Financing Methods for High-Speed Rail with Application to Portugal

High-Speed Rail (HSR) is of substantial and growing interest around the world. The European Union (EU) sees it as an integrating force; China is investing at an extraordinary level and even the U.S. is trying to move forward. Although HSR is expected to shrink the temporal distance between cities, r...

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Main Authors: Huang, Teng, Sussman, Joseph M.
Format: Working Paper
Language:en_US
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102829
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author Huang, Teng
Sussman, Joseph M.
author_facet Huang, Teng
Sussman, Joseph M.
author_sort Huang, Teng
collection MIT
description High-Speed Rail (HSR) is of substantial and growing interest around the world. The European Union (EU) sees it as an integrating force; China is investing at an extraordinary level and even the U.S. is trying to move forward. Although HSR is expected to shrink the temporal distance between cities, reshape the travel patterns of people toward—we hope—environmentally-friendly ones, create an image effect for the country building it, promote regional economics, etc., HSR is an expensive alternative. It is more capital intensive than other transportation projects in both unit cost (the cost per lane or track km) and total cost. On the other hand, HSR can aid in the formations of megaregions with the potential for economic growth. This paper discusses the cost characteristics of HSR, analyzes HSR’s potential economic influence on megaregions, and identifies megaregion-related revenues that can make HSR more financially viable: specifically, we discuss the use of value capture mechanisms to capture the megaregion economic benefits of HSR in order to finance such systems.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1028292019-04-11T05:37:54Z Financing Methods for High-Speed Rail with Application to Portugal Huang, Teng Sussman, Joseph M. High-Speed Rail (HSR) is of substantial and growing interest around the world. The European Union (EU) sees it as an integrating force; China is investing at an extraordinary level and even the U.S. is trying to move forward. Although HSR is expected to shrink the temporal distance between cities, reshape the travel patterns of people toward—we hope—environmentally-friendly ones, create an image effect for the country building it, promote regional economics, etc., HSR is an expensive alternative. It is more capital intensive than other transportation projects in both unit cost (the cost per lane or track km) and total cost. On the other hand, HSR can aid in the formations of megaregions with the potential for economic growth. This paper discusses the cost characteristics of HSR, analyzes HSR’s potential economic influence on megaregions, and identifies megaregion-related revenues that can make HSR more financially viable: specifically, we discuss the use of value capture mechanisms to capture the megaregion economic benefits of HSR in order to finance such systems. 2016-06-02T14:22:42Z 2016-06-02T14:22:42Z 2011-08 Working Paper http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102829 en_US ESD Working Papers;ESD-WP-2011-09 application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division
spellingShingle Huang, Teng
Sussman, Joseph M.
Financing Methods for High-Speed Rail with Application to Portugal
title Financing Methods for High-Speed Rail with Application to Portugal
title_full Financing Methods for High-Speed Rail with Application to Portugal
title_fullStr Financing Methods for High-Speed Rail with Application to Portugal
title_full_unstemmed Financing Methods for High-Speed Rail with Application to Portugal
title_short Financing Methods for High-Speed Rail with Application to Portugal
title_sort financing methods for high speed rail with application to portugal
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102829
work_keys_str_mv AT huangteng financingmethodsforhighspeedrailwithapplicationtoportugal
AT sussmanjosephm financingmethodsforhighspeedrailwithapplicationtoportugal