Economically Efficient, Environmentally Compatible Transportation the Rail Way
800 Jaguar Lane * Dallas * Texas * 75226 * www.TexasRailAdvocates.org
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United States Congress
Subcommittee on Aviation & Subcommittee on Railroads
Joint Hearing on Planes, Trains, And Intermodalism: Improving The Link Between Air And Rail
February 26, 2003
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this hearing is to discuss uses of high-speed rail to reduce
airport congestion and improve commercial airline service.
BACKGROUND:
Since airline deregulation in 1978, air travel has become an essential form
of travel for much of the nation. The annual number of commercial air travelers
grew to 696.3 million in 2000, a 123 percent increase from the number of travelers
in 1980.
This unprecedented usage pushed our nation’s air traffic control system and over-crowded airports to the brink of gridlock in 2000, when one in every four commercial flights was delayed, cancelled, or diverted. The slowing economy and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have since caused the number of travelers to decline, but this is a temporary reprieve. Since the aviation system remains the nation’s most efficient means of medium- and long-distance transportation, air passenger traffic is projected to rebound as the economy strengthens and as passenger fears over security recede. The FAA’s forthcoming aviation forecast (to be published in March 2003) will show passenger traffic returning to the 2000 levels in 2006, and reaching nearly one billion by 2015. Absent further improvements in aviation system capacity and efficiency, delays will quickly return to the unbearable levels experienced in 2000.
FAA’s Airport Capacity Benchmarks Report 2001 indicates that many of our nation’s busiest airports were at or above capacity for at least some portion of the day in 2000. According to this report, 27 major airports in the U.S. were considered seriously congested. FAA forecasts that number to grow to 31 by 2007.
According to the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, estimates of the cost of aviation delays to the U.S. economy range from $9 billion in 2000 to over $30 billion annually by 2015. Without improvement, the combined economic cost of delays over the period 2000-2012 will total an estimated $170 billion.
Insufficient airport runway capacity at our nation’s busiest airports is responsible for much of the chronic congestion experienced in 2000. Even with the apparent national need for additional runway capacity, airports have had difficulty building new runways. In the last decade, only six of our nations’ largest airports managed to complete new runway projects. The current runway planning and approval process routinely takes ten years and has often taken much longer. At some airports, a new runway is not feasible due to physical constraints or strong political opposition.
Some argue that the best alternative to building new runways is improving rail service and building strong links between aviation and rail. The U.S. is far behind Europe and Japan in this regard. In Europe, it has been a matter of conscious public policy to encourage passengers to use the airlines for longer international trips and the railways for shorter segments. In 1964, Japan built a high-speed rail system to relieve congestion between Tokyo and Osaka. Shinkansen, as it is known, has practically eliminated the need for air service between Japan’s two largest cities.
Proponents argue that high-speed trains may also be used to connect a congested airport to a reliever airport and to the center city. Such improvements might make excess runway capacity at the reliever airports viable for connecting flights and hub operations. Improved access to these reliever airports also could make them more attractive to origin and destination travelers.
Improving High-Speed Intercity Rail and Connection to the Airports
Aviation’s inherent speed advantage is limited by air traffic infrastructure and airline operating models. Access and egress times can have an impact when the airport is far from the center city and the trip distance is relatively short. New security requirements have also increased the “hassle factor” and the time passengers spend on the ground while traveling. As a result, commercial flights are not significantly faster than other modes of transportation over short distances. According to the Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry, for commercial airline trips less than 500 miles, doorstep to destination travel time is between 35 and 80 miles per hour.
Proponents believe that high-speed trains are viable alternatives to airplanes in certain short haul markets. There are 6 corridors (Boston-New York, NY-Washington, San Francisco- Los Angeles, LA-San Diego, LA-Phoenix, and Seattle-Portland) in the U.S. where airlines fly 50 or more round trip flights daily. There are another 15 corridors where there are more than 15 round trip flights a day. Travel demand within these corridors may be strong enough to support high-speed rail service. Fast, reliable, and convenient high-speed train service will encourage travelers to get out of their cars and off the airlines. Reducing the demand for high-frequency, short-haul flights will improve airport congestion and would allow scarce airport capacity to be used for more efficient long haul flights.
Linking high-speed intercity rail service to the airports also offers the airlines an opportunity to connect their networks with the railroad networks. Currently, Amtrak and Continental Airlines have a code-share arrangement at Newark International Airport, and Delta and the French TGV have a code-share arrangement at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. These arrangements provide new services and conveniences for passengers and induce new travel demand for both the airline and the railway.
Public policy officials in the U.S. have been divided on the issue of intercity high-speed rail. The infrastructure for high-speed rail is expensive when compared to airport infrastructure. A runway at a major commercial airport is usually between one and two miles long and can cost up to several billion dollars. In contrast, the track for a new high-speed train would need to span from the originating city to the destination city--as much as 400 miles in the Northeast Corridor. Train tracks also require bridges, tunnels, and rights-of-way not needed for airport development. The first 19 miles of rail infrastructure needed for the new maglev train in Shanghai cost the Chinese government roughly $60 million per mile.
In general, the airlines have opposed building a government funded high-speed rail system. They argue their short-haul routes in heavily traveled corridors are very profitable. A high-speed railway running along the same corridor would divert a large number of their passengers. Without these routes, it would be very difficult for the airlines to make the rest of their networks profitable. They also argue that they would not be able to compete against a government-subsidized high-speed rail operation. The result would be a government-subsidized monopoly in place of the competitive market that exists today.
Some argue that the government also subsidizes airlines. However, except for payment to commuter carriers to provide service to the smallest communities and the post-September 11th Stabilization Act, the government does not typically subsidize airline operating costs. Infrastructure costs, such as the cost of runways and the air traffic control system used by the airlines, are paid from funds that are derived from the Federal government’s Airport and Airway Trust Fund. Yet it is hard to characterize this as a subsidy to the airlines since the Trust Fund derives all its money from taxes on the airlines, their passengers, and pilots.
High-Speed Rail to Connect Major and Reliever Airports
Many of our nation’s major cities are served by more than one commercial service airport. Unfortunately, none of these airports are connected by anything other than highways or conventional transit systems. It is not practical for a passenger to fly into one airport and connect to a flight at the other airport. Several airport authorities have proposed building a high-speed rail line to connect airports to each other or to the center city. Such projects have been proposed between Stewart International Airport and downtown Manhattan, between Las Vegas McCarren and the Ivanpah Airport, between Los Angeles International Airport and neighboring southern California airports, and between Atlanta Hartsfield and Chattanooga Lovell Field. Connecting airports with a high-speed rail would allow network carriers to operate at multiple airports within a metropolitan region.
While these connections might make sense from a transportation logistics standpoint, the potential funding sources for these projects are often more controversial. In general, airlines have opposed using airport revenue for these projects. They believe that airport rates and charges should be only used to pay for airport projects and that a high-speed rail link does not qualify as such a project. Moreover, such a link would drive up airport costs and the rates and charges airlines would have to pay.
WITNESSES
PANEL I
Mr.
R.E.G. (Ron) Davies
Historian, Author, and Economist
Curator of Air Transport
National Air and Space Museum
Mr. Hank Dittmar
Co-Director
Reconnecting America
Mr. Jean-Pierre
Loubinoux
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
SNCF International
Mr. J. Christopher
Brady
President
Transrapid International-USA, Inc.
The Honorable Martin
O'Malley
Mayor
City of Baltimore
Mr. Charles G.
Seliga
Managing Director
Stewart International Airport
New Windsor, NY
Directions of Air Transport
in the 21st Century
by R.E.G.Davies (Ref.: #3623)
The world’s
air transport will evolve during the next half-century is as follows:
These conclusions are based on half a century of research and analysis in traffic forecasting for the world airline industry. It starts with The Indisputable: the growth of world population, based on United Nations estimates, to more than 8 billion by the year 2040. Even more important is the increasing urbanization. Even by 2025, six urban conurbations will each have populations of 30 million or more.
This leads to The Inevitable: the growth of airline traffic to serve this enormous traffic demand. This is conservatively estimated at about 7 million million passenger kilometers by 2040, or more than three times what it is today.
This demand can be met in two ways: by adding more airplanes and/or more flights. Already, 20,000 airliners, most of them jets, crowd the world’s air routes. At a conservative estimate, this will grow to 40,000 by 2040, unless the average productivity of the individual airplanes is increased. This can only be achieved by making larger airliners, as the maximum limits have been reached in all the other parameters (speed, utilization, load factor) that combine to produce the measure of airliner productivity.
The Super-Jumbo is no longer a speculation. The Airbus A380 will have a minimum of 550 seats in mixed class, will have almost unlimited range, and will be in service in 2006. The history of the introduction of the Boeing 747 (preferred over the Douglas DC-10, which was smaller) will be repeated. The travelling public tends to concentrate on preferred travelling patterns and travelling times, in spite of arguments for higher frequencies.
Supersonic Airliners Not a single Concorde was ever sold (British Airways and Air France did not buy their fleets) and despite false claims, it was never an economic airplane to operate. It burns a ton of fuel for every seat carried across the Atlantic; the operations of the entire fleet are limited to three round trips a day; and the New York-London fare is about US$12,000. The Concorde was a technical miracle but an economic disaster. There will not be a successor.
Airports Airport authorities have never kept pace with the technical developments of airliners nor with the operational demands of the airline passengers, who,, even in today’s 400-seat airliners, only use a single door. Airports and airlines must provide the infrastructure for better aircraft access.
Airport congestion has become a major world problem. At the global hubs, airliners seldom take off or land at their scheduled times. The argument for dispersal of traffic by route fragmentation is hollow. Solving a congestion problem at an origin point in this manner merely exacerbates the problem at the destination.
High Speed Rail For short-haul inter-city routes, high-speed rail – a new mode of transport – can relieve pressure on airlines to provide frequent service on inter-city routes of up to at least 400 miles. Trains take passengers direct to city centers, without the tedious city-to-airport transfers. They can solve the problem of airport saturation, by rapid access to downtown areas, e.g., Milwaukee-Chicago, Stewart-New York.
Traffic transfer from air to high-speed rail has been highly successful in Japan – where it all started in 1964 – and in Europe, where every large city will be connected by 160-mph trains within a few years. Six countries already enjoy this new level of ground transportation, and three more will enjoy the privilege of High Speed Rail within the next two years. The United States is at least ten years behind the rest of the industrial world.
Objections from the road lobby will be intense, even excessive, partly on the grounds of land usage. But this did not prevent the construction of 300,000 miles of super-highways. One high-speed double track occupies only one tenth of the land needed for a divided highway, and the trains can carry ten times the number of people.
The United States used to lead the world in all forms of public transport, on land, sea, and air. The trains were the envy of the world, its ship held the Blue Riband of the Atlantic, its aircraft and airlines dominated the air transport industry.
On land, even if starts today, it cannot join the high-speed-rail “Club” within a decade, by which time, most of Europe, and probably China, will have extensive networks. On the best highway system in the world, the vehicles are still the same as before the first super-highway was built. On the one hand, we have the vehicles, but no suitable track; on the other, we have the track, but no suitable vehicles.
On the sea, all the big cruise ships are now built in France, or Finland, and are operated by British or Norwegian companies.
In the air, the United States used to account for half of the world’s airline traffic, now it is only a third, and declining. The U.S. manufacturers used to have 90 percent of the market for commercial airliners. Last year, by a small margin, Airbus took the lead.
Conclusion: the entire public transportation system in the United States is stagnating. A complete new initiative is needed to modernize it.
Improving the Link Between Air and Rail
Testimony Of
Jean-Pierre Loubinoux
Chair and Chief Executive Officer
SNCF International
Before
The United States House of Representatives
Committee on Transportation
and Infrastructure
Subcommittee on Aviation
And
Subcommittee on Railroads
February 26, 2003
Improving the Link between Air and Rail
Mr. Chairman and Members of Subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before this committee today to provide you with some background on how France has dealt with the issue of improving the link between air and rail.
First I’ll say a few words on SNCF. It is known and even renowned as the TGV operator, holding the world-speed record on rail (515.3 km/h = 320 mph). Services provided range from local railway transport, either urban or suburban, to domestic intercity and long-distance international transport.
SNCF also perform infrastructure maintenance services on 32,000 route-km on behalf of the French railway infrastructure authority – “RFF”; it also looks after the maintenance of some 5,000 traction units as well as 7,000 coaches, 360 TGV sets and 110,000 freight wagons. It has a staff of 175,000. The company operates more than 13,000 services a day and carries more than 870 million passengers and 125 million tons of freight a year.
Trains and planes have always maintained a conflict relationship.
This changed with the introduction of High Speed Trains (TGV). Trains were able to compete with planes on destinations which were formerly only served by airlines. They were able to do so in a way that had a more positive impact on the environment and by using less fuel; Once it became clear that high-speed trains could provide comparable trip times on short distance travel more efficiently than air, indifference gave way to action and the competition between air and rail became real.
With the introduction, in 1981, of the first generation of TGV’s between Paris and Lyon (a two hour trip), the result was immediate.
As you can see from the chart in the first attachment to my testimony, [Carte TGV / AIR Market Shares between Paris and Lyon] in 1982 the market share was only less than 20% for planes as compared to 80% for the TGV. Today it is 90%. Even when the travel time is three hours, the TGV still maintains a 65% market share. For example the number of passenger at the Marseille airport has been reduced by 700,000 two years after the opening of the High Speed Mediterranean line in 2001.
As you can see in attachment two, [Air-rail Modal Split-Rail Market Share Relative to Journey Times], the market analysis demonstrates that the shorter the journey time by train, the larger the rail market share. This is not unique to France. Anywhere in the world where high speed rail service can offer travellers a competitive trip time between the point of origin and the destination (usually trips under 400 miles) convenience and comfort, it will provide an opportunity for an air/rail partnership that can be beneficial to both modes and to the public.
For journeys of 6 hours or more, trains can no longer compete. We can then draw the conclusion than no mode will ever completely eliminate the other. The market is always shared and, as already mentioned, passengers more often tend to use a combination of modes for different purposes. The emergence of a new competitor on a given route is an incentive to carriers already operating on this route and sparks competition which is ultimately beneficial to the customer. For example, when the TGV entered the marketplace, it resulted in the expansion of the overall market attributable to traffic induction because passengers tended to travel more than before. For Paris to Lyon TGV, the traffic induced corresponded to 50% of the new business on this route!
Intermodality
As a result of our experience in France, Airlines chose to react by seeking cooperation with railroad companies, and more so when special TGV stations were built within the airport complex as we did with Roissy Charles de Gaulle and Lyon Saint-Exupery in 1994 [maps]. The SNCF TGV had the advantage of providing easy domestic connections between many towns in Europe and a variety of International Airports. Consequently, fewer short-distance airline slots are required, resulting in less airport congestion.
In 1999, SNCF entered into a partnership
agreement with Air France, followed by Lufthansa, United Airlines, American
Airlines, KLM and other Companies. As a result, passengers on international
flights can now take advantage of the “TGV AIR”
service to/from ten French towns. The customer can buy anywhere in the world
one single ticket for an international flight followed or preceded by a trip
in TGV to or from any of the destinations covered by the agreement. The journey
in TGV appears under the flight number of the partner Company, both in the
air reservation system and on the flight ticket. “TGV AIR” is
distributed and commercialised by Air Companies throughout the world.
[CDG TGV station handles about 100 high-speed trains a day. Passenger traffic
at CDG station increased by 33.8% from 1.4 million to 1.8 million passengers
between 1999 and 2000].
Similar partnership agreements exist in Germany where trains have taken over
from air between Frankfurt and Stuttgart. The number of rail “flights”
has doubled and custom facilities have been provided both at Frankfurt airport
and Stuttgart railway station, with real passenger benefits generated by rail
and air working together.
Switzerland is also a good example of cooperation between air and rail. The two main airports of Zurich and Geneva are connected to the rail network and can be reached directly from the main cities. These connections are made by rail services coordinated to match airline flight services in order to make the change of transport mode easier for the passenger.
Other countries, such as Netherlands
are also following the same way and projects are underway in Barcelona, Gothenburg
and Stockholm.
This type of bi-modal transportation can have a significant impact on business
travel and international travel as well as the added benefit of reduced airport
congestion. The additional intermodal trip potential for province-to-province
TGV services (stopping over at CDG airport) is estimated to be between 600,000
and 2 million passengers.
To avoid congestion at Heathrow International airport, British Airways has included this policy as part of the decisional structure of EUROSTAR. British Airways put their passengers on EUROSTAR trains to make connections at CDG.
Code-sharing
Another progressive step along these lines was taken between Brussels and Paris, with the Thalys TGV train. In March 2001, Air France cancelled all its flights between Brussels and Roissy Charles de Gaulle. A full first class coach is reserved for AF passengers who are assisted in Brussels and CDG by AF staff. This type of agreement is only possible when high volumes of passengers are concerned.
Express link between CDG and Paris
In the future, RFF, SNCF and Paris airports authorities (ADP) will construct a new dedicated rail/air link, called CDG Express, due to open in 2007 and 2008, at a time when it is hoped that CDG will be one of the biggest air European hubs in Europe. All main European capitals will then be connected by HST in less than three hours to CDG. This joint venture proposes a 25km line running from Gare de l’Est in central Paris to the airport station serving Terminal 2, with connections to TGV high-speed services.
This new rail service, like Heathrow Express in London, will offer four 100 mph trains an hour with a 15-minute non-stop journey time. It is expected to carry six million passengers a year. There will be a city air terminal at Gare de l’Est with checking-in facilities. TGV Est will operate from the Gare de l’Est in 2007.
An Express Rail Link also exists in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Conclusion
Air-rail collaboration is just beginning. Future common actions will include
such customer services as e-ticketing, timetables coordination and supervision
of luggage throughout the trip. It is important to note that this type of
collaboration has many public policy benefits as well. It has been profitable
for the railroads by resulting in a substantial increase in ridership; it
has been beneficial to the airlines which have been able to use the limited
air transport infrastructure more efficiently: it has provided passengers
with more comfort and convenience and it has integrated the overall transportation
policy in a way that is more efficient, less congested and with positive environmental
results.
Thank you for your attention. Of course, I shall be very pleased to respond to any questions the committee may have.
