Interregional Travel A New Perspective for Policy Making (2016) / Chapter Skim
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5 Public-Sector Role in the Provision of Interregional Transportation in the United States and Europe
5 Public-Sector Role in the Provision of Interregional Transportation in the United States and Europe
Pages 104-134
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From page 104... ...
Most of the other track used by Amtrak belongs to private freight railroads, which charge for its use according to access requirements established by the federal government. The many public and private entities controlling and providing aspects of interregional transportation create a complex environment for funding and coordinating investments in transportation infrastructure and services.
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From page 105... ...
Interregional transportation corridors, which often span multiple states and metropolitan areas, are not subject to similar coordination requirements. The federal government has a more direct role in the planning of aviation infrastructure because of its exclusive authority over the design, management, and operation of the nation's airspace.
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From page 106... ...
Because Amtrak lacks such a steady and sufficient stream of revenues derived from users, it faces continuing challenges in the planning and prioritization of its intercity rail services and capital investments. To conclude the chapter, the approach used for providing interregional transportation in the United States is contrasted with the approach in Europe, particularly with regard to intercity passenger rail.
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From page 107... ...
Disbursements, for the most part, can only be used to pay for projects in the specific mode.3 In recent years, the revenues credited to the federal Highway Trust Fund have fallen behind program disbursements, which has reduced funding predictability and required the annual appropriation of general fund revenues to supplement highway spending.4 In 2013, federal, state, and local governments spent more than $200 billion on capital improvements, maintenance, operations, and traffic enforcement on the public road system.5 This large public investment is made with varying degrees of coordination among federal, state, and local governments. Within large metropolitan regions, coordination is both complicated and essential, since dozens or even hundreds 2 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2012/.
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From page 108... ...
The National Airspace System consists of the terminal and en route airspace and the navigation, surveillance, and communications infrastructure that make up the air traffic control system. Airport and Airway Trust Fund revenues are also used to pay for the National Airspace System.
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From page 109... ...
They derive substantial revenues from concessions; public parking; landing fees; and the rents charged for gates, terminal space, and other facilities used by airlines and other aircraft operators and support units.9 In addition, the 40 largest airports are allowed by federal law to levy a passenger facility charge that is folded into the price of an airline ticket. These revenues can be used by airports for capital projects.10 The Airport and Airway Trust Fund also pays for the federal Airport Improvement Program, which provides grants to airport authorities for a variety of purposes, including runways, navigation aids, and noise abatement programs.11 Amtrak and Intercity Rail According to the original plan for Amtrak, it was to be managed as a for-profit company that would be free of federal subsidies within a few years.12 Timetables for self-sufficiency were established, including requirements for the railroad to report on the profitability of each route and to make plans for withdrawing service from money-losing routes (CBO 2003)
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From page 110... ...
The average ticket revenue per passenger was about $71, and total ticket revenues were slightly less than $2.2 billion. The cost data reported in the table are for Amtrak's train operations and maintenance expenses, including fees paid for accessing freight lines.
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From page 111... ...
0.40 0.38 0.42 0.39 Ticket revenue per passenger trip ($) 70.79 102.27 33.06 112.48 Ticket revenue per passenger mile ($)
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From page 112... ...
For the other NEC regional trains, ticket revenues exceed costs by about 37 percent. The state-supported routes varied considerably in the ratio of ticket revenue to costs.
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From page 113... ...
235,926 $116.17 LD 34 - Coast Starlight 459,450 $124.39 LD 25 - Empire Builder 450,932 $125.42 NEC 99 - Special Trains 17,539 $141.13 LD 18 - Cardinal 109,154 $145.09 SS 54 - Hoosier State 33,930 $150.23 LD 52 - Crescent 294,306 $160.93 LD 27 - California Zephyr 366,564 $181.67 LD 28 - Southwest Chief 352,162 $182.50 LD 33 - Sunset Ltd. 105,041 $357.98 FIGURE 5-2 Amtrak ticket revenue shortfall per passenger trip, in covering fully allocated operating costs by route, Fiscal Year 2014.
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From page 114... ...
TIFIA offers three types of financial assistance to applicants: loan guarantees, secured loans, and lines of credit provided to public authorities and private entities completing projects sponsored by public authorities. The leveraging of public investments is intended to lower the cost of borrowing by private entities; for example, the Federal Highway Administration claims that a $1 billion TIFIA authorization will support about $10 billion in actual lending capacity.
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From page 115... ...
ARRANGEMENTS FOR COORDINATING INTERREGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLANNING The combination of federal, state, and local governments having responsibility for the provision of transportation infrastructure creates a complex environment for the planning of investments in transportation, even within individual modes. As has been noted, in the case of highways and transit, the federal government has instituted a requirement for the creation of MPOs, which engage in multimodal planning of transportation systems serving metropolitan areas.
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From page 116... ...
Modally diverse state transportation agencies can assume an important role in planning and conducting objective appraisals of interregional transportation policy and investment options. For example, the Florida Department of Transportation is assessing the safety implications and public benefits of plans by the Florida East Coast Railroad to upgrade existing freight railway lines and construct 30 new miles of line to provide passenger service for 230 miles between Orlando and Miami.14 The Texas Department of Transportation has periodically reviewed plans to improve the state's interregional transportation system, including a proposal that would have created multimodal corridors containing separate highway lanes for cars and trucks and separate rail lines for high-speed passenger and freight trains.15 However, even when an interregional corridor spans only a single state, there is evidence that modal "silos" tend to hinder multimodal planning and decision making.
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From page 117... ...
The Coalition of Northeastern Governors has an ongoing program to facilitate the exchange of information and to promote opportunities for closer coordination of highway and transit assets in the Northeast.18 The combination of federal, state, and local responsibilities for the provision of aviation infrastructure creates an especially complex institutional environment for the development of air transportation capacity to serve interregional markets. FAA invests in the NAS on the basis of its interest in ensuring that the aviation system operates in a safe, orderly, and efficient manner at the national and international scale.
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From page 118... ...
To assist with the planning of NEC rail investments, Congress established the NEC Commission, whose members include the eight states served by the corridor. The long-range planning document that currently guides NEC rail investments, known as the NEC Master Plan,20 was created by Amtrak in collaboration with the state members of the NEC Commission and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
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From page 119... ...
While the NEC Commission is made up of members from eight state departments of transportation, its emphasis is on passenger rail rather than on planning transportation services generally in the corridor. Nevertheless, the commission's state department of transportation membership could provide a framework for examining transportation investment opportunities more generally and from a multimodal perspective in the NEC.
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From page 120... ...
reports how the EU "is finding it hard to transform a bunch of national rail monopolies into a pan-European market in which operators compete across borders." The institutional challenges are being addressed by the EU, which has established requirements for open access to new operators and common technical standards for new infrastructure and rolling stock. Therefore, an examination of how passenger rail systems have been provided in Europe can provide insights relevant to the provision of interregional transportation in the United States (Nash 2009)
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From page 121... ...
Furthermore, the Chinese transportation system bears little resemblance to that of the United States. It serves a population having much lower income,24 motor vehicle ownership rates,25 and airline usage.26 EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE WITH PROVISION OF INTERCITY RAIL Table 5-2 compares mode shares for all travelers in interregional markets in the European Union with modes shares for travelers in the 200 most heavily traveled interregional markets in the United States.
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From page 122... ...
Source: Directorate for Energy and Transport 2014 for EU data; Federal Highway Administration trip tables discussed in Chapter 4 for U.S. data.
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From page 123... ...
However, a review of some of the factors can offer insights that may be useful for interregional transportation planning in the United States. Public Investments in Passenger Rail Infrastructure As discussed in Chapter 3, after World War II, the use of passenger rail declined precipitously in the United States as automobiles and airlines attracted travelers.
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From page 124... ...
For the most part, their investments in new or substantially upgraded passenger rail lines have been made in markets already having significant rail service and demonstrating high rail ridership.28 European governments have invested in a mix of conventional and higher-speed passenger trains (Nash 2009)
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From page 125... ...
The French experience has demonstrated the benefits of integrating high-speed rail services into the mostly conventional national rail network. The TGV provides frequent, high-speed service between Paris and several major French cities and connects to the junctions of conventional lines that can accommodate high-speed trains operating at reduced speeds to access more French cities.
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From page 126... ...
Great Britain is the only country without a publicly owned passenger train operator; however, most other European countries have divided their once vertically integrated national rail companies into separate organizations responsible for train operations and rail infrastructure (Mizutani et al.
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From page 127... ...
. For example, French bus operators were not allowed to enter markets served by the French national railway, and German law restricted competition by bus operators on routes that parallel intercity railways.
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From page 128... ...
, the benefit–cost ratios for the Spanish lines are below 1, despite relatively low construction costs. For the most part, the European intercity rail systems have been competitive with air travel in interregional markets.
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From page 129... ...
air when the station-to-station travel time is under 3 hours, and it continues to attract a significant market share up to travel times of about 4 hours. When travel times are about 2 hours, rail largely eliminates air from the market, although sometimes airlines book space on rail for their connecting passengers and some major airports [such as Charles de Gaulle, Schiphol (Amsterdam)
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From page 130... ...
There are no similar conditions for federal aid to be used for interregional transportation corridors, in part because the funding for each of the interregional modes is derived from different revenue sources and trust fund accounts. User-based financing is not practiced in passenger rail.
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From page 131... ...
As in Japan, European investments in upgraded and higher-speed passenger rail lines have usually been made in corridors that already have high train ridership. Because their rail networks are devoted mainly to passenger trains, service levels can be expanded incrementally to a point where capacity limits and the demand for major service and infrastructure investments become evident.
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From page 132... ...
As in Europe, the NEC's publicly owned rail right-of-way is oriented toward passenger trains, which minimizes the impact of freight traffic on Amtrak's ability to add trains and reduce schedule times. The demand for trains in the NEC is well established; the conventional regional trains and premium-service Acela trains transport about 10 million riders per year.
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From page 133... ...
2007. Is Investment in High Speed Rail Socially Profitable?
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From page 134... ...
2014. A Primer on Federal Surface Transportation Reauthoriza tion and the Highway Trust Fund.
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