The Full Cost Of Intercity Transportation - A Comparison Of High Speed Rail, Air And Highway Transportation In California

The Full Cost of Intercity Transportation Page ES-1 This study evaluates the full cost of three modes of intercity transportation: air, highway, and high speed rail. The evaluation is done within the context of the California Corridor, connecting the Los Angeles Basin and the San Francisco Bay Area. The purpose of evaluating full cost is to compare the economic implications of investment in, or expansion of, any of these three modes. The scope of the analysis is full transportation cost. Full transportation costs includes external, or social cost, in addition to the internal costs of construction, operation and maintenance. In this study we include estimates of four types of external, social costs: accidents, congestion, noise, and air pollution. The 677 kilometer corridor for which these estimates are computed represents one of the alignments of a proposed high speed rail system between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The methodology used is to construct cost functions that relate costs to levels of output, as measured by passenger-kms. or vehicle-kms. Different types of costs are estimated as permitted by available data. These include short run costs, in which the physical capacity is held fixed; and long run functions in which capacity is allowed to expand to meet higher levels of demand. Average and marginal costs are computed for highway and for air transportation. But given the absence of high speed rail systems in California only average costs are estimated. The highway and air cost models are developed from basic principles and are estimated with actual data and system design characteristics observed in the California corridor. Rail costs are estimated with models that have been adapted from estimates for the French high speed rail system, the TGV, using available data for their estimation.