The full cost of high-speed rail: an engineering approach

This paper examines the full costs, defined as the sum of private and social costs, of a high-speed rail system proposed for a corridor connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco in California. The full costs include infrastructure, fleet capital and operating expenses, the time users spend on the system, and the social costs of externalities, such as noise, pollution, and accidents. Comparing these full costs to those of other competing modes contributes to the evaluation of the feasibility of high-speed rail in the corridor. The paper concludes that high-speed rail is significantly more costly than expanding existing air service, and marginally more expensive than auto travel. This suggests that high-speed rail is better positioned to serve shorter distance markets where it competes with auto travel than longer distance markets where it substitutes for air. <!--ID="" Acknowledgements. This research was funded by the California Department of Transportation, California High Speed Rail Commission, and the University of California at Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies. We would like to thank Tom Reinhold and Dan Leavitt for comments on earlier drafts of this work. The ideas and opinions expressed in the paper are solely those of the authors and do not represent the funding institutions.--> <!--ID="" Correspondence to: D. Levinson (e-mail: dmlevins@uclink2.berkeley.edu)-->