linking Madrid to Sevilla, but above all it’s first line with standard gauge (1,435mm). In November 1994, the first high speed train ran between London and the Continent, partially on high speed line. Success of France encouraged Belgium to build his own network, where first line L1 was open in 1997 : it was the first fully cross-border high speed service of the world, linking Brussels to Paris in 1h25. Thereafter, high speed network expands rapidly toward Marseille, Berlin, Naples, Amsterdam…
In 2005, Spanish government announced a
very ambitious plan of high speed network which would allow a majority of
people to live from 50 kilometers of a High Speed Rail station. Around 1,000
kilometers of new track is set to open in 2015, expanding the current network
by a third.
 |
| Spain begins in 1992 on the route Madrid-Seville (photo by Matthew Black via flickr CC BY-SA 2.0) |
Battle
against airliners
The great challenge of the high speed is
to beat aviation trips around an hour, or 1000 km. With a fully high speed line
on the same traject, it's possible for railways to stay under three hours. This
travel time is a kind of "mental frontier" where people choose the
train or the airplane. These impacts greatly on the modal share of the high
speed trains. As a study of MTI reports, mode shift to HSR results when
passengers select HSR over modes, such as airplanes or cars because the
competitive advantages of HSR, in sum, offer greater perceived value.
The French Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV)
line resulted in a 24% loss of market share for aircraft and an 8% reduction in
car and bus travel. The best example is the Eurostar service, linking Brussels,
Paris with London : the modal share is today more than two third. The
connection between Paris and Marseille rose from 22 to 70 percent of market
share after five years of his opening. In Spain, a 27% loss of market share was
observed for aircraft and an 8% loss for cars and buses.
In Japan, Shinkansen and Intercity
services accounts for 18 percent of all domestic passenger-kilometers by all
travel modes, airlines includes. By 2014, high-speed trains operate in nearly
24 countries, including China, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, and UK. The global
fleet seems to reach in the world more than 3,500 trainsets. Countries as
unlikely as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and...the United States want now their
own high speed network. Works begin in California and are going toward the
final step in Saudi Arabia. Without to count the expansion of the network in
China...
The
great question of costs
The question of costs must be seen
within two aspects: the cost of infrastructure and the operating costs. The two
should be considered separately because there are not subject to the same
policy. Infrastructure is a public object, open for anybody (the railways). The
costs of infrastructure must call upon public policy with public funds, because
theirs amounts are unaffordable for a private business, even in the case of a
concession, such in Netherland. The last example in California has shown this
evidence of the need of state funds. In some case, financial technics such as
PPP can be used to provide more funds that State cannot procure. In all case,
taxpayers may be expected to carry the costs and in all case, there are no
alternative.
The second kind of the costs is very
different. Indeed, the operating costs are only the costs from the train
operator. Generally these costs are two sets of issues: a cost of
infrastructure utilization (tolls) and operating costs of the trains services itself
(energy, maintenance, onboard personal, drivers, marketing...). On this point,
experience has shown that management can be very different between an incumbent
operator and a private operator. That has been even demonstrated into the French
SNCF itself : the Ouigo TGV train sets provide much more mileage than the
"classic TGV services", turning continuously to 12-13 hours per day
instead usually of 6 hours. That impact on the maintenance process where fewer
trains must be brought to a standstill and where the rules of maintenance must
be renewed.
Times
change in France
As reported The Economist in august 2014, most of the high speed lines in
France are running at a loss and even the profitable ones are not earning
enough to cover their cost of capital. This is forcing SNCF, France’s
state-owned railway, to consider taking the axe to what has been a rare symbol
of French technical and business success. Le
Figaro stated that the growth of the TGV activity suffered a serious
downturn. Number of travelers fall down in 2013 by 0.7 per cent while in 2012,
the growth was barely 0.1 per cent. For the branch SNCF Voyages sales decreased by 1.4 per cent and now amounted to
only 11.4 per cent of the total sales. In addition, between 2007 and 2013, the
cost of infrastructure utilization rose to 8.0 percent per year. Similar
changes are seen in other countries. What exactly happened?
New
societal attitudes
This is some of the new habits taken up
by people. For example, speed seems not play the same role as it did yesterday.
Alternative consumption is becoming more frequent and citizens are concerned about the
preservation of their lifestyle, but not at just any
price. Low-cost products
now plays a growing role in social life and
economy. Restaurants, travel, cars, insurance, electronics, real estate,
leisure, clothing, food: nothing seems to escape the pull of low-cost shopping.
The buyer is finding that low-cost shopping helps him purchase similar articles
at lower prices. Carpooling is no longer a marginal market but becomes a real
competition, like that of intercity buses, which are now liberalized in Europe.
This means that railways are now again an expensive product and everyone knows
that Ryanair or Easyjet have widely conveyed the message : today, aircraft
is cheaper and is within everyone's
reach. On politic side, all countries are implementing
structural reforms and putting their public finances into order. That calls for
a series of measures to reconcile increased needs with budgetary constraints
and to seek, within the existing budgetary framework, better efficiency. This
concerns also the business of high speed trains.
Missing targets?
Missing targets?
It might seem at first glance. According
De Spiegel, in Germany, the national railway DBAG has already received €60
billion ($76 billion) in taxpayer money to fund his renovation, spending more than
a third of the money on new high-speed routes like the Cologne-Frankfurt and
Nuremberg-Munich lines. Nevertheless, the political target was not met. From
1994 to 2009, the number of passengers on long distances declined while only
suburban and local traffic increased, thanks to hefty subsidies. Which is clear
evidence that citizens increase to focus to regional and local sustainable
transport, because this is their living environment, as mentioned above. The low speed would replace the high speed ? This is also
the opinion of the long distance bus customers, for who the low-prices are the
main element rather than the travel time. So, in this context, what’s
ahead for high speed train in the future ?
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| German's railways spend more than a third of the money on new high-speed routes (photo by Mundus Gregorius CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) |
High
speed trains are not death
The development of high-speed railways
makes still people's life more convenient. You can go in the morning in
Brussels and come back to London in afternoon. You do that with a carbon
reduced footprint. Of course not everyone has the same needs nor an
"international" life. But without high speed trains, the same
quantity of customers would use airliners with a very bad carbon footprint. It
recognised that the crisis should also be taken as an opportunity to set our
economy more firmly on the path to a low-carbon and resource-efficient economy.
High speed can help but one of the things you have to consider is that there
appear to be little gains from further improving speed while the cost of energy
is rising. It's is crucial to renew the business model of high speed trains.
The french SNCF made an attempt with his new low-cost service Ouigo. While
manufacturers build trainsets with more efficiency, low carbon footprint, and
more seats. The new Velaro UK of Siemens sold to Eurostar proposes 900 seats on
400 meters long, while the "old" train set of 1994 proposes only 700
on the same lenght. Efforts are increasingly focused on improving efficiency,
safety and security, as well as on reducing environmental impacts. The success of high speed train will lie upon a good
planification of the needs and a clever combination of financial tools. There
is an ongoing need to try to do better with less and that will force railways
to make better use of more and more scarce public resources.
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| The project of new station of Birmingham-Curzon (www.birminghampost.co.uk/) |
The coming of high speed
train in the city must be the opportunity to renew the station's
neighbourhoods. For example, in Birmingham, according the HS2 website (UK),
high speed rail has the potential to stimulate further the ongoing regeneration
of the city centre. It's depends however of other factors outside the railway
areas, such as local politics of urbanization. As a KPMG report says about HS2
in UK, by changing the connectivity offered in the West Midlands, certain
business sectors could benefit more than others. For example, improving long
distance passenger transport will help to create a market for many companies in
the service sector. On environmental side, high speed trains are powered by
electricity, so their environmental performance will improve over time as more
electricity comes from renewable sources. The new high speed lines free up more resources for local and regional traffic,
and it is precisely that require the citizens, as mentioned above. The question
today is whether they would be willing to pay for its social cost. And this is
precisely what makes the contemporary debate so interessant...
