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Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions (2010)

Chapter: Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context

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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 - Aviation Capacity and the Needfor a Multimodal Context." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14363.
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

34 2.0 Introduction One of the major conclusions of this research is that the aviation system planning process could benefit from facilitat- ing a closer relationship with the planning process for the other modes providing longer distance services in the United States, with particular emphasis on the longer distance travel modes such as highway, rail, and intercity bus. Chapter 1 built the case that there is a problem in the mega-regions and that the cost of doing nothing is significant. That chapter con- cluded that a new approach is needed to respond to economic impacts of doing nothing. Chapter 2 now reviews the extent to which aviation plan- ning is inherently intertwined with the planning and analysis of capacity increases in other longer distance modes—specif- ically, HSR and highway planning (see Exhibit 2.0 for high- lights and key themes included in the chapter). The first five sections of Chapter 2 review the extent to which HSR plan- ning might and might not play a role in accommodating demand currently expected to occur in mega-region airports. The concluding sections of Chapter 2 review the extent to which underused highway capacity might play a role in the solution of problems revealed in this analysis, referencing supporting documentation in Appendix C. Chapter 2 con- cludes that HSR programs now under consideration could affect the very accuracy of the aviation forecasts. It also con- cludes that there is no viable scenario in which an increase in highway capacity would significantly alter the need for more capacity in the aviation system. Integration of the modally based planning process in the mega-regions is, however, essential to support improved multimodal decision-making. Specific suggestions to improve the multimodal planning process are presented in Chapter 6 of this report. In the next five sections, Chapter 2 presents the logic of better integration with HSR. Section 2.1 reviews some basic concepts needed to differentiate the function of rail in sub- stituting for air services from the function of rail in comple- menting air services. (Figure 2.1 illustrates the most basic C H A P T E R 2 Aviation Capacity and the Need for a Multimodal Context • The aviation planning process could benefit from becoming more overtly and directly multimodal in nature. • Plans for high-speed rail investment now under consideration in both coastal mega-regions could result in a total diver- sion of up to 15 million air trips per year in the long term. • The scale of diversion in the established literature is much higher in the West Coast study area than in the East Coast study area. • Analysis undertaken in the EU shows that, when city-center to city-center rail times can be decreased to under 3.5 hours, rail can capture more market share than air. • In some cases, such as Frankfurt–Cologne, rail acts as feeder for long-distance flights; in other cases, such as Frankfurt– Stuttgart, rail does not. The role of rail in a complementary mode should be studied further. • High-speed rail can decrease the number of air travelers; without better management of the airports, this may not result in a decrease in flights • Although no breakthrough in highway capacity will change the need for air travel, the highway planning process could be better integrated with aviation capacity planning; better long-distance travel data will result when the two planning processes are combined. Exhibit 2.0. Highlights and key themes included in Chapter 2.

35 relationship between rail travel times to air- vs. rail-market share for new services, based primarily on the substitution of trips from city to city.) Section 2.2 reviews the possible role of vastly improved new rail services that would connect the Northern California Mega-region with the Southern California Mega-region; pos- sible service to Las Vegas is covered in lesser detail. The section reviews the city-pairs (metro-pairs) identified in Chapter 1 and documents the present use of rail within California for those pairs. (Figure 2.3 summarizes the projected volumes for each of the city pairs and the projected mode share for each pair.) Diversions from air are summarized and compared with calculations of diversions made earlier by the Federal Rail- road Administration (FRA) in 1997. Section 2.3 reviews the present and possible future of HSR in the East Coast Mega-region. The section reviews the city-pairs (metro-pairs) identified in Chapter 1 and documents the role of present rail services for each of the larger pairs. (Figure 2.10 summarizes the most basic relationship between a change in rail travel time and the resultant change in rail mode share for the improved services.) Diversions from air are presented in a vari- ety of technical formats. The possible projected increases in rail share are discussed, based on existing work on the subject undertaken by the FRA and by the Office of the Inspector Gen- eral (U.S. DOT), noting their implications for aviation planning. Section 2.4 addresses the issue of what actually happens at an airport when there is a diversion of air travelers to another mode. On the basis of a detailed case study of the decline in air traffic between Boston and New York City (NYC) airports, Section 2.4 shows that—without the kind of controls discussed in Chapter 5—a similar number of flights may be operated with smaller aircraft, resulting in only minor improvements in aviation congestion, if any. Section 2.5 introduces the issue of rail in the complemen- tary mode, where rail services are seen as integrated feeder services in a unified air-plus-rail ticket offering. The research team has concluded that the basis for analyzing these patterns lags far behind the analysis of rail in competition with air (substitution mode). Elements of a case study are introduced that analyze the decision by a major international airline to discontinue short-distance feeder flights between Frankfurt Airport and one nearby airport and continue short-distance feeder flights to a second airport at the same distance. Also documented is the similar U.S. situation, in which one U.S. airline presently offers a joint air-plus-rail ticket to a series of rail stations in the East Coast Mega-region. 2.1 Demand for HSR in Travel from City Center to City Center The available data and experience suggest that there is a very strong potential role for HSR in the East and West Coast Mega-regions as a substitution for present aviation trips. The research team also believes that successful ground trans- portation services can play an increased role in providing complementary short-haul services in support of longer haul airline services, although the exact form of this is less clear. In the former category, HSR services are focused on city cen- ter to city center; in the latter category, HSR services are focused on points of connection with major airports, either directly or by some form of connector (e.g., people movers). The research team believes that there is a gap in the existing methodology to support the analysis of rail in the comple- mentary mode, which should be explored further in contin- uing research in this subject area. To explore further the nature of the issue of “rail as feeder to plane,” this report includes a brief case study of the experience in Germany, where there are several air–rail combined service models in operation at one airport. Successful high-speed ground services can provide a clear- cut alternative to air travel in the two study areas (i.e., East and West Coasts), largely providing services from one downtown center to another downtown center. The primary support for this concept can be found in the Northeast Corridor (NEC) and in Western Europe. A key concern, however, is the set of capacity constraints existing in the NEC Mega-region and the need for completely new infrastructure in California. In short, the potential demand is readily documentable, as presented on the following pages; the need for capacity increases will require considerable additional engineering and cost documentation. Available cost “estimates” are presented as they exist, but they do not match the detail of the demand information. The extent to which improvements in rail can shift market behavior away from air services and to HSR services has been well documented over the last decade of HSR implementa- tion in Western Europe. Figure 2.1 was prepared for the EU by the British consulting firm, Steer Davies Gleave, in Air and Rail Competition and Complementarity, Final Report (1) for EU’s Directorate General for Energy and Transportation. The implications of the graph are startling in their sim- plicity. Under present airport conditions, when a European train can provide city-center to city-center service in less than 3.5 hours, that train can gain a market share of greater than 50% of the aggregate of air and rail combined. A quick visual inspec- tion of Figure 2.1 indicates that the “successful” European city-pair routes are in the upper left-hand portion of the graph and the unsuccessful are in the lower right-hand quad- rant. Of course, no conclusions can be drawn about the por- tion of a city-pair market that goes to the automobile, as these data are often not available. This observation provides the reader with a “rule of thumb” for looking at proposals to divert air travelers to rail services. Interestingly, this rule-of-thumb process relies only on rail travel time and does not rely on either the distance between the city pairs or the travel time of the air journey.

36 The reader may wish to keep in mind this formula in observ- ing the design characteristics of HSR in California, which does meet the travel-time criteria between Los Angeles and San Francisco but does not meet it between San Diego and Sacramento, to give an obvious example. 2.2 Rail Services in the Western Mega-regions that Could Influence Aviation Capacity Issues The analysis of the role of rail services in the two Califor- nia Mega-regions is fundamentally different from the analy- sis appropriate for the East Coast, as the services are radically different. On the one hand, the role of existing services tends to focus on a small number of successful state-sponsored short-distance services. On the other hand, the role of possi- ble future HSR has been examined at a level of detail more intensive than is available in the East Coast study area or any- where else. Figure 2.2 is presented here (reproduced from Chapter 1 of this report) as a point of quick reference. It shows the annual volume of OD aviation trips for key “region pairs” for both of the West Coast Mega-regions. The reader will again note the sheer scale of aviation trip making between the San Fran- cisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles Basin. Similarly, the scale of air trips between Los Angeles and Las Vegas should be noted. By way of comparison, the number of air passengers between these two families of airports is roughly the same as the air markets between New York/Boston and New York/ Washington, D.C., combined. Figure 2.3 shows the number of daily trips by all modes (including car) between key California metro areas, by trip purpose. Note that the Los Angeles–San Diego region pair is Madrid-Barcelona London-Edinburgh London-Manchester London-Brussels Frankfurt-Cologne Madrid-Seville London-Paris Paris-Marseille Rome-Milan 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 Rail journey time R ai l m ar ke t s ha re (% ) Figure 2.1. Relationship of rail journey time to air- vs. rail- market share (1). Figure 2.2. West Coast inter-metropolitan air travel, by metro-pair (2). virtually twice the size of any other intra–mega-region move- ment. This begins to set the stage for an examination of the possible role of HSR in the area. By contrast, Figure 2.2 shows that the volume of air travelers beginning their trip in San Diego with a destination in Los Angeles (or vice versa) is min- imal, and, thus, not included in the diagram.

37 0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 300,000 LA -S an D ie go D ai ly Tr ip s Key Metropolitan Corridors SF - Sa cr am en to LA -S F Sa n Di eg o- SF Sa cr am en to - Sa n Di eg o Non-business Business Figure 2.3. Scale of travel in key inter-metropolitan corridors— daily trips, all modes, all distances (3). Mode Share Auto (%) Air (%) Rail (%) Total Daily Trips LA to SAN 97.9 0.0 2.1 262,926 SF to Sacramento 98.7 0.0 1.3 139,580 LA to SF 51.1 48.9 0.0 54,898 SAN to SF 31.0 69.0 0.0 14,939 LA to Sacramento 60.2 39.8 0.0 12,414 SAN to Sacramento 5.8 94.2 0.0 3,033 Table 2.1. The role of rail service in major intra-California corridors (3). The modeling process undertaken in support of the California High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) summarized the scale of several markets of interest to the mega-regions study (3). As Figure 2.3 shows, the volume of daily trips by all modes between Los Angeles and San Diego dwarfs that of Los Angeles to San Francisco, for example. The figure gives a sense of scale to the market for HSR services, as it includes both trips that are over 100 miles and trips along the corri- dors that are less than 100 miles. 2.2.1 Existing Short-distance Rail in California Section 2.2.1 examines the market between San Francisco and Sacramento, where Amtrak primarily competes with the private automobile and not the short-distance airplane. Reportedly, Amtrak’s Capital Corridor carries over 1 million annual trips, of which 770,000 are between the Bay Area region and the Sacramento region, whereas almost 300,000 are within either region. The research team estimates that this corridor rail service captures about 3% of the market, with the rest over- whelmingly served by private vehicles. By contrast, total avia- tion trips between SFO/OAK and Sacramento airport add up to about 130,000 passengers per year, most of whom are trans- ferring to other flights at the Bay Area airports. Looking only at interregional OD passengers, the research team’s aviation volumes suggest that Amtrak has an air–rail mode share of well over 90% between Sacramento and SFO/OAK (see Table 2.1). Between the Los Angeles Mega-region and the San Diego Mega-region, Amtrak’s Surfliner carries 840,000 passengers per year and another 673,000 within the regions. By contrast, there are about 320,000 passengers flying between San Diego and the Los Angeles area, including Santa Barbara, which is the northernmost terminal of the Amtrak Surfliner service. Most of these air passengers are connecting to/from longer distance flights. 2.2.2 Proposed New HSR Services in California In November 2008, the voters of California supported a major program of HSR services in California. The implica- tions for the demands on airports (and all other modes of transportation) influenced by this possible investment could be immense in terms of intrastate trip-making. In terms of the primary focus area of this research, the system has some potential points of interchange with Cali- fornia airports. The alignment goes immediately adjacent to SFO (Millbrae) but not at all near to OAK. It goes very close to Palmdale, but is not in the same geographic area as LAX. Ontario and San Diego airports could be served by the proposed alignments.

Figure 2.4 shows the present configuration of the full proj- ect, as of the summer of 2008. The network configuration has two branches in the Bay Area region and two branches through the Los Angeles Basin region. Figure 2.5 shows the latest ridership forecasts available to the research team. The reader should be aware that the fore- casts have been formulated to allow for variation in input assumptions (e.g., the price of fuel as assumed at the outset of the analysis vs. the price of fuel reasonably forecast for the next 25-year period). The ridership forecasts should be seen as part of a possible range of predictions, based on a possi- ble range of input assumptions. Thus, these ridership num- bers should be seen as a good summary of the information now being reviewed by the California HSRA and may indeed change.14 Figure 2.6 shows the mode-share forecasts for each of the major intra-California corridors discussed in this chapter. 2.2.2.1 Analysis of Future Ridership in the West Coast Mega-regions As expected, the volume of rail passengers shown in Fig- ure 2.5 between Los Angeles and San Diego at above 20 million riders, is more than double the volume of rail passengers 38 14 To maximize their legibility, the figures are presented in color for the Adobe PDF file version of the report. Figure 2.4. Proposed California HSR network (3). 0 5 10 15 20 25 LA /Sa cra me nto LA /Sa n D ieg o LA /SF Sa cra me nto /SF Sa cra me nto /Sa n D ieg o Sa n D ieg o/S F LA /SF /SJ V Oth er Mo nte rey /Ce ntr al C oa st Fa r N ort h W. Si err a N eva da M ill io ns Figure 2.5. Number of interregional California high speed rail trips by corridor, 2030 (4).

between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. As demonstrated in the previous section, the LA–SAN volumes are largely diverted from the automobile—not from the airplane—with a dominant role in this large market continu- ing to be played by the automobile. Flows to and from the Valley comprise the second largest set of HSR users. Most definitions of a Northern California and a Southern California Mega-region do not include the area between Fresno and Bakersfield in either mega-region. A volume of over 8 million rail riders per year is shown in Figure 2.5 for the critical LA–SF corridor, with an HSR mode share of about 40% (Figure 2.6), which is higher than either air or automobile. Strong market shares to HSR are reported between Los Angeles and Sacramento, and between San Diego and San Francisco. 2.2.2.2 Scale of Diversions from Air to Rail in the West Coast Mega-regions On the basis of the calculations presented, three major sources of diversion from air to rail in California can be noted. At present, air captures approximately the following: • 49% of the market between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, with the rest by auto. In 2030, that share might fall to about 29%. • 40% of the market between Los Angeles and Sacramento, with the rest by auto. In 2030, that share might fall to about 26% of the total market. • 69% of the market between San Diego and San Francisco, with the rest by auto. In the analysis year of 2030, the air share falls to about 45%. Looking exclusively at year 2030 forecasts, if there were about 25 million travelers between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the reported decrease in market share (compared with the present share) would represent about 5 million air passengers diverted to rail.15 If there were about 14 million travelers between Los Angeles and Sacramento, air would capture 3.6 million or 2 million passengers would be diverted to rail. If there were about 7.5 million travelers between the Bay Area and San Diego, air would capture about 3.4 mil- lion, or about 1.8 million passengers would be diverted to rail. At this point in the analysis, these diversion potentials are somewhat speculative and are presented here only to give a sense of scale to the possible diversion phenomenon. But it does suggest that some 8.8 million air passengers are forecast to divert to rail in these three corridors of the larger system by the year 2030. Total system diversions. The California analysis being using is based on about 65 million interregional HSR riders and 20 million intra-regional HSR riders (4). Of the interregional trips, the California forecasting process calculates that 79% were diverted from auto, 16% were diverted from air, 3% diverted from other rail, and 2% never made the trip before. Thus, for the ambitious system as a whole, this estimate projects that about 10 million riders would be diverted from air in the analy- sis year of 2030. Figure 2.7 is reproduced from High Speed Ground Trans- portation for America (5), the FRA’s landmark study of high- speed ground systems in 1997, discussed in the following sections. It shows the diversion from air and the diversion from auto trips. This 1997 study predicted a diversion of about 8 million passengers from air to rail in 2020 based on a smaller and somewhat slower California HSR system than 39 0% 10% 20% 30% 50% 70%40% 60% 80% 90% 100% LA/Sacramento LA/San Diego LA/SF Sacramento/SF Sacramento/San Diego San Diego/SF LA/SF/Valley Cities Other Monterey/Central Coast Far North W. Sierra Nevada Auto Air Rail HSR Figure 2.6. Mode share for interregional travel in California, 2030 (4). 15 A more complete analysis would build a revised 2030 air mode share for the no-build rail condition, but this was not done for this report; the purpose is only to establish a sense of scale for the possible diversions.

is proposed at present. It is based on a different forecasting process than used in the present study used in the preceding paragraphs (4). 2.2.2.3 A Consistent View of National Corridor Markets from the FRA The previous sections of Chapter 2 have relied heavily on the most recent work for the California HSRA, undertaken in cooperation with the Metropolitan Transportation Commis- sion (MTC) of the Bay Area. In Section 2.3 of this chapter, there is the case of the NEC of the East Coast Mega-region. In the East, no specific proposal has been agreed upon, and a major capital investment plan is now being drafted. For that section, the research team’s analysis will first rely on the latest comprehensive, nationwide study of the issue by the FRA (5). This document was produced at the FRA with major input from the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center and traffic forecasting from the firm of CRA International. A more recent U.S. DOT study, also based on the work of CRA International, will be used to update the 1997 work in the NEC. To provide the reader with as much comparable data as possible between the two mega-regions, this section of Chapter 2 presents a brief summary of the California rail corridor that appeared in the FRA study (5), which still remains the major benchmark for examining several corri- dors simultaneously. In terms of service levels, the FRA’s category “New HSR” seems appropriate for this comparison. The California HSRA is now referring to travel times from San Francisco as some- what under 3 hours (16), and the FRA analysis refers to an HSR travel time of slightly above 3 hours, which is close enough for this kind of comparison. Looking at Figure 2.7 for example, “HSR” is the second category from the right. The relationship between the speed of service, arrayed on the x-axis in terms of rail speeds and the previous mode of proj- ected HSR passengers, arrayed on the y-axis in terms of percent of riders diverted from two modes, is explored in Figure 2.7. At speeds in the range of 110 to 125 mph, about 20% of the rail riders are projected to have been diverted from competing air services. At speeds of around 200 mph (labeled “HSR” in Fig- ure 2.7), about 50% of the rail riders are projected to have been diverted from air, in the 1995 FRA study. Looking at the California HSRA’s diversion calculations, it appears the present HSR program is projected to divert about 10 million air trips in 2030. The present HSR program has more branches and services than assumed in the FRA study. In the earlier FRA study, the estimate for a smaller rail system was a diversion of 8 million air trips in 2020. For the purposes of this study, there is a reasonable level of comparability between the two estimates of diversion from air to HSR. The scale is massive: given the assumption of a continued growth rate for total volumes between 2020 and 2030, an estimate of over 10 million air diversions in 2030 is not inconsistent in general scale with the earlier work on diversion. As noted in Figure 2.7, the California North–South system was expected to attract comparatively few air travelers at rail speeds of 150 mph or less. Projected diversions from air were summarized in a recent independent review of the forecast- ing for such a “lower” speed alternative in the West; see Las Vegas study, below. Based on the results of the FRA Commer- cial Feasibility Studies, and some additional corridors, a sum- mary chart of air diversion by project was created and is reproduced here as Table 2.2. 2.2.3 HSR between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles Region This section of Chapter 2 has so far focused on the California HSRA’s program for the state, which was approved on the 40 Speed of Train 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 90 110 125 150 MaglevHSR So ur ce o f D iv er si on % Diverted from air % Diverted from auto These forecasts resulted in a projected diversion of 8 million riders from air to HSR in 2020 (5). Figure 2.7. FRA Study of the relationship between speed of train and source of diverted riders in California.

November 2008 ballot. In addition, other projects are being examined by several organizations. One such proposal, the “Desert Xpress,” is a proposed privately funded rail project between Victorville, CA, to Las Vegas, NV. After an extended process of the peer review, estimates were made of ridership between the Los Angeles area and Las Vegas (see Table 2.3). The rail trip was expected to take 116 minutes, with 30-min headways, and a present fare of $55. (The rail ridership forecasts shown in Table 2.3 were originally done by RSG,16 for inclusion in a complete analysis managed by URS, Inc. These forecasts were then subject to an independent peer review by the consulting firm Steer Davies Gleave. That review was subsequently reviewed by Cambridge Systemat- ics, who proposed that the forecasts be lowered slightly. The data contained in Table 2.3 represent the work of the previous teams, with the decrease recommended by Cam- bridge Systematics.) The original projections for the project estimated that rail would capture 22–24% of the total market, whereas the peer review process lowered the estimates by roughly one tenth. In short, the project is projected to capture about 20% of the total market, depending on final assumptions used. Importantly, the use of 150-mph “conventional” rail for the project does not result in diversions from air at the scale proposed in the Cali- fornia HSR project, with only about 0.7 million diversions from air in the analysis year of 2030. If speed assumptions are similar to those used in the California HSR project, the diver- sions from air would be significantly higher. The research team’s analysis concludes that projects in California and Nevada together could divert in the range of 11 million air trips in the planning horizon. 2.2.4 Costs for the New Projects In November 2008, California voters approved a $9.95 bil- lion bond issue. At the time of the research team’s latest inter- viewsinCalifornia,theexactportion of the full program that will be built from those funds had not been determined. The Cali- fornia HSRA’s website refers to the total project as $40 billion. 41 Forecast High-Speed Rail Mode Shares from Some Recent Studies Corridor (with HSR top speed and study year) FORECAST MODE SHARE FRA Commercial Feasibility Studies North–South California (150; 1998) Los Angeles–San Diego (150; 1998) Chicago Hub (150; 1998) Chicago–Detroit (150; 1998) Chicago–St. Louis (150; 1998) Florida (150; 1998) Pacific Northwest (150; 1998) Texas Triangle (150; 1998) Specific Corridor Studies California Statewide (250; 2007) Cleve–Columbus–Cin (150; 2001) Boston–Montreal (110; 2005) Baltimore–Washington (300; 2003) Tampa–Orlando (150; 2003) New York–Buffalo (150; 1995) New York–Boston (200; 1996) 8.6% from air 19.8% from air 18.6% from air 17.6% from air 22.2% from air 8.5% from air 32.0% from air 17.9% from air 33% from air 2% from air 18% from air 13% from air 67% from air 50% from air 4.3% from auto 0.7% from auto 4.3% from auto 2.8% from auto 5.2% from auto 2.3% from auto 3.5% from auto 5.0% from auto 6% auto 1.7% auto 0.2% auto 0.1% auto 12% auto 6% auto 7% auto 27% from rail 16.2% bus 29% rail 15% rail Table 2.2. Summary of diversions from air (6). 16 RSG is the prime contractor for ACRP 3-10. Projected Ridership on the Desert Xpress Rail Project, by Source of Diversion, 2030 Diverted from Air 733,051 Diverted from Auto 4,399,113 Diverted from Bus 293,983 Total Rail Ridership, 2030 5,426,147 Table 2.3. Projected rail ridership LA to Las Vegas, 2030 (6).

In the past, it has been difficult to make accurate cost estimates of projects that are still in the preliminary design phase. Of equal importance in the treatment of the cost issue is that there is no comparable level of project planning com- pleted on the East Coast. By way of example, in 1997 the FRA estimated the costs of a (smaller) HSR system for California at $19.5 billion; the costs of a 200-mph HSR in the NEC were estimated at $24.3 billion. As is discussed in the following section, the cost of incrementally improving the present NEC facility to attain the originally defined travel-time objec- tives has been estimated at about $14 billion. 2.3 Rail Services in the Eastern Mega-region that Could Influence Aviation Capacity Issues 2.3.1 Market Share Impacts of Improved Travel Time Almost all of the analysis presented for the Western Mega- regions concerned the creation of entirely new services, built “from scratch” to gain very significant market share, and low- ering overall intra-California air passenger volumes by a pos- sible 10 million passengers per year in 2030. The existing situation on the East Coast is fundamentally different, as highly successful HSR services already exist for the city pairs of Boston–New York, New York–Washington, D.C., Philadelphia–New York, and Philadelphia–Washington, D.C. What happens to competing air market share when exist- ing competing HSR services improve, as would have to be the case in the Northeast? Figure 2.8 was prepared by a British consulting firm, Steer Davies Gleave, for the Euro- pean Commission, and it builds on the simpler chart shown in Figure 2.1. Figure 2.8 shows the impact of a change of the independ- ent variable “rail journey time” arrayed along the x-axis (horizontal) on the dependent variable “rail market share” arrayed along the y-axis (vertical). To use one of the earliest examples of HSR influencing an air market, when Paris– Marseille had a rail journey time of over 4 hours, its rail ver- sus air mode share was under 50%. When the journey time was improved to under the rule-of-thumb value of 3.5 hours, the market share increased to 65%. When rail journey times between London and Brussels improved by about 0.5 hours, its rail versus air mode share moved up by about 20 percentage points. In the lower right- hand quadrant, early improvement in rail times between Madrid and Barcelona still resulted in a nearly 5-hour rail journey time, the mode share improvement was slight. Since the publication of the graph, travel time between Madrid to Barcelona has been improved to about 3 hours, and the reported rail versus air mode share has risen to about 38% (7). Thus, the shift is similar in overall direction and slant to most of the other arrows on the graph. The present rail-versus-air mode share shown in Figure 2.8 between Frankfurt and Cologne is so high that it deserves a sep- arate treatment in this chapter (see Section 2.4). The almost nonexistent air mode share for this city pair is the result of the dominant airline at Frankfurt deciding to cease providing air service in the corridor and to provide rail service instead. Because this case is fundamentally different than others shown on the chart, and fundamentally different than what might hap- pen in the Northeast, it will be treated separately in this chapter. 2.3.2 Existing City-pair Rail Services in the East Coast Mega-region Rail has already played a major part in moderating the aviation flows in the East Coast Mega-region. Figure 2.9, 42 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 00:00 01:00 Rail journey time R ai l m ar ke t s ha re (% ) Madrid-Barcelona London-Edinburgh Rome-Milan London-Manchester London-Brussels Frankfurt-Cologne Madrid-Seville London-Paris Paris-Marseille Figure 2.8. Changes in market share from changes in travel time (1).

reproduced from Chapter 1, shows no OD air passenger vol- umes of significance between Philadelphia and the metro regions to its immediate north or south. Air volumes between New York and Boston, and New York and Washington, D.C., show the strong influence of HSR market shares. This section of Chapter 2 explores the existing rail volumes in these major city-pair corridors. The market shares have been calculated by Amtrak and are presented in Table 2.4 as received. Note that the metro-area pair data derived in Chap- ter 1 (and reproduced here in Figure 2.9) use a definition of “airport families” that is different from Amtrak’s definition of immediately competing airports, and the two values should not be used interchangeably. (The Boston Airport System, as used in Chapter 1, includes BOS, MHT, and PVD together.) The rail market shares for Providence, Albany, and Philadel- phia (to and from NYC) show that rail has already established a market dominance in these areas and that most air traffic in these city-pair corridors is for the purpose of connecting flights, not OD travel. This will have significant implications for later analysis for the ability to divert short-distance flights out of New York and Philadelphia airports. 2.3.3 Future Improved City-Pair Rail Services in the East Coast Mega-region As noted earlier, the future form of HSR in the Northeast has yet to be determined. Various policy options have, how- ever, been studied on several occasions and forecasts have been done for a variety of possible futures. This report now presents an analysis of the potential for HSR services from Boston to Washington, D.C., from two separate perspectives. First, an analysis included in the FRA’s comprehensive 1997 study (5) is summarized; second, a 2008 study is reported. The first study represents a 1997 vision of the task remaining after completion of the upgraded project as then envisioned. The second presents a more up-to-date and more relevant analy- sis of the need for upgrading first to the earlier 1997 expecta- tion of performance (i.e., 3 hours of travel time between BOS and NYC) and then to a faster service (i.e., 2.5 hours). First, the FRA’s 1997 study is reviewed, as it allows a com- mon method of comparing various corridor investments throughout the nation, based on a common methodology and set of assumptions. Figure 2.10 is reproduced to show calcu- lations on travel time and diversions from air and auto. Note that the format differs somewhat from what was presented earlier in the chapter that concerned the FRA’s analysis of HSR in Northern and Southern California. The first set of policy alternatives, which allow for incremental analysis of incre- mental improvement to the rail system, is missing from the page. This is because, at the time of the study, the decision had already been made to proceed with an aggressive 150-mph electrified alternative, now generally known as Acela. This presents complexities for this analysis, but certain observa- tions can be made from the nationwide 1997 study. The FRA study concluded that total passenger miles could increase over the Amtrak system in place in 1993. Compared with an observed 1.3 billion passenger miles in that base case, the analysis predicted that true HSR could attract more than 3.5 times that volume of passenger miles, in the forecast year of 2020. Figure 2.10 shows that HSR was predicted to divert more than 4.5 million air trips in the total corridor and less than 1 million auto trips. The “New HSR” assumed in the 1997 FRA study had a Boston–New York running time of less than 2 hours, com- pared with the nearly 5 hours in its base case, and roughly 3.5 hours in 2008. 43 Note: The absence of a line between two areas means that the number of air trips is insignificant. Figure 2.9. East Coast inter-metropolitan air passenger flows (2). City–Pair Corridor Rail Share of Air + Rail Total (%) Boston–New York 49 Boston–Philadelphia 17 Boston–Washington 7 Providence–New York 90 Albany–New York 97 New York–Philadelphia 95 New York–Washington 63 Philadelphia–Washington 89 Table 2.4. Existing city-pair rail market shares in the East Coast Mega-region (8).

2.3.4 Diversions from High-Speed Rail Above and Beyond Present Conditions In the summer of 2008, the Office of the Inspector General, within the Office of the Secretary of the DOT, released an updated report that fits the needs of this study in the analysis of possible improvements over and above the present status quo. The objectives of their review were to “(1) estimate the revenue and congestion relief benefits associated with differ- ent levels of HSR on the NEC and (2) determine whether HSR would pay for itself through increased revenues, congestion relief, or a combination of the two” (9). 2.3.5 Additional Corridor Development in the East Coast Mega-region? First, CRA International estimated the benefits associated with achieving the travel times initially envisioned in the 1976 legislation: 3-hour service between Boston and New York and 2.5-hour service between New York and Washington. Then the consultants estimated the benefits of achieving travel times that are 0.5 hours shorter on both ends: 2.5 hours between Boston and New York and 2 hours between New York and Washington. The results of the analysis are reproduced here, including Figure 2.11, from the Inspector General’s report (9): • HSR on the NEC would cause a notable share of current air travelers to choose to travel by rail rather than by plane. Roughly 11 percent of air travelers would divert to HSR at scenario 1 travel times. This would provide congestion relief at NEC airports and in NEC airspace. However, less than 1 percent of automobile travelers along the NEC would divert to HSR in scenario 1. This result reflects the greater similarities between air and rail travel than rail and auto- mobile travel, particularly with regards to convenience. • BenefitsfromHSRwouldgrow at an increasing rate with each furtherreductionintraveltime.Scenario2,with its travel time reduced by an additional 1⁄2 hour from scenario 1 on both the north and south ends of the NEC, would produce net pres- ent value benefits of $36.0 billion. This is more than double those in scenario 1. The research team’s evaluation showed that each further 1⁄2-hour reduction in travel time would gen- erate benefits at a greater rate as travel time decreased. 44 Figure 2.10. The FRA’s 1997 analysis of HSR in the East Coast Mega-region (5). Source: OIG analysis. Figure 2.11. Projected diversions from air and auto from completing the Northeast High Speed Rail Project, 2008 (8).

2.3.5.1 Empire Corridor and the East Coast Mega-region In the FRA 1997 study (5), an Empire Corridor project was examined as an incremental extension of other presumed investments in the currently defined NEC. The travel time from NYC to Buffalo was calculated at 3.3 hours, with 50 trains per day assumed. The new Empire HSR corridor was expected to attract 32.6 million passengers in the year 2020. The project was forecast to divert nearly 24% of air travelers and about 3% of auto traffic in the city-pair corridor. A brief review of the data suggests that Albany is clearly a can- didate for an extension of the existing NEC network, and that strong performance to NYC (and its airports) could be attained as far west as Syracuse. The sheer distance between NYC and Buffalo casts doubt on the idea that rail could replace and or/complement air services at Buffalo. As a result of these obser- vations, Figure 2.9 does include Syracuse in an Upper New York family of airports for inclusion in the East Coast Mega-region analysis. It does not include Buffalo in that category. In the summer of 2008, a new study (10) of the potential for the Empire Corridor was released. The study pointed out that there are essentially two markets for HSR services in the Empire Corridor and the possibility of some synergistic con- nection between the two markets: • The west corridor, comprising travel between all station pairs between Buffalo/Niagara Falls and Albany–Rensselaer; • The south corridor, comprising travel between all station pairs between Albany and NYC (Penn Station); and • Through, comprising all travel between all stations in the west corridor and the south corridor. (10). Consistent with the assumptions made by the research team, little opportunity exists for additional diversion from the NYC- to-Albany air market, because the rail/air mode share is so high already. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the distance between NYC and Buffalo may make a realistic alternative to air somewhat difficult to accomplish. By the year 2025, an aggressive HSR program is projected to attract more than 2.5 million in the Albany–NYC corridor, compared with about 750,000 between Albany and Buffalo. Those traveling between the “west” corridor and onto the “south” corridor were calculated at 412,000. (In the super- speed maglev-like scenario, this number shoots to 2.4 million passengers.) The authors note the following: Because of its speed advantage, air competes effectively with auto over the longer distances (greater than 200 to 250 mi) between the major through markets (for example, Rochester to NYC is 370 mi). Rail only competes effectively with air in these long distance travel markets when it provides a line haul travel time of two hours or less, and when it also offers a slightly lower fare (which it does in these phases) to compensate for its longer travel time (10). 2.3.5.2 Southeast Corridor and the East Coast Mega-region The FRA 1997 report also examined the extension of improved rail from Washington, D.C., as far as Charlotte, NC. The travel time from D.C. to Charlotte via New HSR was calculated at 3 hours, with 52 trains per day. The full corridor (i.e., to Charlotte) was expected to attract 32.5 million pas- sengers in 2020. The project would divert about 25% of the corridor air travelers and about 3% of auto traffic in the city- pair corridor. Analysis of the catchment areas (and, to a lesser extent, the air-feeder patterns) at the three Mid-Atlantic (BWI, DCA, and IAD) airports resulted in the decision by the research team to include Richmond, Norfolk, and Newport News in the description of the East Coast Mega-region, as described in Figure 2.9 (and Figure 1.3 in Chapter 1). 2.3.5.3 Other Rail Investments in the East Coast Mega-region? The FRA 1997 report provides little guidance on exten- sions of improved rail either to Hartford/Springfield, CT, or to Harrisburg, PA, and beyond. From the point of view of this study, inclusion of airports in Manchester, NH, and Albany already warrants that the geographic area north and west of Boston be included in the definition of the East Coast Mega-region. The corridor from Philadelphia to Harrisburg and beyond needs to be considered a major candidate for improved rail to the NEC system; however, its airport traffic was so low that it was not specifically included in the analysis presented in Chapter 1, or specifically incorporated into Figure 2.9. The summary analysis that follows assumes, in a general way, sig- nificant improvements for higher speed rail services to both Hartford/Springfield and to Harrisburg. 2.3.6 What Additional Capacity Is Needed for Core Services? The 1997 FRA studies (5) refer to the potential of a threefold—even a fourfold—increase in the volume of rail traffic on the existing lines of the NEC, for an analysis year of 2020. The concept of a 300% increase in ridership over the exist- ing infrastructure of the NEC is cause for concern. If the NEC infrastructure were devoted only to long-distance rail ser- vices, life would be simpler. But with NJ Transit, Long Island Railroad, and, to a lesser extent, Metro North, all sharing the tunnels in, out, and through NY Penn Station, the infrastruc- ture capacity issue is considerable. With over 2,500 trains operating on the NEC each weekday, scheduling systems in which local and slower trains need to be overtaken by faster 45

trains is a challenge. A track utilization diagram is presented as Figure 2.12, which was designed to be interpreted by those trained in railroad operations management. The message that the system is very busy, however, is clear—even to the rail- road layman. The throughput at major terminals has been identified by Amtrak as the major constraint on capacity. The research team interviewed managers at Amtrak, who emphasized the need to fundamentally replace NY Penn Station as the effective center of the NEC network. Capital costs in the nature of $2 billion were discussed, with the understanding that engineering work had not progressed at this point. It has been repeatedly noted that the so-called Moynihan Ter- minal project, immediately to the west of NY Penn Station, will improve the quality of pedestrian access and egress to/from the platforms, but not increase the throughput of the station. At this point, a strategy to provide additional capacity for longer distance HSR has not been developed. More capacity is being proposed for access to Manhattan over the two major rivers. New York’s MTA, through Metro North, will connect the Long Island Railroad into Grand Central Station, using an existing but presently unused tunnel under the East River. Turnback tracks for that project will extend southward for several blocks under Park Avenue. NJ Transit is proceeding with the planning of the Access to the Regional Core/Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel proj- ect, which would provide an additional tunnel under the Hudson River to an alignment immediately north of the existing NY Penn Station. Turnback tracks for that project will extend several blocks east of that station toward Park Avenue. The concept of linking the two projects has been raised in public dialogue. According to project managers, the timing of such a later project is interrelated with the rebuilding of new water/sewer tunnels in the area and must await resolution of those and other issues. At present, both projects are proceed- ing as independent, free-standing commuter rail projects. Reportedly, the clearances on the new East River tunnel are not consistent with HSR requirements. 46 Figure 2.12. Track utilization diagram, New York Penn station to Metropark, Evening Peak (11).

2.3.7 Summary Scenarios for Possible Diversion in the East Coast Mega-region To what extent might investment in higher quality HSR in the East Coast Mega-regions divert future aviation passengers away from overcrowded airports? The challenge to answering this question is based on the fact that there is not a single, agreed-upon “master plan” for investment between New England and Virginia. Section 2.2 in this chapter concluded that in the next 21 years, an upper limit for diversion from the California rail network would be on the scale of 10 million passengers per year, with more than a million air diversions in a Los Angeles-Las Vegas system of similar speed. As noted in Chapter 1, the East Coast Mega-region of the United States is at present less dependent on short-distance airline trips than are the West Coast Mega-regions. On the basis of BTS statistics (2), a detailed aviation trip table was built for the base year 2007. Using airport-pair expansion fac- tors developed in the FACT 2 project, airport-to-airport trip tables were constructed for the future year, 2025. The airports were then aggregated into regions for the analysis of air travel within the study area, as shown in Fig- ure 2.2 for the West Coast Mega-regions and in Figure 2.9 for the East Coast Mega-region. Thus, the analysis of possible rail diversion has been geographically organized to be consistent with the air passenger flow maps first presented in Chapter 1. The research team has created three forecasts for the year 2025 to support the analysis of possible system-wide rail diversions in the East Coast Mega-region. For each “airport family” to every other “airport family” in Figure 2.9, year 2025 air passenger flows were calculated with (a) a no diver- sion to rail scenario, (b) a moderate diversion to rail scenario, and (c) an upper-level diversion to rail scenario. The reader should be aware that these three scenarios do not represent the result of any system-wide application of a single, consis- tent model. Rather, for each pair of airport groups, the exist- ing literature supported by the previous FRA/DOT research to predict diversion to rail from air was reviewed for its rele- vance and possible applicability. In most cases, a previously published diversion factor for a moderate rail scenario and a diversion factor for higher quality rail scenario were located. In other subcorridors, diversion factors were assumed from corridors with similar characteristics (see note for Table 2.5). Table 2.5 presents the results of the application of these three hypothetical diversion scenarios for the analysis year of 2025. (The implications of applying the diversion factors to the 2007 base case are also shown on the table.) The high diversion scenario for the East Coast Mega-region shows a high-range estimate of about 3.8 million air trips to HSR in the year 2025. This upper level of the range represents about 25% of the total short-distance air trip-making pre- dicted in the mega-region, at about 14.4 million air passenger 47 Markets and Diversion Rates Air Passengers; Base Case, No Diversion Air Passengers Diverted to HSR: Low Diversion Air Passengers Diverted to HSR: High Diversion Market Corridor Used for Diversion Rates* 2007 2025 2007 2025 2007 2025 Adjacent North– D.C. Partial Empire/NEC 929,540 1,590,703 92,955 159,072 228,121 390,379 Adjacent North– PHL Partial Empire/NEC 116,030 294,356 11,603 29,436 28,475 72,239 Adjacent North– Adjacent South Partial Empire/NEC 113,200 194,767 11,320 19,477 27,781 47,798 Boston–D.C. NEC 1,814,090 3,212,528 199,550 353,378 489,716 867,227 NYC–Albany/ Rochester Full Empire/NEC 339,810 669,774 33,981 66,978 83,394 164,371 NYC–D.C. NEC 1,503,440 3,049,680 165,378 335,465 405,856 823,266 NYC–BOS NEC 1,680,870 3,253,951 184,896 357,935 453,753 878,409 NYC–Adjacent South NEC/Partial SEC (Southeast Corridor) 484,520 969,040 49,468 98,935 121,398 242,797 PHL–BOS NEC 579,390 1,119,553 63,733 123,151 156,407 302,225 NYC–Harrisburg Partial Empire/NEC 880 1,935 88 193 216 475 7,561,770 14,356,286 814,979 1,546,045 1,997,125 3,791,210 Definitions: Adjacent North= BDL, ALB, and SYR. Adjacent South= RIC, ORF, and PHF; from Figure 2.9 * Diversion rates were adapted from published data in Reference 5. They were modified further from data published by the DOT (9) and from data published in Reference 10. Each of these three documents was based on forecasting undertaken by CRA International. Table 2.5. Summary of possible high- and low-diversion scenarios in the East Coast mega-region.

trips per year. The lower level of the range shows a diversion of 1.5 million air trips to rail, or about 11% of the predicted air passenger volume in 2025. By way of comparison, California’s absolute value of diverted riders is somewhat more than twice the high esti- mate for the northeast for 2025 (as extrapolated.) In general, short-distance air trip generation rates in the West Coast study area are more than three times those of the East Coast study area. In short, there are more short-distance air riders to divert in the California market than there are in the North- east market. One reason for this is that Amtrak has “already” captured far more of these short-distance trips in the East than in California. Amtrak ridership in the Northeast Mega- region study area is above 13 million riders in 2008, whereas its California ridership was about 5.5 million riders (12). In conclusion, improvements to HSR now under discus- sion at various levels of detail and various levels of probabil- ity might have profound effects on airport-pair corridors associated with airports with severe capacity problems over the next several decades. A planning process is needed to bet- ter integrate aviation planning with the public policy options actively being examined in the United States, consistent both with the initial $8 billion outlay for HSR in the adopted stim- ulus bill and with the proposed intention to continue this program over the next years. Section 2.3 of Chapter 2 has focused on the scale and range of diversions from air to rail that are possible in the two study areas. Section 2.4 now presents an analysis of the extent to which lowered air passenger volumes (resulting from rail diversion or from other factors) actually decreases the level of congestion at impacted airports and air traffic corridors. The conclusions of Section 2.4 may have an impact on the need for the kind of reforms suggested in Chapter 5, which support a more transparent and accountable system of management. 2.4 What Happens at the Airports When Air Passengers Are Diverted to Other Modes? A central theme of this chapter is that modal alternatives, and HSR in particular, have a profound impact on aviation patterns and thus should be better integrated into a more multimodal aviation capacity analysis process. The previous sections docu- ment well-publicized changes in air–rail mode share in corri- dors like London–Paris and Madrid–Barcelona. This section of Chapter 2 documents how this process has already taken place in the United States, using the Boston–NYC corridor as a case study. Although improvements in rail mode share have also occurred in the NYC–Washington, D.C., corridor, the change in travel behavior is more dramatic in the BOS–NYC corridor, as its base case travel times were considerably worse. 2.4.1 Historical Mode Share (Including Autos), Boston to NYC Airports According to the American Travel Survey (ATS) (13), which is the only source of multistate public data that includes high- way travel, in 1995 the private automobile represented about half of the travel between the Boston standard metropolitan statistical area and the combination of NYC and Newark metro areas in the southern end of this corridor (Table 2.6). Because there has been no systematic updating of longer dis- tance highway flows, and because the study of longer dis- tance travel relies on unreliable data on the long-distance bus traffic, the rest of the analysis will be confined to the two component shares of the total air plus rail market in this corridor.17 According to the ATS, rail captured about one passenger in six in this corridor. Rail travel times were about 5 hours between the two cities.18 At present (after accounting for the Acela service), travel times have been improved to about 3 hours and 25 min. This process of improvement commenced in December 2000.19 As of 2008, rail can be conservatively estimated to capture more than 50% of the air-plus-rail market between Boston and the three NYC main airports.20 2.4.2 Changes in Air Passenger Traffic, Boston to NYC Airports In 1993, more than 1 million passengers flew from Boston and terminated their air trips at NYC’s three main airports, 48 BOSTON TO NYC–NEWARK 1995 Mode Share of All Modes (%) Share of Air+ Rail (%) Auto 48.3 Air 37.3 84.0 Bus 6.7 Rail 7.1 16.0 Other 0.5 Total 100 100 Table 2.6. 1995 mode shares between Boston and NYC–Newark, with Auto (13). 17 The ATS data are important in that they are the only publicly available data that directly include auto flows. Direct comparison of data from this source to later rail and air mode shares may be problematical. 18 If the 1995 reported Boston-NYC mode share had been included on the chart reproduced as Figure 2.8, the base-case market share would be located between the (then) Madrid-Barcelona value and that for London-Edinburgh. 19 From 1999 to 2007, Amtrak ridership grew about 40% systemwide. City-pair mode-share-specific data were not available. 20 Between 2007 and 2008, Amtrak ridership was up sharply, and segment vol- umes on flights between BOS and NYC airports were down by about 10%.

according to the BTS DB1B description of OD travel (Table 2.7) (2). Although overall domestic passenger originating volumes at BOS airport are now rising again from their 2002 nadir, air passenger volumes in the study corridor are down by over 20%. Examining the change between 1999 and 2007, study corridor volumes are down by about 30%. Thus, in the gen- eral period where the Acela rail services were competing with the air services, nearly one third of the OD air passen- gers between BOS and the three NYC airports ceased flying in the study corridor (Table 2.8). The shift in the corridor travel market, as it impacts air- port/aviation capacity, is expressed in two ways. First, the air- lines lowered the number of flights in the corridor, but only slightly. More important, the airlines have used smaller air- crafts for the remaining flights. Comparing the 1999 flows with the 2007 flows, the number of flights in the corridor fell from more than 25,000 to under 24,000, or by about 6%. The number of passengers per flight fell from 67 to 59, or a drop of about 13% (Table 2.9). The average size of the aircraft decreased by about 22%— from 124 seats per plane to 97 (Table 2.10). The pattern of shrinking aircraft size is consistent over the 15-year period, from 1993 to the present. The net result of multiple changes in operations is a lowering of the number of passengers per plane. 2.4.3 Conclusion: What Happened in Response to the Diversion of Air Passengers? Parallel with the dramatic rise in Amtrak ridership over the past 8 years, air traffic between BOS and the NYC region fell by more than 750,000 passengers. Most of these moved to rail, which raised its ticket price; some rail riders (simultane- ously) moved to low-fare bus carriers. But the impact on airport and airspace congestion is more complicated than implied by these basic observations. For, while the number of passengers declined sharply, the number of planes did not. Looking just at BOS–LGA (home of the original two shuttle operators), the number of planes declined only by about 4%, responding to a corresponding passenger decline (for several reasons) of about 40%. In this period, the average aircraft size fell by about 30% for the BOS–LGA route. There are two powerful “lessons” from the Boston–NYC case study. First, the implications of alternative policies toward HSR can have massive impacts on air passenger demand and should be explicitly modeled in the aviation forecasting process. Sec- ond, the expected “diversion” away from air to rail cannot be seen as automatically having any kind of linear, parallel impact on the number of planes in the subject corridor. This under- scores the essential message of Chapter 5: the primary issue in aviation capacity in the two mega-regions is the need for airport managers to have more control and more accountability for improving the throughput of their facilities. 2.5 Rail as a Complementary Mode to the Aviation System Because of an extensive literature base on the subject of potential diversion from air travel stemming from new HSR services from city center to city center, it has been possible to establish a sense of scale for the amount of diversion from air passenger traffic that might be possible and to briefly observe how the market has responded in one case study corridor (BOS–NYC). At the same time, the research team has found the literature base to be distinctly weaker, and of generally lower quality, on 49 PASSENGERS 1993 1999 2007 BOS to EWR 302,160 300,300 145,050 BOS to JFK 62,090 58,420 176,790 BOS to LGA 704,550 868,790 512,980 Total BOS to NYC 1,068,800 1,227,510 834,820 Total All BOS Origins 7,475,400 9,513,440 10,426,610 Notes: Acela service began in December 2000; JetBlue began JFK operations in February 2000 and began BOS to JFK service in 2004. Table 2.7. Historical changes in Boston to New York air traffic (2). FLIGHTS 1993 1999 2007 BOS to EWR 9,511 5,379 4,394 BOS to JFK 3,729 8,266 8,089 BOS to LGA 11,741 11,959 11,478 Total BOS to NYC 24,981 25,604 23,961 Table 2.8. Change in number of flights, Logan to NYC airports (2). ROUTE 1993 1999 2007 BOS to EWR 59 93 66 BOS to JFK 47 30 58 BOS to LGA 67 81 58 Total BOS to NYC 61 67 59 Table 2.9. Change in average passengers per flight (2). ROUTE 1993 1999 2007 BOS to EWR 118 141 99 BOS to JFK 92 65 79 BOS to LGA 153 158 109 Total BOS to NYC 131 124 97 Table 2.10. Change in average aircraft size (2).

the subject of rail services in a complementary mode to sup- port longer distances services at major airports. In carrying out the work for this report, it has become clear that the tech- nical base for analyzing rail services as part of an intermodal passenger trip is weaker than for other aspects of this project. This section of Chapter 2 reviews what is known about the use of rail service as a feeder mode to airports both in the United States and internationally. 2.5.1 Experience with Rail as a Feeder Mode to Aviation in the United States Inthe United States, the issue of improved interconnection of airports with national ground transportation systems has been raised repeatedly over the last decade. A major American trans- portation advocacy group, “Reconnecting America,” has made thecasethatthenational decline of the airline hub-spoke system has severely reduced service to smaller airports and that there is a void in terms of effective access to the remaining airports with growing air services (14). At present, there is only a modest amount of study underway to better understand this issue. 2.5.1.1 Northeast Corridor Master Planning Process The question of how to define and develop the rail comple- mentarity concept is still in its infancy. A 2005 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) describes EWR AirTrain (monorail) as the most advanced connection with the National Rail system (15). A conceptual diagram (Figure 2.13), created for discussion purposes in the NEC Master Planning process and furnished to the research team by Amtrak, raises the question of a different form of “rail as feeder” service. The reader is reminded that this diagram was developed to help define a concept and does not represent any kind of policy position on the part of Amtrak. The diagram illustrates the concept of creating new train lines directly on airport property and creating a service package specifically designed to support the rail as feeder concept. The concept shown in Figure 2.13 is based largely on the experience in the Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt air- ports, where entirely new high-speed intercity rail lines have been built to be integrated with major air passenger termi- nals. (Other cities have diverted lower speed intercity services to airport terminals, such as Zurich and Geneva.) The dia- gram refers to “dedicated trains,” a concept further explored in Section 2.5.2. 2.5.1.2 GAO Report on Air/Rail Complementarity A recent congressionally mandated study by the GAO focused on the connections to nationwide systems for several reasons. In answer to the question of why the GAO under- took the study, the agency notes that: Increases in the number of passengers traveling to and from airports will place greater strains on our nation’s airport access roads and airport capacity, which can have a number of negative economic and social effects. U.S. transportation policy has generally addressed these negative economic and social effects from the standpoint of individual transportation modes and local government involvement. However, European transporta- tion policy is increasingly focusing on intermodal transportation as a possible means to address congestion without sacrificing economic growth. (15) 50 Figure 2.13. Conceptual diagram used in the development of the NEC master plan, May 2008 (11).

The study notes that, although there is only one American airport with a people mover to an Amtrak station, no Amer- ican airport reported to the GAO an intention to build a new connection to an Amtrak facility. Figure 2.14 shows that EWR is the only current example of such a national connec- tion in contrast to the 18 other less direct shuttle connections documented in the study. The GAO report did not discuss the developing connection at PVD, in Warwick, RI, serving the Providence area. The “Warwick Intermodal Facility” is located on the NEC main line and is scheduled to open for train service in mid-2010. It will also house bus and rental car facilities and provide parking for rail users. After a prolonged design process, the airport man- agers settled on a 1,250-ft elevated skyway with moving side- walks to connect the airport with the new rail station. This is described as the closest connection between any Amtrak sta- tion and adjoining airport and will not require a shuttle bus (unlike the other airports reviewed in the GAO report). If PVD is to extend its geographic market area to the south, toward New Haven, CT, and northward to Boston, rail services provided by Amtrak and rail services provided by the Massa- chusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) will have to be designed to serve the needs of air passengers. Reportedly, Amtrak was at one point considering an airport stop on its regional service, but not on the high-speed Acela service. More recent statements from the airport note only that “the Inter- modal Facility will serve MBTA commuter trains travelling between Warwick, Providence, and Boston” (16). 2.5.1.3 The American Experience with Rail as a Feeder Mode: Newark As noted in the GAO study (15), there is only one example in the United States of an airport terminal area that is physi- cally linked with the national rail system, either directly or by people mover. EWR rail station stands as the best American test case for the integration of long-distance ground service (Amtrak) with long-distance air service (the airlines.) An elab- orate intermodal joint marketing and ticketing program was developed to utilize the physical facilities developed. Throughout the implementation process, a four-party group developed the plans: NJ Transit, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), Amtrak, and Continen- tal Airlines. The result was the most concentrated attempt yet undertaken to integrate air and ground services. Continental entered into an agreement with Amtrak to code share certain rail services to Stamford, New Haven, Philadelphia, and Wilmington, DE. As such, Continental is able to sell a single, unified ticket (Figure 2.15) from Stamford to John Wayne Airport, for example. A recently published ACRP study (18) on airport ground access concluded, “The goal of seamless integration between 51 Figure 2.14. The GAO study on the complementary role of rail to aviation documented only one direct connection from Amtrak to airport terminals, at EWR (15).

the national aviation system and the national rail system is as yet unrealized. As of 2005, about 370 daily Amtrak riders boarded or alighted at the station, while in 2006 about 350 daily riders used the station.” The experience of the EWR rail station and its rail as feeder service has been documented in some detail. In November 2004, the I-95 Corridor Coalition published the results of an intensive study of the intermodal coordination associated with the rail station project, which is available on the Coali- tion’s website (19). 2.5.2 Rail as a Feeder Mode: The Frankfurt Case Study The most highly developed program to implement the concept of rail as feeder was developed at Frankfurt Airport, with connecting rail service from a city 96 miles to the north and a city 91 miles to the south (as a comparison, Albany, NY, is about 136 miles from LGA.) Importantly, the rail service to the north (Cologne) did lead to a decision on the part of the dominant airline to cease its short-distance feeder flights, whereas the rail service to the south (Stuttgart) did not lead to a decision to cancel its short- distance feeder flights. For the purposes of this report, this section of Chapter 2 will review the major aspects of the two rail services and present new information concerning the demand characteristics of the two services.21 2.5.2.1 Rail Services between Frankfurt Airport and Cologne and Stuttgart The railway connections were developed with new infra- structure and offering new services to the customers traveling via Frankfurt Airport. Figure 2.16 shows the location of Frank- furt Airport (airport code = FRA), the Cologne downtown rail station (airport code = QKL), and the Stuttgart downtown rail station (airport code = ZWS). The project is a cooperative ven- ture between the airline operator (Lufthansa), the rail operator (German Rail), and the airport operator (Fraport). The new long-distance train station at FRA started its oper- ation in May 1999. Two years later, Lufthansa, German Rail, and Fraport announced their cooperation and implemented the new AIRail service; initially it ran between FRA and ZWS. Thanks to the new high-speed track between Mannheim and Stuttgart, it takes 75 min of travel time for the 97-mile distance from downtown Stuttgart to FRA. The train operated on a 2-hour frequency, which results in five to six connections a day. Initially, Lufthansa leased one complete railroad carriage of the ICE train set operated by German Rail. This carriage was assigned to AIRail customers and offered only first-class seats with respective services. Customers of Lufthansa or Star Alliance carriers were able to book a single ticket that includes a coupon for the train ride. Thus, passengers could book all the way to the final destinations at ZWS and QKL, respec- tively. The train ride fully substitutes a feeder flight and has a minimum connection time of 45 min in Frankfurt. But, dur- ing the first months, the load factor of the separate AIRail coach was just around 30%, while the expected figure had previously been about 50–60%. The cooperation was initially limited to 2 years, but was prolonged by the inauguration of an additional service from 52 Figure 2.15. A Continental Airlines flight from Stamford, CT, rail station to California (16). 21 This section has been prepared for this report by members of the research team who are based in Germany, and it is based on their personal experiences with the project.

FRA to QKL. This service started in May 2003. A new HSR link halved the travel time by train to FRA to 51 min. This implied a very attractive offer for business travelers from the Cologne area. Long-haul customers were able to use the AIRail service without additional costs. Consequently, Lufthansa cancelled 4 of 12 parallel flights from FRA to CGN (Cologne Airport) when AIRail operations started in May 2003 and ceased all remaining flights on this route in October 2007. 2.5.2.2 Demand for Rail as a Feeder Service to Frankfort Airport Frankfurt–Cologne. The AIRail operations in the mar- ket between Frankfurt Airport and Cologne market started in 2003. The market itself, like many others, was decreasing due to the advent of low-cost carriers. CGN started positioning itself as one of the major low-cost airports in Germany. This new supply lowered a considerable amount of Lufthansa’s market from CGN via the FRA international hub. The mar- ket decreased from 320,000 passengers in the late 1990s by more than one third.22 Figure 2.17 shows that, from an initial market share in 2003 of roughly a quarter, the share of the AIRail (shown in higher portion of the bar) service rose to 50% during the next 3 years. This development also led to the reduction in paral- lel flight capacities. In autumn 2007, all remaining flights between FRA and CGN ceased. Consequently, the AIRail market share reached 100% in 2008. The relatively high mar- ket share of the AIRail service was mainly based on the hourly train departures. This frequency gives travelers the opportu- nity to arrive within a sufficient time before their flight depar- ture in FRA or have enough time to claim their baggage and reach a train in an appropriate amount of time. Frankfurt–Stuttgart. The market between Frankfurt Air- port and Stuttgart was also significantly affected by the emer- gence of the low-cost carriers. The passenger figures decreased from 440,000 in 2002 to below 250,000 in 2008. Figure 2.18 shows that roughly one out of six passengers used the AIRail service in this market. The 2-hour train frequency between the Stuttgart rail station and FRA and the continued operation of the parallel Lufthansa flights combine to explain the generally smaller AIRail market share compared with the connection to the Cologne train station. Lufthansa’s decision not to reduce parallel flights signifi- cantly was due to concerns that a significant number of pas- sengers would circumvent the train to the FRA hub otherwise and would fly into alternative hubs like AMS, CDG, or LHR. Given that the FRA–ZWS market is approximately twice as large as FRA–CGN’s, a cessation of flights in Stuttgart would require a quadrupling of train seat capacity jointly with a doubling of train frequency to compensate for all flights. In 2008, Lufthansa abandoned the option of checking bags into, and out of, the two downtown railroad station termi- nals. The service was only lightly used, as passengers preferred to keep control of their baggage to the greatest extent possible. 53 Figure 2.16. Location of the two services (20). 22 Owing to data confidentiality, only isolated figures could be gathered from a vari- ety of sources. On the basis of the official statistics on passenger movements col- lected and published by the German Federal Bureau of Statistics, the research team estimated and calculated a nearly comprehensive demand picture on these markets.

Although ticket sales were high for the rail connections to the airport, the presentation of the entire air-plus-rail journey as one ticket proved less popular than expected. In some cases, first-time users of the joint ticket would note that separately purchased tickets and last-minute choice of trains were more efficient than booking all segments at once. 2.5.2.3 Feeder Flight Substitution and Increased Slot Availability The Cologne case in particular shows that sufficient rail services can be a full substitute for very short-haul flights. As feeder flights are usually not profitable and have to be cross- subsidized by long-haul revenues, a substitution with less costly ground-based transport means could be economically reasonable. In the ZWS–FRA market, Lufthansa decided to cease only some of the flights to avoid a spill of demand to other airlines (via hubs other than FRA). Airlines often operate with small aircrafts when feeding from their spokes into a hub. In these cases, the ratio of pas- sengers per slot at the hub is suboptimal. The operation of larger airplanes might require that frequency be reduced and fixed costs increase. Thus, feeder flights will become less attractive to time-sensitive passengers (business travelers) and will also become more expensive. Freeing slots by substi- tution by adequate frequent rail services could be a good solu- tion to increase the overall network performance of airlines or airports, respectively. The substitution of feeder flights by rail services could be reasonable also in a non-hub context, as observed in the 54 Year A lR ai l P as se ng er s Figure 2.17. Rise in AIRail market share between Frankfurt Airport and Cologne train stations (20). Year A lR ai l P as se ng er s Figure 2.18. Drop in AIRail market between Frankfurt Airport and Stuttgart rail station (20).

Hamburg–Berlin market. There, Lufthansa Regional ceased all flights in 2002. The train ride takes only 2 hours from city center to city center, and the long-haul load factor was below 30% during the last months of their operation. 2.5.2.4 Rail Service Replacing Air Flights: Lessons Learned Reviewing the last 7 years of intermodal development in Germany, some general conclusions can be drawn. Regarding AIRail, the initial level of service was diluted over time and more flexible service components were introduced. The ambi- tious baggage service that imitated the aviation processes was readjusted to better match the railway operations where bag- gage transport was abandoned several years ago. Experts do not negate the strong influence of politics on the decision to develop the German AIRail services, and one can question whether the operators would have inaugurated this product of their own accord. Considering the early prospects about the effects of passenger intermodality, it can be observed that integrated services between railway companies and air- lines have been rare since then. From a neutral perspective, the current AIRail service can best be seen as an add-on to an existing HSR service. It bene- fits from the existence of a good infrastructure at Frankfurt Airport and its dominance as the main German hub airport. For incoming travelers, the product itself is influenced by how the service is portrayed in the international airline book- ing systems (GDS). For them, the visibility in the GDS is crucial. Additional rail travel times compete directly with existing flights that directly serve the hub. Thus the integra- tion of infrastructure and the realized overall travel times (including transfers) determine and influence the choice of ground-based modes in an integrated trip chain. In most cases, the user is provided with a total trip time to the desti- nation airport for the air-feeder option, and total trip time to the downtown station on the rail-feeder option. The former will usually look faster than the latter, even though the user must continue onward from the destination airport. All in all, this case study supports the observation that customers are not interested in complex products. They want to have smooth and reliable transfers between two segments of their journey without paying attention to the “modes” involved. Thus, there could be a future for combined journeys and easy-to-use access/egress train connections to airports. Airlines should be interested in substituting their unprofitable feeder flights by other less costly means of transport, but they have to assure their customers that rail connections are as reliable and convenient as connecting flights. Some capacity shortages—on both air and land—could generally be overcome by suitable ground transportation investments. Therefore, it is essential to activate the individ- ual modes’ strengths and to combine them optimally. In doing so, both perspectives are essential: the customer’s and the operator’s perspective. But the case study presented here sug- gests that the complete abandonment of air service in response to the introduction of very high-quality rail service is very rare (e.g., the decision not to delete flights from Stuttgart) even in the context of strong government support for the idea. This further challenges the concept that the provision of HSR ser- vice in the United States will, on its own, reduce airport con- gestion unless this is undertaken in a more complete program that implements the concepts discussed in Chapter 5. 2.6 Additional Capacity from Highways in the Mega-regions to Accommodate Excess Aviation Demand Overview and Structure. From the original scope, this project has been concerned with the potential impacts on avi- ation capacity from possible changes in competing or comple- mentary modes. The work has included, therefore, a review of the extent to which there might be some additional capacity in the roadway networks in the two mega-regions that could in some way influence alternative futures for the accommodation of aviation demand. This section of Chapter 2 summarizes the results of the review of demand and capacity of highways as undertaken as an input to the analysis of the capacity needs of the U.S. aviation/airport system based on the more thor- ough coverage included in Appendix B. Appendix B includes a review of what is known about the bottlenecks and sources of congestion in the East Coast Mega-region; it reviews highway demands and capacities at the region’s key locations. Areas where demand significantly outweighs capacity are documented for the East Coast. By way of example, demands and supplies on a key link across the Hudson River in the NYC area are reviewed to show the difficulty of predicting what major improvements to the total network can be expected. Appendix B also includes a review of known congested seg- ments of the California highway system—in particular, those that serve as gateways for north–south traffic between the two West Coast Mega-regions. In California, a future highway net- work was developed as part of the HSR forecasting process, and the impact of that future highway network on interregional travel was calculated. The California analysis shows that, even with the creation of an aggressive future highway network, fun- damental long-distance intercity travel times do not improve. 2.6.1 Future Highway Capacity to Respond to Aviation Demand: Conclusion The implication of the case studies included in Appendix C is that, even with the assumption of new highway capacity, 55

there does not seem to be any breakthrough that would inval- idate the basic assumption that the roadway system is highly used and that any future unmet needs at congested airports will not be mitigated by newly available reliable traffic flows on the roadway system. The exception to this conclusion, though unexplored in this study of aviation capacity, is the possibility that the road- ways on both coastal regions might become more carefully managed, with the specific inclusion of managed lanes capa- ble of supporting reliable bus service for short-distance ser- vices such as Boston–NYC, or NYC–Washington, D.C. In this case, buses might play a significantly larger role in comple- menting the nation’s air system than they do now. 2.6.1.1 The Under-examined Role of Intercity Busses The quality of data used to help the research team under- stand the role of the intercity bus is significantly limited. The BTS monitors a massive program to document air travel, and good information is available to policymakers and to the pub- lic alike. Amtrak has shared key data with this project, which reveals its exceptional market strength in certain OD pair cor- ridors. By contrast, ridership and other market research data concerning intercity buses is often considered proprietary by the private bus companies, who do not receive any govern- ment subsidy for their services. Nevertheless, one can make some observations regarding scale. In a recent analysis,23 reasonable assumptions about bus occupancy rates were applied to published data of bus supply between NYC and Boston and NYC and Washington, D.C. The estimates developed were dramatic: intercity bus ridership between Boston and NYC was estimated at around 1.6 million trips per year; intercity bus ridership between Washington, D.C., and NYC was estimated at about 1.0 million trips per year. Because the load factor (50%) was assumed and not empirically derived, these estimates remain only estimates and should not be used for comparisons with other modal data. Nevertheless, the scale of ridership is interesting for this analysis. This chapter reports that in 2007, air attracted about 1.6 million riders between Boston and NYC, whereas rail attracted roughly the same.24 Thus, the initial approximation of 1.6 million bus riders would rank it as equal in importance to both air and rail in this metro-area pair.25 Interviews with key analysts suggest that a “trickle down” market impact has occurred. As reliability of the aviation system increasingly worsened, travelers moved to Amtrak’s higher quality services. Amtrak has raised fares in the Boston–Washington, D.C., corridor, which in turn encour- aged the development of entirely new bus services. The bus analysis project determined that of the bus seats provided between Boston and NYC, only 27% were provided by the traditional carrier (combination Greyhound/Peter Pan). The rest of the capacity is provided by a wide variety of start-up services. The possible role of better-managed highway systems that would better support intercity bus services that which might then take the place of low-volume, short-distance airline routes should be examined in further research efforts. Intercity buses are being placed into service where local air services have been curtailed; the research team knows of no authoritative source of data that documents this existing pattern.26 2.6.1.2 Aviation Planning and Highway Planning Although it is not clear that the highway infrastructure will produce any relevant level of new capacity to deal with unmet demand for short-distance aviation trips, it is clear that the highway planning process is a central location for compre- hensive transportation resources. Over the past 40 years, the Federal Highway Adminis- tration (FHWA) has taken the lead in many advances in implementing a continuous, comprehensive (multimodal) transportation planning process, including the develop- ment of statewide planning using techniques originally developed for metropolitan planning. Clearly, better inte- gration of aviation planning with long-distance surface transportation planning could be undertaken. The ques- tion of how aviation planning could be better integrated into more comprehensive planning activities and into the established metropolitan and statewide programs in partic- ular is first addressed in Chapter 3. Implications for change are noted in Chapter 6. 56 23 Personal communications from Robin Phillips, American Bus Association, sum- marizing estimates performed by Julius Vizner, PANYNJ, September 2008. These must be seen as preliminary and not reflecting positions of either organization. 24 The research team also observed that between 2007 and 2008, rail increased while air decreased. 25 In 1995, the ATS reported that in travel between Boston and NYC, bus shares were about equal to rail shares. 26 Reportedly, the FAA has been asked to examine the role of buses as replace- ment for low-volume air segments; personal communication with Robin Phillips, American Bus Association.

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TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 31: Innovative Approaches to Addressing Aviation Capacity Issues in Coastal Mega-regions examines the aviation capacity issues in the two coastal mega-regions located along the East and West coasts of the United States. The report explores integrated strategic actions to that could potentially address the constrained aviation system capacity and growing travel demand in the high-density, multijurisdictional, multimodal, coastal mega-regions.

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