Does European high-speed rail affect the current level of air services? An EU-wide analysis

This paper analyses whether the current provision of air services in Europe is impacted by high-speed rail (HSR). An ex-post analysis is carried out covering a large sample of 161 routes EU-wide using transnational data. We use censored regressions with special attention paid to the presence of outliers in the sample and to the normality assumption of error term. It is found that shorter HSR travel times involve less air services, with similar impact on both airline seats and flights. The impact of HSR frequencies is less clear, notably because of quasi-multicollinearity and of inverse proportion to HSR travel time. Airline/HSR integration at the airport has no significant impact. National dummies show Italian and French specificities that should be investigated. Metropolitan and national spatial patterns may also help to better understand intermodal effects.