Passenger Rail and Freight Rail Partnerships: Annotated Bibliography

Core References

Bing, Alan J., Eric W. Beshers, Megan Chavez, David P. Simpson, Emmanual S. Horowitz, Walter E. Zullig, Jr. (2010). Guidebook for Implementing Passenger Rail Service on Shared Passenger and Freight Corridors. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board. Retrieved from http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_657.pdf.

• This Guidebook will aid states in developing public–private partnerships with private freight railroads to permit operation of passenger services over shared-use rail corridors.
• The Guidebook should encourage the broad acceptance of improved principles, processes,and methods to support agreements on access, allocation of operation and maintenancecosts, capacity allocation, operational issues, future responsibilities for infrastructureimprovements, and other fundamental issues that will affect the ultimate success of shared-use passenger and freight agreements between public and private railroad stakeholders.

Minn, Michael, Andrew Goetz, Sylvia Brady, and Keith Ratner (2016). Passenger Rail and Freight Rail Partnerships: Case Studies in Boston, Chicago, and Denver. Retrieved from https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/39852.

• Plan For Capital Investment: Freight rail interviewees concurred with the general consensus that passenger systems need to bring capital to the table for items like upgraded signalling, additional track, and additional sidings, as ways to compensate railroads beyond the straightforward economic calculations of delay or labor costs from sharing track, right-of-way, or corridor space "Policy without money is hollow." "Shared corridor means shared capital cost. If you understand that, we can have a conversation"
• Plan For Reliable Funding: It is incredibly important for the passenger agency to be able to show that they have a secure source of funding and a feasible time frame for project completion. The freight operators need to see that passenger rail is committed to completing the project in a short-to-medium time frame to ensure that the costs are accurate
• Plan For The Long-Term: The interviewees stressed the need for detailed consideration of full-system, long-term needs while not neglecting fine-grained elements like the costs of ongoing operations and maintenance and the coordination of dispatching. For example, the freight railroad might not be willing to negotiate small issues like grade separations and crossings or to sell smaller corridor segments unless they are tied to a larger deal. It is not worth the price to the railroads to process such small deals (the cost of paperwork, lawyers, etc.)
• Plan With Regional Multi-Modality in Mind: Several interviewees noted that the planning process should not take place in isolation, and the process needs to address passenger rail needs, highway needs, and freight flow needs. Collaborative planning can accomplish a win-win-win scenario, for example improved grade crossings. Freight rail and passenger rail need combined solutions, not one at the expense of another
• Plan For Mutual Benefit: The passenger agency needs to show the freight railroad how it will come out ahead even before beginning discussions. The passenger agency also needs to show that it knows what it is doing and talking about in negotiations. The two sides should approach negotiations as partners and strive to protect the reputations of both entities in the public eye. Scapegoating or assigning blame for failures in negotiation talks poisons future relationships. Passenger agencies approaching freight railroads with an expectation of a right to operate on their corridor will experience push-back
• Plan for Incremental Improvements: Several interviewees suggested that incrementally adding capacity is the way to get good commuter service. Examples they pointed to were the Minneapolis North Star and Seattle Sounder services. Starting a high level of service, such as 55 trains a day, can disrupt the freight operations significantly and require much higher capital contributions for improvements.
• Strive For Passenger-Controlled ROW: Multiple passenger interviewees suggested passenger-agency ownership of the ROW generally leads to successful agreements, as RTD did for all of its corridors except the Northwest Line. However, that perspective may be biased toward passenger operations. "It is not a good agreement if you don't control the switches." "The party that owns the track will dictate the policies that are put in place" "Control your dispatching!"
• Propose Heavy Rail Rather Than Light Rail: Heavy rail commuter service is easier for sharing a corridor than light rail service because the rolling stock is compliant with FRA crashworthiness standards. This is something that needs to be considered in a heavy rail vs light rail decision as tracks and rights-of-way? cannot be shared with significantly lighter vehicles
• Accurately Estimate Costs: The interviewees agreed that it is important for the passenger agency to have the most accurate cost estimate possible, and to try to keep the costs from escalating too much. One suggestion for keeping cost estimates more accurate was for the transit agency (RTD) to have an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with every community along a corridor before entering into negotiations with the freight railroad. This would help define what RTD is doing on the project, and what the community is doing on the project
• Appoint Experienced Negotiators Who Understand Both Passenger and Freight: Roughly half of the people interviewed in the Chicago area had worked for one of the other agencies or companies under study. This included people with private sector railroad experience moving to passenger agencies, people moving between different transit authorities, and people moving from city or federal government to regional agencies. Besides the personal networks they maintain as they move, easing informal contact between organizations that might be at odds with one another, these people also bring the perspective of the "other side" to their new position. "Both parties have to have a good working relationship, and work well together." "Both parties have to be knowledgeable about the other's business operations"
• Enter Negotiations With Clear, Realistic, Defensible Expectations: Approach the railroad with a clear goal, such as removing a lane of traffic from this interstate. Use rigorous modeling such as Revenue Technology Services (RTS) to understand capacity constraints and build realistic schedules. "Realistic expectations lead to realistic results"
• Landbank: Prioritization of landbanking by public agencies can head off critical issues in the future when the freight railroads have found other uses for their property. For example, the Northwest rail corridor was offered to RTD in the 1990s for "peanuts" when freight traffic was waning, but RTD did not have cash to buy it then. If they had, they would have been able to avoid the contentious negotiations that stalled plans to use that corridor. The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, on the other hand, was able to purchase five miles of right-of-way in the 1990s that only now is going through the planning process to become a new passenger rail line (the West Lake Corridor to Dyer, IN).

System and Statistical References

Armstrong, John H. and William C. Vantuono (ed.) (2008). The Railroad: What it is, What it Does, fifth edition. Omaha: Simmons-Boardman Books.

• pp 26: In the early years of United States railroading, several different gages were in use. In 1863, however, President Lincoln designated 4 ft 8 1/2 in. as the gage for the railroad to be built to the Pacific Coast. This, then, became the standard to which all U.S. railroads conformed. Thus, the railroads south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers that were mostly 5 ft gage until 1887 changed to standard virtually over a signle weekend.
• pp 113: The Federal Safety Appliance Act of 1893 required the adoption of automatic couplers that would permit cars to be connected and disconnected without requiring a person to go between them. Of the thousands of patented devices to do this, the swinging-knuckle design of Major Eli H. Janney was selected for standardization and, except for specialized appliances like drawbar-connected cars in a unit train or articulate intermodal platforms, is used on all North American cars and locomotives.
• pp 119: Since 1900, the common factor on all trains in American railroading has been the air-brake - the most complex set of equipment on the freight car fleet, and the only one that has some components that could possibly be called "delicate."

Bureau of Transportation Statistics (2019). National Transportation Statistics - U.S. Ton-Miles of Freight (BTS Special Tabulation). Retrieved from https://www.bts.gov/us-ton-miles-freight.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics (2019). Freight Analysis Framework Trend – Over Time (1997-2045) – Ton-Miles. Retrieved from https://explore.dot.gov/views/FAF_Dashboard_451/FAFTrend1997-2045.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics (2019). National Transportation Statistics - U.S. Passenger-Miles. Retrieved from https://www.bts.gov/us-ton-miles-freight.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2019). Passenger transport – Rail, Million passenger-kilometres, 1970 – 2018. Retrieved from https://data.oecd.org/transport/passenger-transport.htm.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2019). Freight transport. Retrieved from https://data.oecd.org/transport/freight-transport.htm.

EUROSTAT (2019). Modal split of freight transport [T2020_RK320]. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/t2020_rk320/default/table?lang=en.

US Central Intelligence Agency (2019). GDP - composition, by sector of origin. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/214.html.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics (2019). National Transportation Statistics - U.S. Ton-Miles of Freight (BTS Special Tabulation). Retrieved from https://www.bts.gov/us-ton-miles-freight.

Foresight 2050 (2009). Management Summary I on Policy, Technology, and External Factors. Prepared for the 1st FREIGHTVISION Forum 16th and 17th March 2009, Brussels. Retrieved from https://trimis.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/project/documents/20120823_190736_35476_Management_Summary_I_FinalVersion.pdf.

• Appendix A is table of forcast growth rates and modal split
• University of Oxford, Transport Studies Unit. Freightvision: Freight Transport Foresight 2050. https://www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/research/freightvision/
• FREIGHTVISION - Sustainable European Freight Transport 2050

World Bank (2019). Population, total. Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.

Capacity for Rail (2017). Requirements toward the freight system of 2030-2050 (Final). Retrieved from http://www.capacity4rail.eu/IMG/pdf/c4r-d2.1.2_requirements_toward_the_freight_system_of_2030-2050_final_.pdf.

• Review of technical studies for increased rail freight
• Paving the way for the specification of future railway technologies and systems, and bringing together the major stakeholders of industry, infrastructure managers, railway undertakers, engineering and academic sciences, CAPACITY4RAIL is also an invaluable preparation for the future European Joint Technology Initiative.
• Two targets in the EU white paper at 2011 were that 30% of road freight over 300 km should shift to other modes such as rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and to triple the length of the existing high-speed rail network by 2030.
• Many different forecasts for transportation in Europe have been made at different times and with different perspectives. Some of them will be presented in summarized form here: Primes, TREMOVE, iTREN, TRANS-visions and TOSCA. This is followed by a more detailed description of D-rail, which includes both commodities and network assignments, and SPECTRUM because it describes a new market for rail freight. Most of the forecasts include road, rail and inland waterway but few include maritime transport.
• The total growth for freight transport demand is of the same order. Due to the economic growth, which for all forecasts is assumed to be positive in the long term, the growth of the total transport effort will be 1.5-1.7% per year or 50-60% from 2010-2050. Overall, the total freight transport forecast scenarios compare well. (Capacity4Rail, 2017, p.28)

Class I Railroad Assets (end of 2015)

• BNSF: $79.9B
• Union Pacific: $54.6
• Canadian National: $36.4B
• CSX Transportation: $35B
• Norfolk Southern: $34.3B
• Canadian Pacific: $19.6B
• Kansas City Southern: $8.3B
• Total (2015): $268 Billion

Association of American Railroads (AAR). 2016. Freight Railroad Capacity and Investment. https://www.aar.org/BackgroundPapers/Freight%20Railroad%20Capacity%20and%20Investment.pdf (accessed 16 July 2016)

• The freight railroads spent around \$30 billion (around 40\% of revenue) in 2015 on capital expenditures and maintenance expenses related to locomotives, freight cars, tracks, bridges, tunnels and other infrastructure and equipment (AAR 2016b).

Association of American Railroads. 2016a. Types of Railroads. https://www.aar.org/Pages/Our-Network-archive.aspx

• The U.S. freight rail network is widely considered one of the most dynamic freight systems in the world, consisting of 140,000 rail miles operated by more than 560 railroads.
• Every day, railroads deliver an average of 5 million tons of goods to ports, distribution centers, businesses and more.
• While the nation’s 560 railroads typically own their own tracks and locomotives, they share a fleet of approximately 1.5 million rail cars.
• Moving goods along the freight rail network involves transferring cars from one railroad to another, a process called interchange, along the network’s 140,000 miles of track. An estimated one-third of all carloads travel over more than one railroads’ lines.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics. 2016. DOT Releases 30-Year Freight Projections. http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts013_16.

New projections released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) show that freight tons moving on the nation’s transportation network will grow 40 percent in the next three decades while the value of the freight will almost double, increasing by 92 percent.

The US Department of Transportation predicts rail freight tonnage will increase 24% over the thirty years between 2015 and 2045 (BTS 2016).

Bureau of Transportation Statistics. 2015. National Transportation Statistics, October. Washington, DC: United States Department of Transportation. http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics (accessed 15 December 2015).

American Public Transportation Association (APTA). 2015. Public Transportation Fact Book. http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Pages/transitstats.aspx (accessed 15 December 2015).

Commuter Rail Agencies

• MTA Long Island Rail Road (MTA LIRR)
• MTA Metro-North Commuter Railroad (MTA-MNCR)
• New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJ TRANSIT)
• Northeast Illinois Reg. Commuter Railroad Corp. (Metra)
• Southeastern Pennsylvania Transp. Authority (SEPTA)
• Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)
• Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, Caltrain (PCJPB)
• Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink)
• Maryland Transit Administration (MTA)
• Virginia Railway Express (VRE)
• South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (TRI-Rail)
• Utah Transit Authority (UTA)
• Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD)
• Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (ST)
• Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART)
• North County Transit District (NCTD)
• Rio Metro Regional Transit District (RMRTD)
• Altamont Corridor Express (ACE)
• Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT)
• Metro Transit
• Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PENNDOT)
• Northern New England Passenger Rail Auth. (NNEPRA)
• Regional Transportation Authority (RTA)
• Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC)

Hybrid (Light Rail Commuter) Agencies

• New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJ TRANSIT)
• North County Transit District (NCTD)
• Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (CMTA)
• Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA)
• Tri-County Metropolitan Transp. District of Oregon (TriMet)

Brock, Timothy J. and Reginald R. Souleyrette. 2013. An Overview of U.S. Commuter Rail. Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report. Paper 316. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/ktc_researchreports/316 (accessed 15 December 2015).

Detailed typology and listing of 26 US commuter rail systems

Project planners and local policymakers serve as transfer agents collecting and disseminating best practices through networking with colleagues, shared project consultants and information gathering trips. Many cities considering establishing a commuter rail system send a delegation of local planners and policymaker to visit benchmark cities with similar demographics. Systems in the planning phase conduct conferences, asking members of other commuter rail systems to share their institutional knowledge on establishing a commuter rail system. Perhaps the greatest means by which commuter rail practices are transferred is a shared set of consultants or experts. These include specialized private consultants, individual experts or large firms, and the new start commuter rail program managers at the FTA. The FTA highlights the current state of best practices for commuter rail and connects establishing systems with established commuter rail systems as part of the new start grant process (Brock and Souleyrette 2013, 14).

Vilter, Paul (2006). Improving Coexistence from an Intercity Passenger Railroad Perspective. TRB Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, January, Session 484: Costing Shared-Use Rail Infrastructure.

• There is a range of host environments for Amtrak:
  • Unconstrained: There is little competing traffic, and good on-time performance (OTP) is relatively easy to achieve
  • Performing: There is significant traffic, but the host railroad management still produces good Amtrak OTP
  • Nonperforming: There is significant traffic, and the host railroad impedes Amtrak OTP
  • Severe or Breakdown: There is congestion so severe that the host railroad reliability is impaired along with Amtrak
• Selecting the best "solution" depends on the host environment:
  • If the environment is unconstrained, per- forming, or nonperforming, then OTP can be improved using performance incentives and focused daily management
  • If the environment is nonperforming or severe or breakdown, then capacity invest- ment and possibly even legislation or liti- gation may be required
  • Host infrastructure alone will not guarantee good OTP. Once the capital investment is in place, the tenant railroad can lose its leverage

Shared-Use Corridors

Witte, Patrick A., Bart W. Wiegmans, Frank G. van Oort, and Tejo JM Spit (2012). Chokepoints in corridors: Perspectives on bottlenecks in the European transport network. Research in Transportation Business and Management 5, 57-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2012.10.001.

• Bottlenecks

Witte, Patrick and Tejo Spit (2014). Sectoral Drawbacks in Transport: Towards a New Analytical Framework on European Transport Corridors. In: Lami I. (eds) Analytical Decision-Making Methods for Evaluating Sustainable Transport in European Corridors. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04786-7_4.

• The present understanding of bottlenecks in the European transport network fails to grasp the cumulating and culminating effects of bottlenecks, for the scope of the research is in most cases limited to a one-sided (logistics) perspective.
• A theoretical framework has been created, which argues that bottlenecks should be interpreted as integrative, complex problems, operating on the cutting edge between transportation, spatial planning, environmental issues, economic development and transnational governance.
• The theoretical framework has been tested in an empirical setting by zooming in on the European transport Corridor 24. In a first step, both general (macro-level) and specific (micro-level) bottlenecks have been identified by interviewing logistics experts. In a next step, these first results will be further used to perform an in-depth, qualitative analysis of bottlenecks in case-study areas along Corridor 24.
• One of the key findings is that bottlenecks emerge from different, sectoral perspectives. Moreover, these perspectives appear to be highly interrelated. In other words, more attention should be paid to the cumulating and culminating effects of bottlenecks, operating as comprehensive problem areas. The most important implication is that, when using a limited, sectoral perspective on bottlenecks, one loses track of the possible added value of sector-transcendent analyses. This will ultimately lead to inefficient use of transport networks. This chapter provides a new conceptualisation for the possibilities of inter-sectoral coordination in dealing with bottlenecks in the European transport network.

Priemus, H., and Zonneveld, W. (2003). What are corridors and what are the issues? Introduction to special issue: the governance of corridors. Journal of Transport Geography, 11(3), 167-177. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0966-6923(03)00028-0.

• Linear concepts such as the corridor have a long history in spatial and urban planning. The recent megacorridor or eurocorridor concept, proposed in the context of discussion on European territorial development, strives to integrate policies on infrastructure, urbanisation and economic development. As is shown by the example of the Netherlands, the corridor concept can count on a hostile reception from spatial planners. As an analytical concept the corridor can hardly be denied its legitimacy. Several urgent policy issues can be attached to corridor developments that together require an improved coordination between policy domains at different spatial levels.

Bonnafous, Alain and Yves Crozet (2014). Efficiency indicators of Railways in France. Retrieved from https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/bonnafous-crozet_0.pdf.

Transit Cooperative Research Program (2002). Germany’s Track-Sharing Experience: Mixed Use of Rail Corridors. Retrieved from http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp_rrd_47.pdf.

Freight Mode Share

Moyo, Dambisa (2019). Are Businesses Ready for Deglobalization? Harvard Business Review, 6 December. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/12/are-businesses-ready-for-deglobalization.

• Concerned about trade protectionism, and revenue loss from trade wars, forward-thinking business leaders are developing strategies to mitigate the longer-term risk of deglobalization. But many multinational corporations may not be ready to compete in a deglobalized future.
• This article identifies four forces: a fragmented internet, global competition for talent, complicated finance and regulatory regimes, and outdated corporate structures, that multinational leaders should be considering.

Zgonc, Borut, Metka Tekavčič, and Marko Jakšič. 2019. The impact of distance on mode choice in freight transport. European Transport Research Review 11:10. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12544-019-0346-8.

• The ever-increasing use of road freight transport brings a variety of negative, external effects such as congestion, pollution, and accidents [1]. Becoming aware of the growing freight transport volumes and ever more congested roads, the European Commission [2] suggested a shift from road transport to other, more sustainable transport modes in order to reduce the transport sector’s environmental impact.
• As the European Commission [2] noted, 30% of road freight transported over 300 km could be shifted to other modes like rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50% by 2050, facilitated by efficient and green freight corridors [3].
• Some researches, such as Rutten [4], state that all road transport over distances exceeding 100 km is basically suitable for shifting over to intermodal transport on the condition that, with respect to the goods considered, the intermodal, also known as multimodal, transport’s quality and service is comparable to or better than that provided by road haulage.

Hillman, Jonathan E. (2018). The Rise of China-Europe Railways. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies. Retrieved from https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-china-europe-railways.

• ...new railway services between China and Europe have emerged rapidly. Just 10 years ago, regular direct freight services from China to Europe did not exist. Today, they connect roughly 35 Chinese cities with 34 European cities.3 Rail services are considerably cheaper than air and faster than sea, as Figure 1 illustrates, and could provide a compelling middle option for more goods in the coming years.
• Rail’s share of cargo by value is already growing, increasing 144 percent during the first half of 2017, as compared to the same period in 2016.4 A study commissioned by the International Union of Railways estimates that China-Europe rail services could double their share of trade by volume over the next decade.

Rodrigue, Jean-Paul (2020). Share of Rail Passenger Traffic to Total Rail Traffic. In, The Geography of Transport Systems, fifth edition. New York: Routledge. Retrieved from https://transportgeography.org/?page_id=1947.

• Rail freight dominates in the United States and Canada while passengers are a residual function. This is mainly related to the geographical scale of their respective rail systems along with a preference on road and air transportation for inter-urban passenger movements. This confer an advantage for the flow of rail freight as it is uninterrupted by passenger flows.
• Western Europe and Japan have a reverse situation where rail transportation tends to be dominated by passengers. As a result, rail freight flows are often marginalized and constrained to use the system during the night. This is reflected in the performance of rail freight operations in Europe where the average speed is about 18 km/hour and only half of international combined freight trains are running on time.

Resor, Randolph, James Blaze, and Edward Morlok (2004). Short-Haul Rail Intermodal: Can It Compete with Trucks? Transportation Research Record. 1873. 45-52. 10.3141/1873-06.

• The introduction of double-stack rail cars in the 1980s dramatically reduced rail haul costs, and it made intermodal traffic competitive at distances of 500 mi or so, whereas previously rail could compete with trucks only at distances of about 750 mi or more. Still, most rail intermodal traffic remains long haul. Three-quarters of all truck tonnage moves distances of less than 500 mi, and rail does not compete in this market. Rail haul costs are developed for a number of short corridors, and it is demonstrated that although double-stack usage has low

Gruenspecht, Howard (2019). The U.S. coal sector: Recent and continuing challenges. Brookings Institution. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-u-s-coal-sector/.

European Commission (2020). The European Rail Network for Competitive Freight. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/rail/infrastructures/rail_freight_oriented_network_en.

• The Regulation concerning a European Rail Network for Competitive Freight (Regulation EU 913/2010 ) entered into force on 9 November 2010. The Regulation requests Member State to establish international market-oriented Rail Freight Corridors to meet three challenges :
  • strengthening co-operation between Infrastructure Managers on key aspects such as allocation of path, deployment of interoperable systems and infrastructure development;
  • striking the right balance between freight and passenger traffic along the Rail Freight Corridors, giving adequate capacity and priority for freight in line with market needs and ensuring that common punctuality targets for freight trains are met
  • promoting intermodality between rail and other transport modes by integrating terminals into the corridor management and development.

Vassallo, Jose Manuel, and Mark Fagan (2007). Nature or nurture: Why do railroads carry greater freight share in the United States than in Europe? Transportation 34 (2). 177-193.

• During the 1950s, the share of freight carried by railroads was similar and declining in both the United States and Europe. By 2000, the railroads' share of freight (measured in ton-kilometers) had reached 38% in the United States while falling to 8% in Europe.
• (Vassallo and Fagan 2007) During the 1990s, European Union policy makers responded to the shift to highway modes with a series of directives designed to make rail more competitive. The first significant reform, set out in the 1991 EEC Directive (number 91/440), required accounting separation of infrastructure from operations and access for international intermodal operators or consortia of national rail operators providing international services. Complete open access for international and domestic freight was required by subsequent directives passed since 2001. The idea behind these directives was that while infrastructure was a natural monopoly, train operations were not. Infrastructure would be managed as a regulated entity, providing equal access to all train operators. The hope was that open access to the tracks would encourage new service offerings, innovations, and cost reductions (Rothengatter 1991). Separation of infrastructure from operations was thought particularly important to promote pan-European traffic since independent train operators could, at least in principle, provide seamless international through services.
• This paper examines the reasons for the difference in rail's share of freight in Europe and the United States. We find that almost 83% of the gap in 2000 is probably due to natural or inherent differences, principally geography, shipment distance, and commodity mix. However, 17% of the gap cannot be explained by these inherent differences and is presumably due to public policies including priority of passenger service, lack of interoperability at borders, service quality and rates, and incentives of the rail operators.
• We estimate that if that policy gap were closed, railroads' share of freight in Europe would increase from 8% to 13%.
• Good lit review on European history leading to difference with the USA.
• Intrinsic differences:
  • Transportation volume
  • Europe's longer coastline = more water, less ground and pipeline
  • US increased shipping distance (US = low population density?, EU = country borders)
  • Commodity mix (US = more coal)
    • In 2007, Vassallo and Fagan found that coal explained most of the commodity difference between Europe and the US, and American shifts from coal to natural gas for power generation in the late 2010s...
• Operational differences (policy):
  • EU prioritization of passenger service
  • Cross-border interoperability
    • Safety Appliance Act 1893
    • 1886 voluntary adoption of standard gauge on all major railroads (1435 mm)
  • Low-productivity practices (length, double-stacking)
  • Operator incentives (nationalization vs competition)
• Suggestions
  • Improved operability
  • Balance needs of freight and passengers (schedule optimization)
  • Enhanced infrastructure (signaling, additional track)
  • Promote competition
• European transport policies seem to disadvantage rail freight in several ways, but probably the most important of these is the priority that is given to passenger service.
  • Rail carries 6.25% of all intercity passenger traffic in Europe compared to 0.3% in the United States.
  • It is interesting to note that the improvement in the finances of rail in the United States coincides with the shedding of passenger services.
  • Freight and passenger services share 70% of railroad infrastructure in Europe and only 12% is exclusively devoted to freight transportation.

Olsson, Tony (2017). The Baltic States and Rail Baltica. Global Railway Review, 25 September. Retrieved from https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/62577/baltic-states-rail-baltica/.

• ...during its fifty years of occupation by the Soviet Union, most rail traffic was freight between Russia and the Baltic ports. As people were housed near their place of work, their needs were sufficiently catered for by buses, trams and trolleybuses. The population of Lithuania is so small that one platform at London’s Waterloo Station handles as many passengers as LG Lietuvos Geležinkelis (Lithuanian Railways) handles in a year.
• Nevertheless, in recent years the entire rail infrastructure has been rebuilt or modernised, and all three Baltic States are also engaged in modernising their rolling stock. Compared to the rail services in the UK and central Europe, passenger services in the Baltic States are inadequate, but with support from the EU these limitations are being addressed. It is hoped that the replacement of the Soviet era diesel and electric passenger trains (all built in Riga, Latvia) by modern trains built in central Europe, coupled with electrification of some routes, will result in increased passenger usage.

Bulis, A., and Škapars, R. (2013). Development of international freight transit in Latvia. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 99, 57-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.471.

• approximately 97% of all transported freight carried by railways through Latvia territory is transit freight, mainly from Russia and Belarus to the seaports of Latvia forming East-West international freight transit corridor...

Jaržemskis, A., and Jaržemskienė, I. (2017). Comparison of rail freight transportation markets in Lithuania and Poland. Procedia Engineering, 187, 492-497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2017.04.405.

• in Lithuania – the import, transit takes 62 percent when internal only 30 percent. Important part of freight already comes by rail in Lithuania.

Hilmola, O. P., and Henttu, V. (2015). Border-crossing constraints, railways and transit transports in Estonia. Research in Transportation Business and Management, 14, 72-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rtbm.2014.10.010.

• North-East Europe has served as a general cargo transit area for Russia and other emerging economies of the East for decades. Typically, this activity was initiated with road transport, but after some years of operation, border-crossings became problematic and in some cases even impossible to conduct. Volume of transit transport was therefore severely constrained. As one remedy to sustain transit traffic, the Baltic States have implemented container trains to eastern destinations. Even though, overall transit traffic through Estonia has decreased mainly due to the increased volumes of Russian seaports, the container transit traffic has increased steadily: Volumes were really minor a decade ago, but have increased from several thousand containers up to above 50,000 TEU in 2013.

Islam, D. M. Z., Ricci, S., and Nelldal, B. L. (2016). How to make modal shift from road to rail possible in the European transport market, as aspired to in the EU transport white paper 2011. Eur Transp Res Rev, 8(18). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s12544-016-0204-x.

Islam, Dewan Md Zahurul (2014). Barriers to and enablers for European rail freight transport for integrated door-to-door logistics service. Part 1: Barriers to multimodal rail freight transport. Transport Problems 9 (3). 43-56.

• In many European countries, the rail freight market is not fully liberalised. In such market segment, infrastructure managers do act independently for incumbents and new entrant operators that hamper the progress of building a competitive market;
• The rail operators have not yet achieved the service quality (e.g. customer tailored service) needed for the modern supply chains;
• They operate 'terminal-to-terminal' but modern supply chain needs door-to-door service;
• They act primarily for the 'terminal-to-terminal' chain; but modern supply chain needs total transport chain; not a part of it.

Islam, D. (2014). Barriers to and enablers for European rail freight transport for integrated door-to-door logistics service. Part 2: Enablers for multimodal rail freight transport. Transport Problems 9 (2014).

• European rail freight transport market needs full liberalisation so that incumbent and new entrants can compete freely.
• The rail operators need to acquire service (e.g. customer tailored services, door to door service) quality offered by road freight operators.
• They need to conduct a combination of 'terminal-to-terminal' and door-to-door operations, as and when needed;
• They must build partnership with freight forwarder or 3PLs to include all types of customers including SMEs and customers of non-rail (low density high value) cargo.
• They need to use the consolidation centres that facilitate bundling of cargoes in particular for the urban areas which are the location of majority European customers.

Vishnu Rajamanickam (2019). Why is Europe so absurdly backward compared to the U.S. in rail freight transport. FreightWaves, 5 October. Retrieved from https://www.freightwaves.com/news/why-is-europe-so-absurdly-backward-compared-to-the-u-s-in-rail-freight-transport.

• The reason for this chasm in rail freight growth is because of a fundamental difference in perspective. Europe never measured the effectiveness of its well-engineered railway system by the volume of freight it hauled, but by the number of passengers it could move.
  • Lower axle loads: 32.5 tonnes vs 20-23 tonnes
  • Train length: 2000 meters vs 750 meters (braking time)
  • Vertical clearance: 23 feet vs 15-16 feet (double stacking)
  • Scandanavia iron ore case study
• In essence, it is about time Europe addresses the elephant in the room. For the EU, the equation is simple – increase capital expenditures on its aging railway system and look to take volume from a maritime market that looks particularly vulnerable today.

Blaze, Jim (2019). U.S. and European freight railroads are on different tracks. American Shipper, 3 April. Retrieved from https://www.freightwaves.com/news/railroad/us-and-european-freight-railroads-are-on-different-tracks.

EUROSTAT (2019). Railway freight transport statistics. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Railway_freight_transport_statistics.

• Positive trend for EU-28 transport performance since 2013 Year-to-year development differs significantly at national level Geographical location plays a key role in the share of international transport
• The Member States registering the highest share of international transport are located in key corridors within the European market. In the Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia, situated at the border between the EU and Russia, international unloadings accounted for 85 % and 68 % of the total transport performance in 2018, respectively. The Netherlands, strategically situated in the heart of the European market, registered a share of international loadings of 58 % in total tonne-kilometres performed. The key import port of Rotterdam, with large sea/rail transfers of goods dispatched within the European Union, strongly influences these figures. Greece registered the highest share of international transport on total transport performance in 2018, with 97 %.
• By contrast, countries with specific geographical characteristics (at the periphery of the European Union or islands) recorded a low share of international transport by rail. No international transport has been recorded for Ireland in 2018. Small shares are observed for the United Kingdom (3 %) and Denmark (11 %). For such countries, the preferred mode for international freight transport remains maritime transport, goods being delivered at the nearest port to the point of their destination and then being forwarded in the country mainly by road, but also by rail (accounted as national transport). Turkey also recorded a low percentage (4 %) which may also be linked to its peripheral position.

Knowler, Greg (2019). Europe rail to truckers: Work with us, not against us. Downloaded from https://www.joc.com/regulation-policy/transportation-policy/international-transportation-policy/europe-rail-truckers-work-us-not-against-us_20180628.html.

• Rail freight’s share of the European cargo market has fallen over the last few years and currently hovers around 11 percent, with shippers preferring road that is more reliable, often cheaper, and better suited for smaller shipments requiring point-to-point transport. But any thought that the rail industry’s “let’s grow the market together” approach was coming from a position of weakness was quickly dispelled by speakers at the Global Rail Freight Conference in Genoa this week.
• According to IHS Markit, Asia-Europe container volume will grow more than 4 percent a year until 2020, while the volume entering Europe from China by rail is also predicted to rise sharply. Andre Wheeler, director of Wheeler Management Consulting, said China’s ambitious plan was to have 50,000 annual freight train journeys moving 2 million TEU of trade volume by rail in the next three years. The demand is also being seen in air cargo imports into Europe’s main hubs, which are growing so fast that gateways such as Amsterdam Schiphol have been forced to restrict freighter slots.
• Apart from the physical impossibility of road maintaining its market share with cargo volume increasing so significantly, the sector is also facing growing pressure from regulators to shift cargo to rail that offers more environmentally friendly services and is better suited to transporting large volumes from point to point. Reducing road journeys will cut down thousands of road accidents and lower carbon emissions.

Vertical Integration

Nash, Chris (2015). What does a best practice railway look like? In, Matthias Finger and Pierre Messulam, Rail Economics, Policy and Regulation in Europe. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

• Vertical separation vs vertical integration
• For low-density, mixed-traffic railways such as Sweden, the policy prescribed by the European Commission of vertical and horizontal separation, on-­track competition for commercial services and competitive tendering for the operation of subsidized services seems to work well.
• For heavily trafficked freight railways, on the other hand, vertical integration appears to be desirable. Provided that charges for the use of roads and safety regulation achieve fair terms of competition, there seems little reason for major government involvement. Regulation is only needed to the extent that railways have significant monopoly power, and the expe- rience of the USA seems to indicate that competition between parallel routes, with other modes and other sources of supply, can mean that monopoly power is not a problem.
• For heavily trafficked passenger rail- ways, again vertical integration seems desirable, and the example of Japan is the obvious model to follow. In both cases, traffic of the minority type (passengers in the USA and freight in Japan) may be handled by a verti- cally and horizontally separated operator.
• Finally, we have Switzerland, with its dense flows of freight as well as passenger traffic. Vertical integration remains the pattern here, but with open access for competitors to compete in the freight market, and clearly specified decentralized contracts for passenger services.

European Community (1991). Council Directive of 29 July 1991 on the Development of the Community's Railways (91/440/EEC). Official Journal of the European Communities. Retrieved from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:31991L0440&from=EN.

• The aim of this Directive is to facilitate the adoption of the Community railways to the needs of the Single Market and to increase their efficiency:
  • by ensuring the management independence of railway undertakings;
  • by separating the management of railway operation and infrastructure from the rovision of railway transport services, separation of accounts being compulsory and organizational or institutional separation being optional
  • by improving the financial structure of undertakings
  • by ensuring access to the newtowks of Member states for international groupings of railway undertakings aod for railway undertakings engaged in the international transport of goods
• Undertaking = transport service; infrastructure manager = infrastructure

Access Costs

European Commission (2019). Rail: Infrastructure Charges. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/rail/infrastructures/charges_en

Nash, Chris, Yves Crozet, Heike Link, Jan-Eric Nilsson, and Andrew Smith (2018). Track access charges: reconciling conflicting objectives. Brussels: Centre on Regulation in Europe. Retrieved from https://www.cerre.eu/publications/track-access-charges-reconciling-conflicting-objectives.

• The report concludes that charges for rail infrastructure are only economically optimal if other transport modes are appropriately charged. Efficient pricing cannot be addressed for one transport mode in isolation. Progress needs to be made on all transportation modes simultaneously. Without this, track access charges will not necessarily improve the efficiency of the transport system, they may even hinder it.

European Conference of Ministers of Transport (2008). Railway Reform and Charges For Use of Infrastructure. https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/05railreforme.pdf

Peter, Benedikt (2015). Rail Infrastructure Charging in The European Union. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/986f/bb712df530362032ed323f1b2aa6d552a49a.pdf.

2016. Rail infrastructure pricing for intercity passenger services in Europe: Possible impacts on the railways competitive framework. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41234321.pdf.

European Rail Infrastructure Managers (2008). Rail Charging and Accounting Schemes in EuropeCase: Studies from six countries. http://www.cer.be/sites/default/files/publication/1707_080529_charging_booklet_2nd_edition_final.pdf.

• The European railway market has undergone important restructuring over the past two decades. EU policy has been aimed at increasing the integration of the railway sector as part of completing the internal market and achieving sustainable mobility. Directive 2001/14/EC provides a general framework for setting rail infrastructure charges for the use of domestic and international services. It also aims at reducing the variation in the structure and level of railway infrastructure charges and to ensure transparency and non-discriminatory access to rail infrastructure.
• Infrastructure charges can account for a significant part of the costs of a railway operator. The levels and structure of the charge are therefore crucial in determining the competitive position of rail in relation to road transport. It is, however, noteworthy that directive 2001/14 does not set the objective of a common level of track access charges all over the EU. On the contrary, the directive allows, and in some cases even requires, infrastructure managers to spread charges on their network, for instance to reflect different costs of operation, or to reflect scarcity of rail capacity in the charges.

Nelldal, Bo-Lennart (2000). Competition and co-operation between railways and trucking in long distance freight transport - an economic analysis. Paper to 3nd KFB-Research conference, Transport Systems – Organisation and Planning at Stockholm School of Economics 13/14 of June 2000. Retrieved from https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:506661/FULLTEXT01.pdf.

• INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION?
• European rail infrastructure fees have not been integrated; in some countries they are very high indeed. For instance in Germany they are in the range of 6 ECU per train-km – this is about the same as the total freight train haulage cost per km in Sweden, including infrastructure fee (about 0,5 ECU per train-km).
• To a very great extent the problems inherent in today ́s inter-European rail freight traffic are due to the different companies being unable to co-operate in an efficient manner. A freight haul from Sweden to Spain today will have to involve six different railways! Production planning, as well as sales effort, are both performed only at the national level, with a national perspective as the guiding factor. Thus a rail freight salesperson has to contact a number of his or her colleagues in Denmark, Germany, Belgium, France and Spain, before an offer can be presented to the would-be customer.

AECOM Consult, Inc. 2007. Research Results Digest 313: Cost-allocation methods for commuter, intercity, and freight rail operations on shared-use rail systems and corridors. Washington, DC: National Cooperative Highway Research Program. http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rrd_313.pdf (accessed 5 July 2016).

• This digest presents the results of NCHRP Project 20-65 (Task 12), "Cost-Allocation Methods for Commuter, Intercity and Freight Operations on Shared-Use Rail Systems and Corridors." The research was conducted by AECOM Consult, Inc.
• Access negotiations are likely to be most fruitful and result in an equitable cost-sharing agreement when each party recognizes the needs of the other.
  • Agencies should not demand an avoidable cost approach in their access contracts. Though an avoidable cost approach may appear cheaper, it will increase the likelihood of poor service within the shared-used corridor.
  • When negotiating with an owning railroad, public officials should assume that the commuter operations will be a success. The commuter rail authority should look at 10­15 years of growth, know the costs associated with that service growth, and account for it in the con- tract negotiations
  • In general, the access agreements should be written with the assumption that none of the current parties' representatives will be around when the next major expansion or change in service is contemplated. This assumption will force the negotiators into clear explanations of the rights and responsibilities of each user of the shared corridor
  • With respect to reliability and on-time perfor- mance for the tenant, the access agreement should contain dispatching protocols and performance metrics that can be realistically im- plemented by dispatchers in the corridor and easily tracked by both the owner and the tenant
• Cost allocation methods:
  • Avoidable Cost (Incremental Cost)
  • Attributable Cost (Fully-Allocated Cost)
  • Variable Cost
  • Fixed Allocation (Set Fee)
  • Zero Allocation
  • Surcharge Rates

Heike Link, Anna Stuhlemmer (DIW Berlin), Mattias Haraldsson (VTI), Pedro Abrantes, Phil Wheat, Simon Iwnicki, Chris Nash, Andrew Smith (ITS). 2008. Cost allocation Practices in the European Transport Sector. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:745886/FULLTEXT01.pdf.

• At the current frontier of research, marginal cost studies have not yet achieved convergence regarding the shape of the MC curve (decreasing versus increasing). This holds in particular true for the road sector, to some extent also for rail.
• It appears that for rail the most consistent finding from econometric studies is that i) marginal costs fall with traffic levels, and, ii) are initially very high with low usage levels but fall then sharply. This finding is in contrast to the engineering expectation of a proportional increase of wear and tear with usage.

Daniel Girardet, Jürgen Müller, and Anselm Ott (2014). Getting freight back on track. McKinsey and Co. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/travel-transport-and-logistics/our-insights/getting-freight-back-on-track.

• Operators should start by working on the levers with high impact over which they have the greatest control: embracing competition, big data, and scheduling.
• Big Data == PSR?
• One of the main advantages that rail offers customers is punctuality and reliability, as rail is not subject to the same traffic patterns, road conditions, and unknowns that plague roads and trucking operators. To be sure, freight operators face their own scheduling challenges (such as sharing tracks with passenger rail and fluctuating slot allocations), but on balance rail is more punctual and reliable.
• Costs at most large rail systems in the world are 20 to 50 percent of Europe’s. (Costs for road freight are much more similar from region to region.)

Liability

United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) (2009). Commuter Rail: Many Factors Influence Liability and Indemnity Provisions, and Options Exist to Facilitate Negotiations - GAO-09-282. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-282.

• The liability and indemnity provisions in agreements among passenger and freight railroads, and the resulting implications of these provisions
• Federal and state court opinions and Surface Transportation Board (STB) decisions related to contractual liability and indemnity provisions of passenger and freight railroad agreements
• Factors that influence the negotiations of liability and indemnity provisions among passenger and freight railroads
• Potential options for facilitating negotiations of liability and indemnity provisions

Christner, Paul and Ronald A. Mauri. 2005. Sharing of Track by Transit and Freight Railroads Access, Safety, and Insurance Issues. FTA Final Report FTA-TRI-10-2005.1. Prepared for Walter Kulyk and Venkat Pindiprolu, Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, United States Department of Transportation, Cambridge, MA. http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/Shared_Track.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

Focus on liability on track shared between light-rail and freight

Carole Maczkovics, Pierre Van Ommeslaghe, Bob Martens (2009). Study on EU Member States’ national civil liability regimes in relation to rail accidents between Railway Undertakings and Infrastructure Managers in so far as they may present a barrier to the internal market. https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/modes/rail/studies/doc/2010_dla_piper_rail_study.pdf.

• The opening up of freight and, in 2010, international passengers’ services in the railway sector has led to a restructuring of the sector. The restructuring of the sector relates to vertical unbundling which ranges from accountancy separation between railway transport services and infrastructure management (accompanied by the divesting of essential functions such as paths allocations and fee charging) to the complete separation between Railway Undertakings (RUs) and Infrastructure Managers (IMs). This has meant that the legal relationships between (the many more) parties have become more varied and complicated.
• In general, RUs underlined the difficulties they encounter with the application of the civil liability regimes and in particular their weaker position in comparison to IMs, who seem to have more freedom to manoeuvre and contractual dominance. From their contributions, it appears that liability issues with IMs are settled out of Court. RUs have provided only very few examples of accidents. They did not provide information neither on their risk coverage. Only one indicated its level of satisfaction of the current situation to being very low.

NERA Economic Consulting (2013). International Comparisons of Litigation Costs: Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United States. U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. Retrieved from https://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/research/international-comparisons-of-litigation-costs-europe-the-united-states-and-canada.

• The U.S. has the highest liability costs as a percentage of GDP compared to other countries surveyed (1.66%), with liability costs at 2.6 times the average level of the Eurozone economies.
• U.S. liability costs are four times higher than those of the least costly European countries in the study – Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal.
• The NERA research finds that countries with relatively higher costs have more frequent or more costly claims or both. The U.S. has the highest estimated liability costs, followed by Canada. The U.K. is the most costly in Europe, followed by Ireland and Italy. Absent any offsetting benefits from differences in legal protections, higher liability costs in these countries reduce their international competitiveness.

Drum, Kevin (2010). Why We Sue. Mother Jones Magazine, 25 August. Retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/08/why-we-sue/.

• Contrast Europe (civil law) with USA (common law)
• America’s common law culture has always given lawyers more power and greater scope for action than in continental Europe. Tocqueville commented on this 200 years ago.
• In civil cases, most European countries have adopted a “loser pays” rule. If you sue and lose, you have to pay the other side’s costs. This obviously makes people think a lot harder before they decide to file a suit.
• In most European countries torts are tried in front of judges. In the United States the constitution guarantees jury trials, and juries are probably more likely to award damages than a panel of grizzled old judges. (Or even grizzled young judges.)
• Largely thanks to conservatives, America has developed a litigation culture rather than an enforcement culture. In Europe the tradeoff generally goes the other way: they have more rules and tighter enforcement of those rules, which means that private litigation is less necessary.
• On a related note, Sean Farhang argues that at the level of federal legislation, Congress actively encourages private litigation as an enforcement mechanism because it doesn’t trust enforcement to the executive branch (which might be headed by someone who prefers to take it easy on favored constituencies).
• Long story short, this difference between Europe and the U.S. is so deeply rooted that it’s not likely to change — and it’s not really due to a national culture that promotes a refusal to accept personal responsibility or anything like that. It’s mostly institutional in nature, and the incentives of our institutions point in the direction of more lawsuits instead of more regulations. Conservative tort reform advocates are huge fans of implementing a European-style loser pays rule in America, and I might be too if they were willing to make the other half of the bargain and support European-style regulation and enforcement designed to make our institutions safer and fairer in the first place. But they’re not.

DiBrito, D. A., Mayville, R. A., Doty, R., & Tsao, C. (2011). Moving toward Unrestricted Shared Use: How Caltrain Took the Next Step and What Recent Developments Mean to US Commuter Railroads. Transportation Research Record, 2219(1), 78-87.

Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Transit Administration. 2000. Statement of Agency Policy Concerning Jurisdiction Over the Safety of Railroad Passenger Operations and Waivers Related to Shared use of the Tracks of the General Railroad System by Light Rail and Conventional Equipment. Federal Register 65 (132), 42525-42528. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2000-07-10/pdf/00-17208.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

Capacity

Walton, Simon (2020). Rail freight is the real winner with HS2 in the UK. Retrieved from https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2020/01/02/rail-freight-is-the-real-winner-with-hs2-in-the-uk/

• England is only 420 miles from tip to tip = under 500-mile economic limit for freight
• While the project was conceived as a faster passenger route between England’s two biggest cities, the 125 mile (200km) route has latterly been promoted as a means of releasing capacity on the lines it will complement. A statement from HS2 says the project is the only answer to meeting future demand.
• “The Government is investing 40 billion pound (47 billion euros) in the existing network,” says HS2, a figure broadly matched by the investment programme published by Network Rail. “This cannot provide all the additional capacity required for the future,” they say. “As a brand new line, HS2 is the best option for taking the pressure off the existing network and adding extra capacity where it is needed most.”

Lawrence, Martha, Richard Bullock, and Ziming Liu (2019). China’s High-Speed Rail Development. The World Bank. Retrieved from http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/933411559841476316/pdf/Chinas-High-Speed-Rail-Development.pdf.

• What can other countries learn from China’s success? Chinese best practices are very relevant for World Bank clients looking for sustainable solutions to transport development challenges. Through TransFORM, the World Bank is analyzing China’s experience in five areas of transport—high-speed rail, high-ways, urban transport, ports, and inland waterways—to identify lessons that are transferrable from China to other developing countries. This report on high-speed rail is the first in this series.
• The plan was that all long-distance passenger traffic would transfer to the new services, leaving only a limited number of local services on the existing lines and thus providing a large increment of capacity for expanded freight services (pp 10).

Lautala, P.T., and Pouryousef, H. (2016). Evaluating the use of operational management techniques for capacity improvements on shared-use rail corridors. No. CFIRE 09-10. National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education (US). Retrieved from https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/31126.

• The majority of intercity passenger and commuter rail services in the United States (U.S.) operate on the shared-use corridors with freight rail services. These types of operations tend to be challenging for efficient capacity utilization and reliability due to the high heterogeneity of trains (diversity of trains operations). In addition, the projected growth in demand for rail transportation is likely to exacerbate the situation, making efficient use of capacity a necessity for freight and passenger traffic alike.
• There are two main approaches to improve the capacity levels, either by applying new capital investment or by improving operational characteristics and parameters of the rail services (such as improving the trains timetables).
• To date, U.S. has concentrated more on the first approach while the second approach is commonly used in European practices. It would be beneficial to evaluate the main challenges and advantages of using operational management techniques to improve the capacity utilization along shared use corridors in the U.S.

Capital

Keefer, Thomas (1850). Philosophy of Railroads Montreal: Armour and Ramsay.

• Capital was a challenge in initial construction of North American railways.
• Focus entirely on freight.
• Speed, Economy, Regularity, Safety, Convenience (pp 12-14)
• Public benefit = public must pay for it

European Commission. 2019. Transport in the European Union: Current Trends and Issues. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/2019-transport-in-the-eu-current-trends-and-issues.pdf.

• Rail freight services suffer from low quality and reliability.This is due to the lack of coordination in cross-border capacity offer, traffic managementand planning of infrastructure works.
• Since the global economic crisis, the EU has been suffering from low levels of investment in transport infrastructure. This has held back modernisation of the EU's transport system. Collective and coordinated efforts at Europeanand nationallevels, recently boosted by the Investment Plan for Europe, need to reverse this downward trend.

Deutsche Bahn (2019). 2018 Integrated Report. Retrieved from https://www.deutschebahn.com/en/gb_online-1213324.

• The rail system has a huge amount of potential, but we are reaching the limits because our growth is leading to bottlenecks. We need more capacity to cope with the traffic of today and tomorrow. That is why we are deter-mined to expansion – in the network, with new trainsand more employees. This forms the basis for our sustain-able success and further growth.
• "BOTTLENECKS" "METROPOLITAN AREAS"
• Infrastructure availability - Preventive maintenance and eliminating bottlenecks through targeted expansion
• Punctuality suffered from a higher utilization of the infra-structure. Further growth in rail transport combined with the expansion of the construction program and the associ-ated reduction in network capacity had negative impacts on the development of punctuality. In contrast, it was possible to further reduce construction-related delays (delays that can be clearly linked to a construction site). The increasing traffic volume caused bottlenecks in both the infrastructure and with regard to staff and vehicle availability.
• To achieve further growth, it is important that new construction and expansion projects concentrate on removing bottlenecks and on the creation of additional capacities for growth in transport in the main corridors and metropolitan areas. The budgetary resources of public authorities, in particular the Federal Government, are of considerable relevance for the financing of replacement capital expenditures in the existing infrastructure, as well as for the financing of new construction and expansion projects. In this respect, integration of an entrepreneurial infrastructure into the Group structure is essential for enabling DB Group to continue making a contribution to the co­financing of these infrastructure measures.

Grenier, Elizabeth (2019). Why Germans love to complain about trains. Deutsche Welle, 20 February. Retrieved from https://www.dw.com/en/why-germans-love-to-complain-about-trains/a-47441119.

• The problems aren't just something people are imagining. Germany's railway system urgently needs modernization but is underfunded. While Switzerland invested €362 ($410) per capita in 2017 in its rail system, Germany spent only €69 per inhabitant. Even without aspiring to reach Swiss standards, Germany is also behind Austria (€187), Sweden (€183) and the UK (€165), according to non-profit lobby group Allianz pro Schiene, which pushes for more train transport.

Kuester, Florian. 2017. "Is the German Rail Freight System broken? A portrait of DB Cargo." Combined Transport Magazine, 24 April. https://combined-transport.eu/german-railway-system.

• Some experts are quick in their judgment: DB Cargo’s service is slow, expensive and lacks last-mile connectivity. Trucking is, therefore, more competitive and DB Schenker’s growth the best proof. While theses points carry some validity, the caveat is that they describe the effects and not the causes of DB Cargo’s situation.
• Over the past century, the transported type of goods in Germany changed dramatically. This shift is best described by the goods structure effect. Specifically, demand for low-value, high-volume bulk goods like coal and iron ore moved towards high-value goods and small consignments of e-commerce products or automotive parts for example. While DB Cargo trains are ideal for bulk goods, DB Schenker’s trucks guarantee a certain flexibility to respond to volatility in market demand and seem the better choice to carry palletized goods.
• As shown in the next graph, traditional mass market segments e.g. coal and steel and energy supplies are losing significance for rail freight in Germany. Secondly, the handling of single wagon loads, which is mainly used by the automotive and petrochemical industry in Germany is only in a few cases a profitable business for DB Cargo.
• The planning and operation of single wagon services is a complex undertaking and requires different hub strategies where arriving trains are decoupled, individual wagons maneuvered and departing trains reassembled. The massive operational costs and low, sometimes negative, profit margins require DB Cargo to consolidate its services.
• Summing up, DB Cargo and all other market players are highly regulated while the majority of cost drivers are increasing in the immediate future. Rail wagons and locomotives are designed and constructed to operate for 40 years. Hence innovation cycles are long, and the transformation of the business is a tough undertaking. To end with a quote from Einstein: „We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.“

Posaner, Joshua. 2019. "Rail delays prompt German identity crisis." Politico 6 May. https://www.politico.eu/article/rail-delays-prompt-german-identity-crisis/.

• Germany’s railways are creaking from years of underinvestment.
• Among the larger Western European countries, Germany beats only Spain and France on railway infrastructure spending per head. Its outlay is far less than the U.K., the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland, the continental leader. In 2017, €66 for every German was invested in track infrastructure compared to €165 for every Brit, €128 for every Dutch citizen and a whopping €362 for every Swiss resident, according to figures collected by the lobby group.
• It’s not just the railways: German Autobahns are crumbling, prompting Berlin to create a new agency to manage the highways this year. Bridges need buttressing, and even government planes have been hit by a wave of embarrassing breakdowns.
• As ever, cash will be key. “We have very ambitious goals but we don’t have the money,” said Sievers, who is attending Tuesday’s summit.
• Knie said DB needs to splash an extra €50 billion to €70 billion over the next 20 years to get the railway network up to scratch.
• the government still fears the worsening record will derail its commitment to double passenger rail numbers by 2030, a promise that the government is fully behind and is also seen as key to helping Germany meet its climate goals.
• Germany’s railway network measures roughly the same as it did a century ago, with a patchwork of high-speed lines added in some segments. The opening of a high-speed stretch of track linking Berlin and Munich in late 2017 has seen traffic sharply increase on the route.
• But unlike in France, freight and passenger services share the same track in Germany, meaning delays if a train breaks down. Bottlenecks on east-west connections cause havoc with timetables too.
• “In America, there is also no rail infrastructure and road dominates,” said Ludewig, who also led the lobbying charge for major state European rail companies in Brussels through the 2000s. “In Germany, it’s the same. The influence of major car manufacturers is very great.”
• ...critics point the finger at the government’s dogmatic insistence on balancing the books and never going into the red — under what's known in Germany as the schwarze-Null (black zero) budget surplus policy.

The Local. 2019. "Why so many trains in Germany are late." https://www.thelocal.de/20190506/heres-why-so-many-trains-in-germany-are-late.

• The analysis shows that the main cause of trains not arriving on time is the overloaded network, which saw traffic increase by 23 percent between 1999 and 2017. This means that almost a quarter more long-distance, regional, local and freight traffic have to be handled on tracks and at stations nowadays compared to the 90s.
• As a result, the western corridor between the Rhine and the Alps, the north-south corridor from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and the six major hubs of Cologne, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Hanover, Hamburg and Munich are increasingly congested.
• A total of 85 percent of rail traffic is packed onto just 60 percent of the network, the report states. That's because since the 1994 rail reforms, the network has shrunk from 44,600 km to 38,500 km. Less frequented regional lines have been taken out of service over the years.
• A total of 10 projects deemed the highest priority were named in the report, including six major rail junctions: the new Frankfurt-Mannheim runway, the Rhine-Ruhr Express, the Rhine Valley route Karlsruhe-Basel, the new construction and expansion from Karlsruhe to Molzau, the improved connection of the North Sea ports of Hamburg and Bremen and the modernization of the network for 740-metre freight trains.

Calder, Simon (2020). Northern Rail to be stripped of franchise over ‘unacceptable’ performance. The Independent, 2 January. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/northern-rail-franchise-grant- shapps-cancellations-train-fares-a9267261.html.

• At a protest against fare rises at King’s Cross station in London, the general secretary of the RMT union, Mick Cash, called for all franchises to be nationalised. “It’s another year, another decade, yet we’re still paying for the failures of rail privatisation,” he told The Independent. “I hope by the end of this decade we’ll get public ownership brought back in and we’ll be able to use the money we save not paying shareholders in dividends and profits, and put all the money back into the rail network.
• Nigel Harris, managing editor of Rail magazine said: “I look forward to seeing the magic wand which will end the situation he rightly says is unacceptable, but which is actually at least as much the government’s fault as it is Northern’s. “Buck will then stop with you, Grant. Bring it on.”

DB Schenker (2010). Pinch points for rail freight. Railways: The DB Schenker Rail Customer Magazine. 2010. https://uk.dbcargo.com/resource/blob/1420576/0a0dd78c04c29575d3da61ea3e8e8ec3/railways_012010-data.pdf.

Lutz, Richard / Böttger, Christian / Kirchner, Alexander / Knieps, Günter. 2019. Deutsche Bahn between public service provider and profit: is it time for a radical restructuring? ifo Schnelldienst, 2019, 72, Nr. 05, 03-16 https://www.ifo.de/en/publikationen/2019/article-journal/deutsche-bahn-between-public-service-provider-and-profit-it-time 2019-lutz-german-rail-restructuring.pdf

• In German
• This is a good strategy document for dealing with DB's bottleneck performance problems

Connolly, Kate. 2019. "German MP sparks row after proposing an end to first-class rail travel." The Guardian 16 August. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/german-mp-sparks-row-after-proposing-an-end-to-first-class-rail-travel.

• The completion in 2017 of an express line between Munich and Berlin, part of a “unity” project to join up east and west Germany, has cut the train journey time from over six hours to just under four. The journey between Berlin and Frankfurt is also now under four hours following improvements, effectively rendering air travel between the two obsolete, not least because both cities’ airports are far from their centres.
• Nevertheless, increasing problems with delays and overcrowding on the rail network has drawn negative publicity for the Deutsch Bahn, a private joint-stock company whose sole shareholder is the state.

Railway Technology (2018). Is Spain’s high-speed railway a case of ‘too much, too soon’? Retrieved from https://www.railway-technology.com/features/spain-high-speed-railway/.

• AVE’s expansion has largely been driven by political gains rather than necessity.
• In June, a report published by the Association of Spanish Geographers claimed that the AVE network accounted for inappropriate allocations of public money in the region of approximately €26.2bn in the period between 1995 and 2016. The study concluded that government agencies had invested money on “infrastructure that was unnecessary, abandoned, underutilised, or poorly programmed.”

The Local (2019). Why delays and cancellations on France's rail network are the 'worst ever' https://www.thelocal.fr/20190419/delays-and-cancellations-on-frances-rail-network-are-worst-ever.

• "But the obsolescence of the infrastructure makes the situation far worse."

European Parliament (2018). Parliamentary questions http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2018-003577-ASW_EN.html

• Due to the obsolescence of the railway infrastructure a considerable proportion of this freight is not transported by rail but by road, generating noise, pollution and congestion in the sensitive environment of the Alpine and coastline regions. This shift can only be reversed by eliminating bottlenecks and increasing the capacity of this rail link.

Milmo, Dan (2011). French high-speed rail on track but progress too slow on commuter lines. The Guardian, 21 March. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/21/new-europe-france-railways.

• For decades France's national rail operator, SNCF, has invested billions of euros into making its high-speed network the envy of Europe. France has 2,000km of ultra-fast track, compared with our tokenistic-looking 109km. But until recently, the country's regional services have been neglected at the expense of their speedier cousins. Pepy, SNCF's 52-year-old chief executive, who describes himself as an "old railway worker", says commuters have been overlooked as a huge effort was launched to lure the long-distance traveller out of planes and cars and on to trains.
• Jean-Paul Jacquot, a vice-president at France's rail passenger watchdog, FNAUT, tells a tale of historic under-investment that will be familiar to UK commuters. "The rail network has been neglected during the past 10 to 20 years and therefore it breaks down quite often."
• Pepy talks of at least 15 "traffic jam" points around Paris – both the French and British rail networks carry more than one billion passenger journeys a year.

European Commission (2019). Sixth report on monitoring development of the rail market. https://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/6th_rmms_report.pdf.

• Total infrastructure expenditure was highest in the United Kingdom, Germany and France. In Germany, federal subsidies in 2016 rose by EUR 800 million (21) to support the expansion of the regional railway system. In 2018, incumbent rail operator Deutsche Bahn began a major railway investment plan and intends to spend EUR 9.3 billion (9.4% more than in 2017) on maintenance, renewal and enhancement of tracks, stations, bridges and tunnels.
• Maintaining and renewing the existing network, to enhance its safety and operational performance, and to ensure reliable service, is a major challenge for infrastructure managers, particularly in conditions of increasing traffic and demanding performance targets agreed between national authorities and operators.
• Maintenance and renewals expenditure has been relatively low in many Member States, not only because of a shortage of funds, but also because priority was given to investment in new lines. Catching up with underinvestmentis often more expensive, in the longer term, than continuous routine maintenance of infrastructure.

Keller, Kevin. 2011. State Rail Plans: The Integration of Freight and Passenger Rail Planning. Presented at the Joint Rail Conference, Pueblo, CO, 16-18 March. http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/proceeding.aspx?articleID=1631113.

• The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) tasks States with establishing or designating a State rail transportation authority that will develop Statewide rail plans to set policy involving freight and passenger rail transportation within their boundaries, establish priorities and implementation strategies to enhance rail service in the public interest, and serve as the basis for Federal and State rail investments within the State.
• In order to comply with PRIIA, State rail plans are required to address a broad spectrum of issues, including an inventory of the existing rail transportation system, rail services and facilities within the State. They must also include an explanation of the State’s passenger rail service objectives, an analysis of rail’s transportation, economic, and environmental impacts in the State, and a long-range investment program for current and future freight and passenger infrastructure in the State. The plans are to be coordinated with other State transportation planning programs and clarify long-term service and investment needs and requirements.
• This paper and presentation will illustrate the steps required in preparing a State rail plan and the benefits of having a properly developed plan.

Arafer (2015). The French passenger rail transport market 2015-2016 https://www.autorite-transports.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/bilan-ferroviaire-2015-2016-version-anglaise.pdf.

• With 28,800 kilometres of railway lines operated2 in 2015 and nearly 3,000 stopping points (railway stations and train stops), France has the second-largest railway network in Europe, after Germany.
• The French rail network (RFN3), with an average age4 of 31 years, is 55% electrified and has 2,030 kilometres of high-speed lines5, making it Europe's second largest high speed network after Spain.
• In 2016, total traffic on the RFN was 473 million trains-km, 85% of which were passenger trains. The rail network’s intensity of use is characterized by large disparities, since 80% of passenger train movements is concentrated on 27% of the rail network, while 31% of the network condenses only 1% of the passenger train movements.
• The modal share of rail in passenger transport has declined since 2011 in France, while it has been growing in other European countries
• For fifteen years, the development of the TAGV6 and TER7 enabled the rail mode to reach a modal share of 10% in 2011, coming from a low point in 1995 (7.1%). During this period, the annual growth rate of rail traffic was regularly higher than that of other modes.8
• Nevertheless, this trend has been reversed since 20119, with passenger rail service (measured in passenger-km) declining, while other modes continue to grow. At the European level, if France has a modal share of the railways10 higher than that observed in most of its close European neighbours (+1 point with the United Kingdom, +2 points with Germany, +3 points with Spain, +4 points with Italy), this has decreased since 2011, whereas, on the contrary, it is in growth in these countries11 over the same period.

Technical Reports

Calvo, F., de Oña, J., and Nash, A. (2007). Proposed infrastructure pricing methodology for mixed-use rail networks. Transportation Research Record, 1995(1), 9-16. http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/1995-02 http://digibug.ugr.es/bitstream/handle/10481/24396/2007%20TRR.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

• Pricing methodology as formulas

Martland, C. D. (2008). Improving on-time performance for long-distance passenger trains operating on freight routes. Journal of the Transportation Research Forum (Vol. 47, No. 1424-2016-118016, pp. 62-80). https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/206974/files/1126-1276-1-SM.pdf 2008-martland-improving-on-time-performance.pdf

• Analysis of travel time, train delay and other data for Amtrak trains operating on CSXT's I95 Corridor documents actual levels of reliability and the primary causes of poor OTP.
• Comparison of performance for passenger trains and various classes of freight trains demonstrates that Amtrak trains operate much faster and more reliably than CSXT's trains.
• While providing high quality track with sufficient capacity is the long-run solution for upgrading OTP, a short-run solution is to base schedules on past performance ("experience-based scheduling"). After Amtrak increased the schedule of the Auto Train by one hour in 2006, OTP improved from less than 10% in early 2006 to 82% for the first half of 2008.
• Analysis of the travel time distributions of the other long-distance Amtrak trains operating on CSXT's I95 Corridor from 2004 to 2008 indicates that a similar schedule increase would also have brought these other trains close to Amtrak's goal of 80% OTP. Schedules that reflect track maintenance requirements and other known seasonal and weekly factors would allow further improvements in measured OTP.

Krier, B., Liu, C. M., McNamara, B., and Sharpe, J. (2014). Individual freight effects, capacity utilization, and Amtrak service quality. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 64, 163-175.

Saat, M. R., and Barkan, C. P. (2013). Investigating technical challenges and research needs related to shared corridors for high speed passenger and railroad freight operations (No. DOT/FRA/ORD-13/29). United States. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Research and Development. https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/26242

• The development of both incremental and dedicated high- speed rail lines in the U nited States poses a number of questions. Despite nearly 50 years of international experience in planning, designing, building and operating high- speed passenger infrastructure an d rolling stock, there is a range of problems partially or completely unique to North America. Successful development of expand ed higher speed, and new, very high -speed rail, will require careful analysis and , in many cases , research to develop satisfactor y solutions. The questions involve a range of engineering, operational, economic , and institutional aspects.
• This report introduces various technical challenges related to shared high -speed passenger and freight rail corridors, describes an effort to prior itize the challenges, and presents an in -depth literature review of the high -priority challenges to identify existing research and future research needs.

Pouryousef, H., Lautala, P., and White, T. (2015). Railroad capacity tools and methodologies in the US and Europe. Journal of Modern Transportation 23 (1). 30-42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40534-015-0069-z.

• NEED BETTER MODELING TOOLS
• Summary of modeling tools
• This paper utilizes more than 50 past capacity studies from the U.S. and Europe to describe the different railroad capacity definitions and approaches, and then categorizes them, based on each approach. The capacity methods are commonly divided into analytical and simulation methods, but this paper also introduces a third, “combined simulation–analytical” category.
• The paper concludes that European rail studies are more unified in terms of capacity, concepts, and techniques, while the U.S. studies represent a greater variation in methods, tools, and objectives. The majority of studies on both continents use either simulation or a combined simulation–analytical approach. However, due to the significant differences between operating philosophy and network characteristics of these two rail systems, European studies tend to use timetable-based simulation tools as opposed to the non-timetable-based tools commonly used in the U.S. rail networks.
• It was also found that validation of studies against actual operations was not typically completed or was limited to comparisons with a base model.

Pouryousef, Hamed, Pasi Lautala, and Thomas White (2013). Review of capacity measurement methodologies; similarities and differences in the US and European railroads. Europe 39 (2013): 40. Downloaded from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hamed_Pouryousef/publication/303374455_Review_of_Capacity_Measurement_Methodologies_Similarities_and_Differences_in_US_and_European_Railroads/links/579b5b5608ae5d5e1e137ae8/Review-of-Capacity-Measurement-Methodologies-Similarities-and-Differences-in-US-and-European-Railroads.pdf.

• FIGURE 2- The main differences in the U.S. and Europe rail systems
• TABLE 1- Review of 16 selected Case Studies (CS) in the U.S. and Europe [2, 3, 8, 9, 20, 24, 28, 31, 32, 34-40]
• Absence of analytical studies involving Europe

Zarembski, Allan M., James Blaze and Pradeep Patel. 2011. Shared Corridors, Shared Interests. Presented at the Joint Rail Conference, Pueblo, CO, 16-18 March. http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/proceeding.aspx?articleID=1631134.

...this paper provides a description of these shared issues and the fundamental trade-offs that the parties must agree upon related to overall track design, track geometry, track curvature, super elevation options, allowed speeds in curves, more robust protection at grade crossings, and the manner in which these changes from the freight only corridors are to be allocated given the resulting much higher track maintenance costs of these to be shared assets.

Booz Allen Hamilton, Jacobs Edwards and Kelcey, ICF Consulting, and New Jersey Institute of Technology. 2009. TCRP Report 130: Shared Use of Railroad Infrastructure with Noncompliant Public Transit Vehicles: A Practitioners Guide. http://www.tcrponline.org/PDFDocuments/TCRP_RPT_130.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

Analysis of and suggested business models for shared use of non-FRA-compliant public transit rail vehicles (e.g., light rail vehicles) with freight operations.

Checklist for project implementation success (pp 76)

1. The main reason to consider noncompliant equipment is the improved flexibility it offers. Constraints in curvature radius, grades, clearance envelopes, limits of acceleration, and deceleration make a lighter rail vehicle a superior choice for a regional service that traverses both urban and suburban environments.
2. A willing freight partner is essential.
3. Pursue near compliance wherever possible. The system has to look, feel and sound like a rail- road to the FRA, while applying transit technology and most important, assume that an FRA waiver will be necessary.
4. Control of movement authority is the key to safety and regulatory compliance. Consider that the choice of a train control system can contribute to a positive review of the Waiver Petition, improve the freight operation, and provide a faster, safer passenger operation.
5. A fail-safe train separation system with the capacity to override the train operator is neces- sary to prevent a potentially catastrophic collision and essential for concurrent operations. Cab signals can provide speed enforcement and reduce risk.
6. Where possible, incorporate Crash Energy Management (CEM) features on rail cars to reduce risk of potential injuries and fatalities.
7. Temporal separation, while adequate, limits both parties and can be unacceptable for freight customers and restrict special services for transit. It also is more difficult to schedule MOW windows on a temporally-separated system.
8. A strong oversight function and negotiation skill is essential.
9. Analyze nature of freight traffic and the physical configuration of track, modify track sep- aration and/or elevations to protect against derailment accidents where possible.
10. Local governments should deal with the railroads as peers in negotiations and in busi- ness transactions. However, state or local authorities may have the right of first refusal if abandonment is proposed by the freight owner.
11. As the project evolves, a transit agency should contemplate and pursue incremental progress and take small steps that maintain a successful track record, building FRA confidence in the operation. All planned improvements should benefit both the freight and passenger operator.

Potential Barriers:

1. Liability: common to any passenger/freight operation (not unique to shared-track), but there is a lack of precedent and actuarial data for shared-track, so at the very least the unknown financial impacts may drive up the cost.
2. Safety issues: disparate speeds and operating weight, structural incompatibility in multiple dimensions, frontal configuration, service characteristics.
3. Waiver process: long, complex process; each is unique; may require external legal and techni- cal support at extra cost; invites external parties to evaluate project.
4. FRA Part 238 and 236 compliance (see waiver process): cost and legal implications.
5. Regulatory unfamiliarity: officials are unfamiliar with light passenger rail equipment, its per- formance capabilities and operations. More exposure to this technology and standardized vehicle design would aid understanding.
6. Risk analysis: application of risk analysis methodology and interpretation of results is some- what esoteric; validated data to quantify risk is lacking; modeling risk events is a complex affair; some have a natural inclination to dismiss risk concerns while others display a tendency to overstate them; one school of thought places excessive faith in risk management while another has insufficient faith. The probabilistic aspect does not satisfactorily address a “night- mare scenario” event. There is simply less comfort in calculating a one-in-a-billion chance of an accident event every 10 years. Regulators can more easily understand that if an accident occurs, then passengers are protected.
7. Lack of sufficient accident data: a perverse and ironic insufficiency of hard data compounded by lack of collision modeling via computer or field test results.
8. Rigid temporal separation: is a “zero-sum” game. If the one mode gains the other loses.
9. Potential for unknown outcomes: for planners, policy makers and all stakeholders, the planned or desired outcome of the effort is not assured. Costs, schedules, and technology choices are all subject to review and approval by the FRA, and may be amended at any stage in the process.
10. Lack of strong voice: the novel and niche role of shared-track needs strong local or state advo- cacy to support and encourage it. The participation of project champions and likely benefici- aries (e.g., shortline operators) should be solicited.
11. No corridor philosophy (similar to highway or air traffic): railroads are seen as exclusive cor- ridors for conforming equipment, not as corridors or highways available to different vehicles sharing the same route.
12. Local issues: particularly local speed restrictions for railroads enacted while plans are evolving can complicate or restrict the service plan; grade crossing impacts, associated horn-blowing noises, and ambient noise and operational impacts are also a concern.

Wilcock, David C. and James R. Stoetzel. 2009. Contracting Commuter Rail Services: An Industry Overview. http://dev.apta.com/mc/rail/previous/2013/papers/Papers/WilcockD_StoetzelJ-Contracting-Commuter-Rail-Services%E2%80%93A-%20Industry-Overview.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

History and overview of contracted commuter rail services.

The most important lesson learned by the commuter rail industry through three decades of experience in contracting for services may well be that you can tailor an approach that best fits your needs, your resources and your goals and objectives. There is no one-size-fits-all limitation in these types of process.

Mitchell, D. J. 2006. Improving Coexistence from a Freight Railroad Perspective. TRB Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, January, Session 484: Costing Shared-Use Rail Infrastructure

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) has two overarching principles regarding passenger service on its railroad:

• The BNSF will not put its franchise at risk. Franchise risk includes such critical areas as track maintenance, speed differentials, terminal operations (including pocket tracks), and ensuring the possibility of future freight growth
• The BNSF will not cross-subsidize passenger service with freight revenues. Areas where cross-subsidization is a concern include liability, insurance, and indemnification; reliability; and key cost drivers (such as locomotives, fuel, maintenance-of-way, rolling stock, joint facilities, and overhead)

Prozzi, Jolanda. 2006. Passenger Rail Sharing Freight Infrastructure: Creating Win-Win Agreements (0-5022-S). Austin, TX: Center for Transportation Research, The University of Texas at Austin. http://128.83.40.144/research/ctr/pdf_reports/0_5022_S.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

Summary of Dolata et al 2005

Dolata, Mat, Jolanda Prozzi, Randy Resor, Chandra Bhat. 2005. Passenger Rail Sharing Freight Infrastructure (0-5022-P2). http://library.ctr.utexas.edu/digitized/products/0-5022-P2.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

• Research from 2004 at the Center for Transportation Research (CTR) at The University of Texas at Austin under contract with TxDOT to outline and explain the environments in which public agencies and private railroads operate and to highlight the negotiation issues and concerns regarding passenger rail sharing freight infrastructure from both parties' perspectives:
  • There is no single "best" shared use agreement structure that suits all situations

  • The key is to develop win-win situations for both freight railroads and public agencies, requiring the negotiation of a unique shared use agreement that suits the specific situation.
    • Develop a clear understanding and appreciation of the philosophical and operational perspectives and, ultimately, the often conflicting goals and objectives of the public agency and the private freight railroad.
    • Public agencies should make every effort to enhance their bargaining position by securing substantial funding, political support, and experienced and knowledgeable negotiators
    • Establishment a trusting relationship and identification of common goals and objectives will be critical in finding a compatible solution to concerns surrounding access rights, the length of shared use agreements, dispatching control, capital investments, maintenance, cost compensation, liability, and safety.
• Three Models - Metra has all three models
  • Commuter owned
  • Contract with freight railroad for access and dispatching
  • Purchase of service

Association of American Railroads (AAR), Policy and Economics Department. 2004. Passenger Service on Tracks Owned by the Freight Railroad.

United States Government Accountability Office. 2004. Commuter Rail: Information and Guidance Could Help Facilitate Commuter and Freight Rail Access Negotiations, GAO Report GAO-04-240. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-240 (accessed 15 December 2015).

There is not a defined formula for developing mutually beneficial arrangements between commuter rail agencies and freight railroads. A "cookie cutter" approach is not possible because every situation is unique--from the parties involved to the needs and expectations for the commuter rail system--requiring the agreements to be tailored to the circumstances of the situation.

...officials from commuter rail agencies and freight railroads identified actions that can help facilitate mutually beneficial arrangements:

• Understanding each other's position
• Identifying and using incentives to leverage cooperation
• Securing adequate and flexible funding
• Establishing good lines of communication

Resor, Randolph and Pradeep Patel. 2002. Allocating Track Maintenance Costs on Shared Rail Facilities. Transportation Research Record Report 1785, 25-32. http://trrjournalonline.trb.org/doi/abs/10.3141/1785-04?journalCode=trr.

The European Union is moving toward an open access model for railroads in which track ownership (and related functions, such as train dispatching) is required to be separate from train operations. Separate ownership and operations will require some method for establishing access charges. The fundamental issue is how costs are to be shared among multiple users of a single rail line. At the simplest level, costs can be assigned based on the volume of traffic. But what measure should be used—gross tonnage, train hours, or number of trains? TrackShare is a cost-allocation model that has been developed to meet this need. The process of applying TrackShare to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation's (Amtrak's) Northeast Corridor to determine the cost of operating rail freight traffic is described.

Perl, Anthony. 2002. New Departures: Rethinking Rail Passenger Policy in the Twenty-First Century.. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky.

"By the time deregulation, subsidization, public enterprise, privatization, and other restructuring measures were finally applied to realigning the rail fraight carriers to North American transportation policy, the passenger train had become embedded within a separate set of policy arrangements. In contrast, European and Japanese efforts to reinvent rail transportation were not complicated, and thus not constrained, by the additional organizational barriers arising from the preservation policy track that North American passenger trains got shunted into in the response to industrial crisis." (pp 14)

"...while investors have responded favorably to railroads' return from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1980s, there has been little enthusiasm for injecting the massive sums that would be needed to add significant track capacity. Investors have proven quite averse to anteing up their cash against Uncle Sam's investment in competing road and air infrastructure...Today's freight transport market is simply too competitive for large scale infrastructure development...especially when rail's competitors have no need to fund such infrastructure investments." (241)

Sheys, Kevin and Tracie Spear. 2000. Safety Oversight of Shared Track Operations - An Update. 8th Joint Conference on Light Rail Transit (Light Rail: Investment for the Future). https://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=671533.

Regulations and institutional issues for shared track and integrated modes are discussed. Findings are presented from a TELEPHONE SURVEY; a review of relevant Federal Register notices; and a review of relevant Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) rule-making activity and informal guidance to specific properties.

FRA and the Federal Transit Administration have just completed an important policy statement on shared use of rail corridors and track. Even before the policy statement was completed, several shared use projects advanced to the point that important precedents were established. Although different properties are taking different approaches to shared use operations, the new policy statement offers a lot of valuable guidance to all rail transit systems.

Gillespie, Tim. 2000. How to Negotiate with Freight Railroads for Track Access. Transportation Research Record, Metro Magazine, Rail Transit Systems, TRB, Washington, DC

Rail transit ridership is on the rise, but will this increase lead to greater conflicts with freight rail?

During my nearly 20 years at Amtrak, it was always clear to me that, when it comes to track sharing, Amtrak had one basic advantage over every other rail passenger operator: It enjoyed a unique statutory right to operate its trains over any freight railroad for no more than the incremental cost the railroad bears in handling those trains.

No other entity has the kind of access to a private freight railroad that Amtrak enjoys. The railroads do not like it and in fact have argued that Amtrak should pay more for the use of their facilities. Some have argued that they also fear that Amtrak's ability to access their tracks may serve as a forerunner for a development they dread, an "open access" rail system in which a freight railroad would have the right to come onto another railroad's tracks and poach its customers, just as trucking companies are allowed to serve any customer sited along a publicly owned highway. This is a railroad's worst nightmare.

Dornan, Daniel L. 1983. Analysis of Commuter Rail Costs and Cost Allocation Methods, UMTA-MA-06-0049-83-3. Washington, DC: Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co.

• The choice of cost-allocation method is a major facet of the operating agreement negotiations.
• The outcome of access negotiations highly de- pends on the operating characteristics of the system and on the strength of the bargaining positions of those involved in the negotiations.
• The selection of cost-allocation techniques is influenced by the relative scope of the com- muter rail service in comparison with other rail services sharing the facilities.
• Avoidable cost techniques are usually the most advantageous to a commuter operating agency, in that the commuter service is normally the secondary user of the facilities and thus is re- sponsible for a smaller amount of common costs than if expenses were split with an at- tributable or variable cost-allocation method.
• Contracts specifying avoidable costs are more difficult to obtain and are usually acceptable to freight railroads only when the commuter rail portion of traffic is quite small in relation to other rail traffic.
• Attributable and variable cost allocation meth- ods are much more likely to be acceptable to owning railroads.
• When commuter rail is the dominant user of a facility, an agency should be prepared to deal with railroads desiring an avoidable cost allo- cation method, with freight service as the sec- ondary service.
• The choice between avoidable, attributable, or variable cost allocation methods, as well as fixed payments or other compensation tech- niques, is influenced by the availability of data.
• If negotiations do not reveal cost advantages for any particular method, the appropriate tech- nique is whatever method requires the least ad- ditional effort to implement and maintain.

Wellington, Arthur Mellen. 1908. The Economic Theory of the Location of Railways, sixth edition. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

"Railways are not undertaken unless they are expected to be profitable, not to the general public, nor to other parties in the near or distant future, nor to those who lend money on them, but to those who at first control the enterprise."

Perl, Anthony D. and Andrew R. Goetz. 2013 High-Speed Passenger Rail: Considering Where the US Has Come From and Where the World Is Going. Denver, CO: Intermodal Transportation Institute and the National Center for Intermodal Transportation, University of Denver. http://www.du.edu/transportation/media/documents/research/FINAL_ITI-NCIT_HSR_white_paper_8halfx11--website.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015)

Puentes, Robert, Adie Tomer, and Joseph Kane. 2013. A new alignment: Strengthening America’s commitment to passenger rail. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. http://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=1245352 (accessed 15 December 2015).

Suggestions for improving Amtrak

Reconneting America. 2011. Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race: 2011, A Catalog and Analysis of Planned and Proposed Transit Projects in the US. Washington, DC: Reconnecting America. http://reconnectingamerica.org/resource-center/books-and-reports/2011/jumpstarting-the-transit-space-race-2011/

Collection of transit plans available in 2010 from the 100 largest regions around the country, as well as some known projects from smaller regions.

643 transit projects in 106 regions. Of these, cost estimates were available for 413 projects, 99 projects had detailed ridership and 121 had mileage information.

Battelle. 2007. Analysis of Future Issues and Changing Demands on the System, Part B. Changes in the Nature of the Economy: Impacts on Passenger/ Freight Transportation, Commission Briefing Paper 4B-11, Issues and Options Related to Passenger and Freight Traffic Sharing the Same Facilities. http://transportationfortomorrow.com/final_report/volume_3_html/technical_issues_papers/paper9b49.htm

Projections for the future of passenger and freight transportation across all modes.

United States Government Accountability Office (USGAO). 2006. Active Commuter Rail Agency Service Contracts. Letter to Honorable Richard C. Shelby, Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, United States Senate. Document GAO-06-820R, July. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-820R (accessed 15 December 2015).

2006 list of freight / commuter rail agreements

Resor, Randolph S. 2003. Catalog of Common Use Rail Corridors. Report DOT/FRA/ORD-03/16. Washington, DC: Federal Railroad Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/42000/42300/42377/ord0316.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

Catalog of corridors where non-FRA-compliant light rail or rail rapid transit vehicles operate adjacent to, or on track shared with, rail freight or passenger operations coming under FRA safety regulations.

Three types of common corridors are defined:

• shared corridor (track centers 25 to 200 feet apart)
• shared right-of-way (track centers less than 25 feet)
• shared track

All common use corridors in the U.S. now in operation (2003) or under construction are described, with maps and photographs. Information includes length of corridor, operating speed, traffic density and safety notification procedures.

Vigrass, J. 1995. Joint Use of Track by Electric Railways and Railroads: Historic View. In Seventh National Conference on Light Rail Transit Conference Proceedings 8 (1), 154-163. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board, National Research Council. http://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=457831 (accessed 15 December 2015).

Historic case studies illustrate how joint operation was handled from 1900 to the 1950s: San Diego Trolley, Baltimore Central Light Rail Line, South Shore Line, and others.

Engineering References

Caughron, Brennan M., M. Rapik Saat, and Christopher PL Barkan. 2012. Identifying and Prioritizing Shared Rail Corridor Technical Challenge. Proceedings of the 2012 Annual AREMA Conference, Chicago, IL. https://www.arema.org/files/library/2012_Conference_Proceedings/Identifying-Prioritizing_Shared_Rail_Corridor_Technical_Challenges.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

Conference paper and presentation based on survey of industry professionals on issues with mixed corridor usage:

• Safety ­ operational practices, safety technology, infrastructure and rolling stock designs that support very low risk operation of passenger and freight trains on the same corridors Infrastructure and Rolling Stock - effective and economical design, safety, reliability and maintenance of trackage and equipment
• Planning and Operations - capacity and service quality impacts, upgrades to track, train control, scheduling with the potential to mitigate these impacts
• Economic ­ equitable approaches to sharing capital and operating costs for construction and maintenance, maximizing passenger operation profitability and not interfering with current and future capacity and quality of freight services
• Institutional ­ regulatory compliance and possible changes, incentive compensation and penalties, liability and accommodation for growth in either passenger or freight

Paper focused on technical issues presented in the safety, infrastructure and rolling stock, planning and operational challenge categories:

• SAFETY
  • Loss of shunt problems
  • Barriers
  • Highway grade crossings
  • Pedestrian risk
  • Adjacent track derailments
  • Wayside defect detection
  • Risk to maintenance of way and train operating employees
• INFRASTRUCTURE AND EQUIPOMENT
  • Slab track
  • Ballasted track
  • Special trackwork
  • Curve superelevation
  • Track stiffness transition zones
  • Track surfacing cycles
  • Rail wear and defect rate
  • Electrification and clearance
  • Tilting equipment
  • Level boarding of rolling stock
• PLANNING AND OPERATIONS
  • Infrastructure upgrade prioritization
  • Rail capacity planning
  • Maintenance of way scheduling
  • Train scheduling patterns
  • Train schedule reliability

• An analysis at the national, state, and metropolitan levels of changing driving patterns, measured by Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) primarily between 1991 and 2008, reveals that:
  • Driving, as measured by national VMT, began to plateau as far back as 2004 and dropped in 2007 for the first time since 1980,
  • per capita driving followed a similar pattern, with flat-lining growth after 2000 and falling rates since 2005
  • These recent declines in driving predated the steady hikes in gas prices during 2007 and 2008

Pyrgidis, C., and Christogiannis, E. (2012). The problems of the presence of passenger and freight trains on the same track. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 48, 1143-1154. https://cyberleninka.org/article/n/372099.pdf.

• Quantifies operational differences into model formulas

Bing, Alan J., Tsai, Thomas, Nelson, David, and Mayville, Ronald A. 2007. Safety of Noncompliant Passenger Rail Equipment. Transportation Research Circular E-C112: Joint International Light Rail Conference: A World of Applications and Opportunities, April 9­11, 2006, St. Louis, Missouri. http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/circulars/ec112.pdf. (accessed 15 December 2015).

Ames, L. and J. Walsh. 2006. Short-line Railroads and Rail Transit Joint Development Planning Issues. The 9th Joint APTA-TRB Light Rail Conference, St. Louis, MO, pp 188 - 205. http://trid.trb.org/view.aspx?id=804759 (accessed 15 December 2015).

Spatial survey of 30 possible scenarios for increased rail transit new starts that share infrastructure and track with lightly used railroads.

• Joint development conceptual planning issues
• Shortline business issues
• Institutional planning issues

Resor, Randolph R. and Hickey, Thomas. 2005. Shared-Use Rail Corridors. A Survey of Current Practice and Recommendations for the Future. http://trrjournalonline.trb.org/doi/abs/10.3141/1930-05 (accessed 15 December 2015).

This paper describes the extent and characteristics of shared-use corridors in the United States, derived from a recent survey undertaken on behalf of the FRA. The paper provides an overview of current practice in the design and operation of shared-use corridors and suggests a need for research leading to standardizations of practice to address potential safety and regulatory concerns.

Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). 2005 [2001]. Railroad Corridor Transportation Plans, A Guidance Manual. Revised 8 July. https://www.fra.dot.gov/eLib/Details/L04161 (accessed 15 December 2015).

Guidelines for preparing long-range (20-year) mixed freight/passenger corridor plans

Primarily engineering focus on route selection, physical characteristics, operations, and project management.

Sela, Erez, Resor, Randolph R. and Hickey, Thomas. 2003. Shared-Use Corridors: Survey of Current Practice and Recommendations for the Future Ninth National Light Rail Transit Conference. Portland, OR: 16-18 November. http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/circulars/ec058/08_04_Sela.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

Review of current design practice in shared use of rail corridors

Includes list of thirty then-existing transit systems with common corridor operations

Federal Railway Administration. 2003. Catalog of "Common Use" Rail Corridors. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation. http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/42000/42300/42377/ord0316.pdf (accessed 7 July 2016).

Definitions of three types of corridors:

• Shared track (self explanatory)
• Shared right-of-way (ROW). These are tracks 25 feet or less center to center - this is an FRA definition of "adjacent tracks" for a specific regulation
• Shared corridor (separated by more than 25 feet, but less than 200 feet, center to center)

Findings of this study are as follows:

• Most transit systems with common corridor operations have established safety procedures and points of contact with the adjacent freight and/or commuter railroads
• Common corridors are a mix of fenced and unfenced operation, but most systems use fencing to separate their operations from those of the adjacent railroad, at least at stations
• In most cases, freight railroads recognize the proximity of rail transit operations with special instructions to employees in their rulebooks
• Neither freight railroads nor transit systems observe the FRA requirement to stop work when trains pass on adjacent tracks, if those tracks belong to a different operator

Lopez-Pita, Andres, and Francesc Robuste. 2001. Compatibility and Constraints Between High-Speed Passenger Trains and Traditional Freight Trains. Transportation Research Record Number 1742 ­ Rail. http://trrjournalonline.trb.org/doi/abs/10.3141/1742-03?journalCode=trr (accessed 15 December 2015).

The effect of operation of mixed traffic, that is, specialized passenger transportation trains and conventional freight trains, on high-speed lines on the cost of maintaining the tracks of these lines is considered.

In parallel, certain recommendations with regard to the characteristics (gradient and length) that the inclines of these lines should have so that the speeds of the freight trains are not significantly reduced are made.

This phenomenon could have a negative effect on the capacity of the line and on its deterioration because of excess superelevation and the geometry of the track.

Travis, Merrill. 2000. "Running High-Speed Passenger Trains on Freight Railroad Track, or `You Want to Do What? AREMA Proceedings. https://www.arema.org/files/library/2000_Conference_Proceedings/00046.pdf

Engineering case study of incremental HrSR upgrades to UP track in Illinois.

Ullman, Kenneth B. and Bing, Alan J. 1994. High Speed Trains in Freight Railroad Corridors: Operations and Safety Considerations. FRA Report DOT/FRA/ORD-95/05. http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/42000/42600/42666/ord9505.pdf

• Engineering discussion of the capacity impact of introducing high-speed passenger trains on freight rail corridors and actions required to ensure that such operations were safe. The report includes simple operations simulations and accident risk analysis.

ITE Technical Committee 6A-28. 1985. Transit, Commuter and Freight Usage of Rail Right of Way. ITE Journal.

Eisele, Donald. 1985. Interface Between Passenger and Freight Operations. Transportation Research Record 1029, 17-22.

• The fundamental conflicts between trains with different speed profiles and stopping patterns are outlined. The operation of the Northeast Corridor of the National Rail Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) is presented as an extreme example, with 13 classes of service over the same tracks. Various methods of handling this problem are discussed with specific applications of the concepts cited.
• Additional track is the first concept reviewed; both addition of lines to existing routes and construction of new separate right-of-way are considered. Examples of the various methods of increasing the permissible speed of passenger trains on the existing infrastructure through the use of pendular suspension and of interactive systems are explored.
• The changing nature of freight service in North America is examined and the suggestion is made that the scheduling problems to be faced in operating this service will be very similar to the interface between passenger and freight service today.
• The role of timetable planning and careful scheduling of trains is explored. The relationship between schedules and track configuration, particularly at line stations, is discussed. The nature of the role of the train dispatcher and his capability is explored.
• The potential role of the modern computer to convert the time spent on clerical tasks to more useful time resolving transportation problems is outlined. The use of computers to handle actual routine decisions is explored.
• The development of computer simulation techniques from simple train performance calculators to a planning tool capable of handling extremely complex diagrams is discussed. These tools are now being developed to the point of being able to estimate arrival times, conflict points, and other situations on a real-time basis. Alternative courses of action can be tested quickly on the basis of accurate current information. These tools will be available soon and give the dispatchers the ability to handle increasingly complex traffic situations.

Energy

International Energy Agency (2019). The Future of Rail: Opportunities for energy and the environment. Retrieved from https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-rail.

Hopkins, John B. (1975). Railroads and the Environment - Estimation of Fuel Consumption in Rail Transportation - Volume I - Analytical Model. US Department of Transportation. Retrieved from https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/11870.

• This report describes an analytical approach to estimation of fuel consumption in rail transportation, and provides sample computer calcu- lations suggesting the sensitivity of fuel usage to various parameters.
• The model used is based upon careful deliniation of the relevant phy- sical mechanisms of energy dissipation under steady-state conditions - rolling and aerodynamic resistance (using the Davis equations), brak- ing, idling, and locomotive power generation and conversion losses. Both simple antI more complex formulations are applied as appropriate.
• Several classes of service are considered: branch line freight, inter- city freight, conventional and high-speed passenger, and commuter.
• Numerous graphs illustrate typical results for specific fuel consump- tion as a function of speed, grade, power/weight, load factor, weight per seat, etc.

DiDomenico, Giovanni C (2015). Factors affecting commuter rail energy efficiency and its comparison with competing passenger transportation modes. PhD dissertation.

• Commuter rail is often seen as a “green” mode for passenger transportation, perceived by the public as an energy-efficient alternative to competing modes. In recent years, researchers have been comparing theenergy intensity ofrail toautomobile, bus, air, and other modes using several different approaches.
• As discussed in Chapter 3, gross annual averages of modal energy intensity are useful in system-wide comparisons, but do not accurately reflect the comparison of competing passenger modes at varioustimes of day or on specific services.

Best Practices

Morvant, Camille (2014). Is freight really flexible in the timetabling process for a mixed-use rail network? Some considerations based on French experience. TRA - Transport Research Arena, April. Retrieved from https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/1066985/filename/doc00019321.pdf.

• Freight has rarely been the main focus of the European literature on rail capacity allocation and timetabling. One could assume thatthisrelativelack of interest has been the result ofthe preponderance and dynamismof passenger traffic. In contrast, in North America, where freight is dominanton the tracks, an extensive literature has dealt for decades withthe various aspects of railfreight transportplanningand operation, includingthe train schedulingissue.
• Nevertheless, the expected traffic growth of rail freight demandon some identified transnational corridorshasbrought new interest in thoroughlyconsidering this issuein the European context. Broadly speaking, the challenges are far from insignificant inbothcontextswhere some network segments, whether shared or not, are (likely to be)congested.
• Based on current French experience, the paper highlights that, on the whole, freight services cannot be planned at any time using any part of the rail network. As obvious as it may sound, this point is essential. Fitting freight train paths into the timetable is essentially a delicate balance of interests.

Morvant, Camille (2015). Challenges raised by freight for the operations planning of a shared-use rail network. A French perspective. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 73 (2015): 70-79.

• The paper discusses the specific challenges posed by fitting freight into the timetabling process for a mixed-use rail network, based on current French experience. The analysis is carried out from the perspective of the infrastructure manager.
• The author highlights three key management issues for the French infrastructure manager when dealing with freight:
  • (1) the uncertainty surrounding the mid-long term development of the rail freight market at the national level;
  • (2) the heterogeneity resulting from the diversity of commodities, convoys and profiles and behaviors of the capacity applicants;
  • (3) the volatility of some freight traffic resulting in a great amount of activity in the later stages of the timetabling process. If uncertainty about the future appears to be a highly sensitive issue in the French context, heterogeneity and volatility of freight traffic can be perceived as management challenges that may be experienced, to a greater or lesser degree, on other rail networks.

Phraner, S. David, Roberts, Richard T., Stangas, Paul K., Korach, Kenneth A., Shortreed, John H., and Thompson, Gordon J. 1999. TCRP Report 52: Joint Operation of Light Rail Transit or Diesel Multiple Unit Vehicles with Railroads. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board, National Academy Press. http://www.tcrponline.org/SitePages/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductCode=R-052 (accessed 15 December 2015).

• Three European and six Pacific Rim case studies
• Engineering and operations focus
• Keys to success:
  • Incremental application of joint use practice spawns variants (in Karlsruhe, there are five types of joint use operation).
  • Case-by-case local innovation, rather than general "wisdom," applied uniformly to joint use.
  • A federal regulatory oversight, with sufficient latitude to permit state and local innovation.
• See chapter nine findings (PDF pp 302)
• pp 7-30: DKB was also the first noteworthy ruling by the transport ministry of the principle of selective substituting active safety measures (crash avoidance) for passive safety (crashworthiness) applied to LRT- derived DMU. A risk analysis methodology was applied prior to approval (explained further in Chapters 6 and 9).

Phraner, David. 2001. TCRP Research Results Digest 43: Supplementing and Updating TCRP Report 52: Joint Operation of Light Rail Transit or Diesel Multiple Unit Vehicles with Railroads. http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/153715.aspx (accessed 15 December 2015).

Follow-up to Phraner et al 1999

European Commission (2014). Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis of Investment Projects. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/cba_guide.pdf

• The identification of the project as a self-sufficient unit of analysis is usually a challenging issue in the transport sector. This is because most transport projects belong to a wider network and any investment decisions and implementation are not isolated, but are part of a larger system of public interventions, as well as the need to be physically integrated with other complementary infrastructures.
• In project identification, the basic principle is that its scope must always be a stand-alone socio-economic and technical unit: i.e. it should generally be functional and independently useful from a transport perspective without depending on the construction of other projects (which may however provide synergies)

Iacobacci, Mario. 2010. Shared Corridors, Strange Bedfellows: Understanding the Interface Between Freight and Passenger Rail. Ottowa, Ontario: The Conference Board of Canada. http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/proceeding.aspx?articleID=1631117.

• This briefing is based on the proceedings of a panel on passenger-rail freight interface issues that took place at the June 11, 2009 meeting of the Centre for Transportation Infrastructure in Quebec City.
• This paper aims to clarify issues regarding shared rail corridors from a public policy perspective. It presents an overview of the relationships between the main stakeholders operating trains on North America’s rail networks: the railway companies that own the rail infrastructure and use it to provide freight services to shippers, and the passenger service operators—which are primarily public agencies that pay railway companies for track access and other services required to operate commuter and intercity passenger trains. The issues at stake are of concern to the policy and business community alike, because congestion on railway lines affects commuter rail, intercity passenger trains, and long-distance freight trains. In addition to the obvious economic costs of delays or less-reliable transit times in passenger and freight rail, respectively, adverse environmental and social impacts (e.g., higher accident rates on roadways) arise if either freight or passenger traffic shifts from rail to roadways. An earlier version of this paper was published by the Conference Board of Canada in September 2010.

Nash, Andrew. 2003. Best Practices in Shared-Use High-Speed Rail Systems, MTI Report 02-02. Mineta Transportation Institute Publications. http://transweb.sjsu.edu/MTIportal/research/publications/documents/High-SpeedRail.htm (accessed 15 December 2015).

• Analysis of infrastructure and operating strategies used by European railroads to improve operation of shared-use high-speed rail systems.
• The research consisted of a literature review and interviews of experts.
• INCLUDES INTERVIEW INSTRUMENT
• The objective of this research project was to identify infrastructure and operating strategies used by European railroads to improve operation of shared-use high-speed rail systems:
  • Planning Strategies
  • Infrastructure Strategies
  • Communications and Signal System Strategies
  • Operating Strategies

Amtrak reports that several European high-speed rail operators are studying the NEC to learnmore about shared-use operations.

• “Amtrack’s Vision for America’s High-Speed Rail Program,”www.amtrak.com/about/government-hsr-index.html, accessed June 26, 2002.

Otsuka, Noriko, Felix Christian Günther, Ilaria Tosoni, and Cecilia Braun (2017). Developing trans-European railway corridors: Lessons from the Rhine-Alpine Corridor. Case Studies on Transport Policy 5 (4). 527-536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cstp.2017.06.005.

• This paper discusses key issues in the railway corridor development in the context of the Trans- European Transport Network (TEN-T). While recent European policies support an increase in the capacity of freight and high-speed train (HST) services, many parts of the European railway networks have been facing difficulties in coordinating the increasing number of passenger services (long-distance and regional) and freight services, especially those running through high-density urban areas. Overcoming the interoperability in the cross-border context and the shortage of financial resources are some of the other issues to be tackled.
• Previous research predominantly focused on examining HST operation and rail freight traffic within a national context. Further research is therefore required to identify the complexity of upgrading mixed-use railway networks to meet new standards of both quality and flexibility of integrated rail service development in a trans-national spatial context.
• This paper examines prospects and obstacles to developing mixed-use railway networks in the trans-European platform with reference to existing literature and an EU INTERREG project, CODE 24 which is the main north-south railway axis connecting the ports of Rotterdam and Genoa through six European countries.
• Workshop results = four issue areas
  1. Secure reliability and availability: measures increasing the ac- cessibility and performance in terms of consolidating capacity and preventing obsolescence of existing rail networks are to be treated as a priority action.
  2. Increase capacity: An increase in capacity brings immediate ad- vantages for users of all types of rail services. Improvements con- cerning speed are limited to certain routes and passenger traffic, especially concerning systems applying a clock-face scheduling and integrated timetables (Clever, 1997). As transit time for passenger trains in the nodes are already extensive, only a sharp decrease in travel times may bring advantages to travelers.
  3. Improve spatial quality on existing lines: locations where spatial development is hindered by noise disturbance of freight should be mapped in order to examine the nature of the problems and adopt suitable development strategies by either avoiding new settlement planning in the affected regions, or providing countermeasure against noise. Unlike U.S. in which rail freight predominantly run rural areas, the Rheine Alpine Corridor faces extensive noise issues.
  4. Increase speed: it should be acknowledged that Europe is lagging behind in its understanding of benefits deriving from HST in com- parison with countries such as China and Japan. In continental Europe making railway competitive to air traffic is crucial to reduce carbon emissions and to foster connections between the main me- tropolitan areas.
• STRATEGIC PLANNING:
  • Furthermore, there is a difficulty in coordinating transport projects within the framework of spatial planning comparing their project time scales. The planning of large-scale infrastructure is a long-term business that usually takes decades to fully appreciate the outcomes of planning decisions. Railway corridors must be planned in detail to secure the necessary spatial resources in significant advance, while the final out- come of railway projects will become visible much later.
  • Hence, this planning horizon leads to great uncertainty about both the actual times of availability of new infrastructures and of the promised compensation measures.
• EXPERT NEGOTIATORS?
  • To tackle this issue, the strategic design workshops involving cross-border stakeholders can be considered as an interesting method for improving the understanding of cross border planning and decisional competence by discussing and learning between stakeholders from different administrative levels and disciplines.

Guerrero, Sebastian, Juan Argote, Andre Carrel and Pierre-Emmanuel Mazare (2011). Policies to Address Conflicts Between Passenger and Freight Rail Service in the U.S. Presented at the Joint Rail Conference, Pueblo, CO, 16-18 March. http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/proceeding.aspx?articleID=1631109.

• A renewed interest in expanding passenger service on rail in the US faces challenges and opportunities in that most of the railroads are privately owned. Up to this point railroad network capacity has kept up with demand relatively well. However, signs of strain are apparent looking into the future as freight volumes increase with globalization and conflicts with passenger trains increase with the addition of more intercity and commuter lines.
• Case studies were conducted to understand the relationship between passenger and freight operations in the US and to identify areas of conflict and opportunities for improvement.
• Common conflicts arise from differing objectives and include cost sharing, safety, liability and infrastructure needs.
• Currently, public agencies and railroad companies deal with these conflicts through an outdated regulatory framework that in many cases does not serve the interests of either party; improvements here are possible. Additionally, a greater use of hybrid agreements where government agencies fund capacity improvements for passenger and freight operations simultaneously may offer the best approach for dealing with these conflicts and adapting the rail network to meet demands into the future.

Lehlbach, David S., David T. Hunt, Kevin M. Foy, and Rodney E. Case (2010). Applying the European High-Speed Rail Experience to North America. In, 2010 Joint Rail Conference, pp. 367-372. American Society of Mechanical Engineers Digital Collection. Retrieved from https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/JRC/proceedings-abstract/JRC2010/49071/367/337539.

• North American owners and operators can learn much from Europe with regard to operating dense, mixed-use corridors: Using a “partnership” model, European rail operators have found that when incremental demand for freight and passenger markets are considered together, networks can be expanded faster and further.
• In North America, a similar partnership approach to capital and strategic planning has already shown huge benefits, for example, in the development of the highly regarded Capital Corridor passenger service in California and in infrastructure improvements on Canadian National’s Kingston subdivision that allow VIA Rail to provide 100–125 mph train service. Through an analysis of current passenger/freight cooperation in Europe, and the examination of HSR/IPR developments and trends in North America, we aim in this paper to illustrate how benefits can be achieved for all stakeholders in the North American rail system as passenger services expand.

Liu, Rongfang (Rachel), Fei Yang, and Mei Chen. 2005. Understanding the Shared Operation of Commuter Rail Transit and Freight Railroads Journal of the Transportation Research Forum 44 (1), 157-171. http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/206752/2/801-911-1-PB.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

Industry issue paper summary of Liu 2004.

The main objective of this research is to reveal the key factors that make the shared operation between commuter rail transit and freight railroads successful. Key factors for success:

• Communications and mutual understanding
• Legislation and/or incentives to overcome monopoly attitude of freight railways
• Shared responsibility for liability
• Transparency in sharing cost for the joint use of the track

Critical issues:

• dispatching and scheduling
• freight railroad attitude
• capacity constraints
• communications,
• insurance and liability,
• funding problems

Liu, Ronfang (Rachel). 2004. Survey of Transit/Rail Freight Interaction. Final Report submitted to the New Jersey Department of Transportation. http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/refdata/research/reports/FHWA-NJ-2004-002.pdf (accessed 15 December 2015).

• SAMPLE SURVEY INSTRUMENT: PDF PP 72
• This study surveyed 59 transit entities in North America to identify the best practices and key factors that contribute to the successful interaction between transit agencies and freight railroads. A total of 47 agencies including commuter rail, heavy rail, and light rail transits responded, which derives a response rate of 80 percent. This study produced a best practice catalog, based on the survey responses and subsequent data analysis, which may be referenced by transit agencies when dealing with passenger and freight rail interaction issues. Besides the catalog, we also examined critical issues and concerns of both transit and rail freight industries when they share track, right of way, facility, or a corridor with each other.
• Factors for success:
  • Frequent communication and good faith negotiation (principal factors)
  • Competent dispatchers and improved training of dispatchers
  • Integrated schedules
  • Transparency in sharing cost
  • Regulatory leverage to offset freight railroad intransigence
  • Adequate funding to alleviate bottlenecks caused by train density
  • Ownership and a genuine will by both parties to make the shared use succeed

Desmaris, Christian Desmaris (2013). The reform of passenger rail in Switzerland: more performance without competition. Thredbo 13. 13th International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land PassengerTransport, Sep 2013, Oxford, United Kingdom. Retrieved from https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00860911/document.

• We believe the performance gains obtained by Swiss rail should mainly be ascribed to the nature of their public governance which tends to bring together all stakeholders in the rail system, i.e. public authorities, rail operators and consumers.
• Rail 2000 significantly improved the attractiveness of passenger rail by increasing train frequency (15 minutes on the busiest routes, 30 minutes on all others) and by systematically taking into account correspondences between rail and other modes of transport.
• The first key to success: public governance promoting sustainable mobility centered on the railway system
• The second key to success: an incumbent operator capable of considerable productivity gains and sweeping innovations in organization
• The third key to success: the support of consumers and citizens

Furtado, F. M. B. A. (2013, June). US and European freight railways: the differences that matter. In Journal of the Transportation Research Forum (Vol. 52, No. 2).

Sound Transit. 2003. Sound Transit finalizes Sounder commuter rail agreement with BNSF - Seattle-to-Everett service starts December 21. Press release. Retrieved from https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/news-events/news-releases/sound-transit-finalizes-sounder-commuter-rail-agreement.

Anacostia Holdings (2018). New York and Atlantic Railway Profile. Retrieved from https://www.anacostia.com/railroads/nya.

• New York and Atlantic Railway began operation in May 1997 as result of the privatized concession to operate freight trains on the lines owned by Long Island Rail Road.