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

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