This Transport Note has been prepared as an adjunct to the 2006-07 updating of the World Bank's Railways Databases. It uses the databases for inferences on aggregate trends as well as other Bank documents and sources of policy information. It provides a high level view of traffic and policy...

This Transport Note has been prepared as an adjunct to the 2006-07 updating of the World Bank's Railways Databases (www.worldbank.org/railways). It uses the databases for inferences on aggregate trends (and so subject to the caveats provided in the Explanatory Note cited) as well as other Bank...

A high-speed rail service can deliver competitive advantage over airlines for journeys of up to about 3 hours or 750 km, particularly between city pairs where airports are located far from city centres. One suitable type of corridor is that which connects two large cities 250-500 km apart. But...

The paper has three parts. It first summarizes the main factors that influence the costs and fare box cost recovery of rail passenger services, with illustrations from a range of different countries in which the Bank is involved in rail passenger operations. Second, it provides a generalized...