Analysis of high-speed rail’s potential to reduce CO2 emissions from transportation in the United States

Since the end of World War II, the passenger transportation system in the United States has been heavily based on the automobile for short haul travel and the airplane for long-haul travel. In this paper, we show that there is a growing potential for high speed rail in the United States caused partly by increasing congestion on the existing network and based partly on the higher speeds and higher service capabilities of new technology, high-speed rail. In defining the potential for high-speed rail over the next 40 years, we used two approaches: first, a bottom-up approach in which the major markets for high-speed rail as defined by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) were studied separately based on a projection of the specific demographics and demand patterns of those corridors; and, second, a top down approach in which the overall travel demand market for the United States was stratified into carefully defined distance profiles and demographic groups specific to high-speed rail. We conclude that there is in fact a potential market for high-speed rail in the United States, especially within the four decade time horizon chosen. Additionally we conclude that a 10,300 mile system would carry over 450 million passengers annually and would cost between 210 and $385 billion to construct. Such a system would moderately reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but would obviously have other benefits including time savings, improved safety, and reduced congestion which in combination could justify the system. We do not conclude that any of these systems should necessarily be built: rather, we conclude that HSR deserves to be taken seriously during the planning of the US transportation network in the coming decades.