Economic Analysis of Spanish High Speed Railway (H.S.R.) System.
(Modification from http://www.adif.es)
I will focus the analysis in Spain. Today, the operating system can be separated into corridors:
1.
North East: Madrid-Barcelona-French
Border
2. East: Madrid-Valencia
3. South: Madrid-Sevilla-Málaga
4.
North West: Madrid-Valladolid
Costs. The main Costs for High Speed Trains are three:
1.
Infrastructure. The average cost is €12
Million/Km
2. Maintenance Costs. About €150,000 / (Km*year)
3.
Operational cost.
€26 /(Km*Train)
Incomes:
The incomes are derived from the sale of the
tickets. The standard ticket price is
0.233 €/km, but there are multiples types
of discounts. 99% of tickets have some kind of discount. Having a look on the
statistics, the average ticket price is:
0.233€/(km*p)*(0.24*0.4+0.33*0.8+0.43*0.7
)=0.154 €/(km*p)
Hypothesis:
1.
At least, trains must cover operational
costs. With the current prices policy, that means than the occupation of every train
should be more than 56.3%. There
can’t be levels of occupation lower than that.
2. If we want to recover maintenance and operational costs:
In
a corridor with trains at 100% of occupation from A to B, the number of
passengers (Np) should be:
0,154€/(km*p)*Np=150,000€/km+26€/(km*Train)*Train/300p*Np
Np=2,227,000
passengers every year.
But
for 80% of occupation, the number of passengers (Np) should be:
0,154€/(km*p)*Np=150,000€/km+26€/(km*Train)*Train/(300p*0.8)*Np
Np=3,284,000 passengers every year, what
means 18 trains from one city to the other every day.
With some intermediate stops, we can
reduce the number of passengers needed to do a corridor profitable (we suppose
80% occupation)
∑i (Npi*Kmi)=K*kmc
K=150,000(€/km)/(0.154€/(km*p)-26€/(km*300p*0.8))=3,284,000
(p)
K
is a constant, but it depends on the % of occupation
Npi:
Passengers between two stations
Kmi:
Kilometres between two stations
Kmc:
Total kilometres of corridor.
Now,
the equation depends on the km and passengers between stations.
I will study the North-East
Corridor, which links Madrid and Barcelona:
((A)) Point To Point Passengers.
((B)) Incomes:
A regular ticket cost 0,233€/km. 33% of passengers bought a return
ticket with a 20% disccount. 24% of passengers bought promotional tickets with
60%.disccount. 43% were pensioner or youth, and had 30% disccount.
((C)) Average seat occupancy of 78%. Each train has
300 seats available.
((D)) Total Maintenance Cost is 618km*150.000€/km=92,7
million €
With Madrid-Zaragoza-Barcelona, the line is almost
profitable.
Conclusions:
1.
We need to assume that infrastructure investment
will be never recovered.
2. At least, trains must cover operational costs. With the current prices
policy, that means than the occupation of the train should be 56,3%. There
can’t be levels of occupation lower than that. Sometimes the authorities say
that a line is profitable only because operational costs are covered.
3. The average maintenance of the line is 150.000€/km. It is the same cost
per km connecting Madrid and Barcelona than connecting two small towns. That
means that we need big population in the end of the lines to have enough
passengers to cover these high costs. But medium size cities between help a lot
to cover costs of maintenance and operations.
4. For a distance shorter than 100-150 km there is no such a big difference
with the conventional train due to the periods of acceleration and braking. From
150 km to 350 km, HST is always better option. From 350 km to 650 – 700 km, HST
has to compete fiercely with plane, and for longer than 700km, the plane is
always best, except for train fans.
>150km
conventional train
150-350km
HST
350km-700km
HST or Plane (depending on many factors)
>700k Plane
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