Integrating Aviation and Passenger Rail Planning (2015)

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177 Strategies for Integration of Air and Rail: Review and Further Research Introduction and Structure Chapter 12 is presented in two sections. In Part One, the Chapter examines key themes and strategies that emerge from the examination of the American and European projects and programs discussed in this report. The focus is on how the many themes and strategies must work together to bring about results. First, the section reviews major lessons learned con- cerning the competition between rail and air. Then it explores what combination of strategies might be needed to allow long-distance rail and longer distance air services to operate as a more complementary intermodal transportation system. Three component elements are reviewed: (1) quality of trans- portation services offered; (2) quality of physical infrastructure at the points of air/rail interconnection; and (3) integration of marketing, ticketing, and baggage management strategies. Part Two then presents a review of the possible implications of these themes and practices for further research and policy development. It suggests several areas where additional research could improve the understanding of the major implications of the research undertaken in this ACRP research project. Part One: Reviewing the Major Themes Revealed in this Research Context Rail systems and air systems interact and influence each other in several ways. For many, a rail station at an airport symbolizes rail and air working as part of a robust intermodal system—perhaps even an airport planned from conception to operate well with a central point of transfer for several kinds of rail services, such as the newest plan for an additional air ter- minal complex at Orlando International Airport (Figure 12-1). But, quality of the physical/architectural design is just one part of the puzzle. This report concludes that the relationship between an air system and a rail system should be conceived as a network of interconnected products—products that in some cases compete for customers’ dollars and products that in other cases create seamless, unified services. For the latter in particu- lar, the successful intermodal passenger product will only work if it produces positive business outcomes for the airlines, for the rail operator, and for the airport managers. As revealed in Chapter 1, in the United States, the role of rail in a competitive mode to air simply dwarfs the scale of any activity where long-distance rail might feed major airports for long-distance flights. At the same time, Chapter 1 shows that in Europe the volume of travel undertaken by rail in a comple- mentary mode is several times the scale of that diverted away from air and onto long-distance rail. The meaning of this for planning of American intermodal systems is unclear and could be further explored. The empiri- cal findings presented in Chapter 3 show that Americans do not use rail as a long-distance feeder to airports, with the pos- sible exception of airports in America’s most dense metro- politan areas. However, in general, American travelers have not been offered packages of services that would be expected to gain the kinds of market success reported in Chapter 2 for many airports in Europe. Therefore, while this report con- cludes that Americans do not currently use long-distance rail as a feeder to airports, the report is not concluding that Americans would never respond positively to well-presented services in the marketplace, were they ever to be offered. Rethinking the Concept of Competition In terms of data organization and data interpretation, this study has separately examined the role of rail in competing with, and its role in providing access to, air. Indeed, the deci- sion by the rail provider to stop at an airport may be in direct conflict with the objective of allowing the rail to play its opti- mal role in an intermodal network (e.g., slow trains do not divert passengers from congested airports). Given these obser- vations, this report emphasizes the concept that, in providing high-quality point-to-point service, long-distance passenger C H A P T E R 1 2

178 rail can be contributing to solving aviation system capacity problems. In interviews with airport managers in San Diego, officials stressed their disappointment that CHSRA plans would not divert more of the air market between the city of San Diego and LAX. Good competitive service to LAX was seen as having the greatest rail benefits for San Diego—supporting the theme that rail services not be portrayed to the public as either just feeder-to-airport or region-to-region services; sometimes they are both. In the American experience, the interviews illustrated a con- sensus that the first responsibility of the rail system is to provide competitive terminal-to-terminal travel times with investment in HSR. Thus, any additional station stop must be justifiable in terms of the number of additional passengers (and thus revenues) gained to the system compared with the additional travel time inflicted on the through passengers. Consistent with the desirability of minimizing stops on the alignment, in some cases the optimal location of a long-distance airport rail station may not be on/near airport property; instead, the optimal alignment would be to connect airport riders back to a high-quality transfer point in the rail system. The concept of replacing the existing rail station at Newark Liberty Inter- national Airport with a greater focus on Newark Penn Station was actively explored by the PANYNJ through the RPA study, allowing for all Amtrak services to feed the airport, (n.b., The PANYNJ has more recently announced its intention to extend PATH to the airport rail station). This was the early direc- tion taken in the San Diego Regional Airport Strategy Plan, although there is no local consensus that this is the optimal solution. Concerning SFO, this is consistent with the present plans for new, “blended” rail services to only stop at Millbrae, where BART trains, Caltrain services, feeder buses, and major parking will come together in one, unified intermodal transfer facility. Thus, in some cases desire of the rail operator to mini- mize the number of stops may be consistent with the needs of the airport to see high-quality feeder services provided. The two categories of air/rail relationship are separate, but not always in conflict. The popular focus on the airport-based transfer facility is per- haps misplaced. The quality of transfer at the airport is only one piece of a bigger puzzle in which the analyst must first answer the question of why the traveler would select the several-mode trip in the first place. This research effort has observed that, before one gets to the questions of site planning and architec- ture, the basic logic of the long-distance rail feeder mode must be established within the context of the larger question of com- peting network combinations of services. A future expansion of the existing research field of “airport choice” might include high-quality ground access modes as a factor as important as travel times, ticket costs, and frequent flier loyalties. Perhaps most importantly, the integration of aviation and passenger rail planning may require a basic acknowledgment of where each mode excels. As documented in Chapter 3, the rail manager may serve the intermodal system best by not stop- ping trains at an airport rail station. The airport manager may serve the intermodal system best by supporting high-quality Figure 12-1. Airport planners are working with rail planners at Orlando International Airport on an “Intermodal Terminal” for long distance rail, commuter rail, light rail, and an on-airport people-mover. Source: Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, 2013.

179 connections to points on the rail system where the rail needs to stop, to deal with rail markets other than airport access mar- kets. The airline manager may find that the marketing of a joint ticket may prove advantageous in some market conditions, but only for combinations where superior times are attainable. All of these anecdotal observations tend to support the conclusion that metaphors based on the inherent competition between modes could be replaced by new ones based on the idea that some elements of the intermodal system can be integrated for the greater good of the traveler. The resulting networks could maximize the potential of the travelers to make choices based on their own values expressed in a marketplace setting. Competition: Considerations in the Diversion from Air to Rail Lessons Learned About Rail Diversion from Air This report has concluded that major diversions from air to rail have occurred in Europe, with about 7 million passengers reported in the corridors examined. In the NEC in the United States, roughly 1 million passengers were reported. The study of diversion from air to rail has strongly supported the long- believed “rule of thumb” that a travel time of 3.5 hours (or less) from rail terminal to rail terminal is a necessary precondition for the rail to capture the majority of the air plus rail market. Moreover, the conclusions of Chapter 5 suggest that American travelers respond to in-vehicle travel times similarly to Euro- pean travelers. Figure 5-2 makes possible this comparison of rail market share for the two continents, using only origin- destination markets. Diversion from a Corridor Perspective Chapters 4 and 5 illustrated that the manner in which air- lines alter service is difficult to predict. Rail systems and air sys- tems operate in parallel; a given change in the economic supply characteristics of one mode will stimulate a market response from the competitive mode. The final service balance between modal services will be determined less by the characteristics of the segment, and more by the characteristics of the full net- work. While the amount of diversion from air tended to sup- port initial assumptions, the change in the amount and nature of air service in an impacted corridor is harder to summarize. In several corridors in France, the pattern is summarized as a decision by the airline to retreat from the origin-destination markets while carefully retaining all the flights needed to main- tain a competitive position with good feeder service to longer distance markets. By contrast, in the market between Barcelona and Madrid, Chapter 5 did not find any significant retreat in terms of traditional shuttle-quality service between the two cities, resulting in the air service gaining slightly more than 50% of the market when connecting air passengers are counted, and slightly less than 50% when the only origin-destination air passengers are counted. The response of the aviation sector in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor was similar to that in the American experience between Boston and New York. Chapter 5 describes how a similar num- ber of flights were undertaken with smaller aircraft, which are cheaper to operate for the airlines. These observations led to a reaffirmation of the original planned work program, which prioritized the project undertaking a new model of rail to air diversion, which would begin the task of incorporating pos- sible responses by the airlines into the forecasting process. The data presented in Chapter 4 concerning diversions from air to rail in Europe, and Chapter 5 in the Unites States docu- ment that high-quality rail services can, indeed, divert air pas- sengers away from flights, and to a lesser extent, can lower the number of flights at impacted airports. The question of how the market factors interact together to bring this about was examined in some detail in Chapter 11, which presented the results of this ACRP project’s Air/Rail Diversion Model. A quick summary of the manner in which market factors can combine and interact to result in diversion of air passengers to rail in a corridor is presented in graph form in Figure 12-2, reproduced from Chapter 11. Based on the structure of the chart, two sepa- rate sets of considerations can be observed together. First, as the rail is (or is not) able to compete in terms of competitive costs, amount of its scheduled services, and the speed of its services, its effect on lowering air volumes is graphed; second, the graphic format shows how the addition of these increments of competitive attributes vary by the geographic subarea of the Northeast Corridor. As noted in Chapter 11, there are simply more air trips left to be diverted from the geographic regions of the north of and to the south of the New York and Mid- Atlantic regions. Accepting the premise that the final scenario (right) represents a set of assumptions that are “optimistically” favorable to rail, decreases in air volumes between 10% and 40% for travel within the project East Coast study establish the scale of diversions for further discussion and analysis. As also noted in Chapter 11, the reader must consider that these relationships concern only those between rail and air ser- vice; no modeling of diversion from auto or diversion from bus has been undertaken in this ACRP project. Diversion from an Airport Perspective: O’Hare Looking back at the major conclusion of Chapter 6, this research has not located many opportunities for rail to replace air services to and from Chicago O’Hare International Air- port. As documented there, the Research Team analyzed both diversions from air for the O-D market, and diversions from other ground transportation modes for access to the airport.

180 As shown in the tables from Chapter 6, and reproduced here as Table 12-1, the strongest market analyzed is comprised of diversions from air trips within the study area. Because these trips make up only 6% of the boardings at ORD, the poten- tial for this diversion to reduce congestion seems to be highly limited. The Research Team’s methods did not allow for an estimate of how many long-distance air passengers would select the long-distance rail mode as a substitute for feeder flights, which would continue to exist in this market. However, the data in Chapter 6 shows that the major markets choosing to fly to ORD to gain access to long-distance flights are from large cities at the periphery of a possible rail market area. The small amount of European data available regarding the choice between rail as a long-distance feeder versus air as a long-distance feeder suggests air services have the edge. Thus, there seems to be only a limited amount of “low- hanging fruit” for a possible rail market to lower the number of flights at ORD. Complementarity: Three Components of a Successful Rail Feeder System Turning to the report’s conclusions concerning rail in the complementary mode, the market factors in play require a more nuanced analysis than applied in the previous paragraphs. It is unknown if exacting conditions must exist for an air/rail transfer system to work well. This report reviewed a series of attempts in the United States to add rail stations to existing long-distance lines to allow intercity rail service to serve as a feeder service to longer distance flights: in only one of them (Newark) does intercity rail make up at least 1% of the total embarking passengers at the airport. A unified strategy to make long-distance rail successfully feed airports would require three program elements. The following section explores each of those component elements. The research for this report pointed to three component elements of a successful integrated air/rail system: • First, the system includes intermodal services that are superior from a network perspective. • Second, the system includes physical facilities that can pro- vide seamless transfer. • Finally, integrated institutional systems would logically benefit from support systems for integrated ticketing and service provision. All of this could be set in the context of the existence of a national public policy: a strong public policy towards creating an efficiently unified system might influence decisions taken 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 base=1 cheaper rail cheaper+ more rail cheaper+ more+faster rail that+higher air fares Ai rt rip s, re la v e to ba se Diversion from Air, by Scenario Mid-atlanc New York Bal-Wash New England Figure 12-2. Factors influencing competitiveness of rail for diversion from air. Source: Chapter 11. Low Diversion Medium Diversion High Diversion Trips within the study area (O-D Market) 298,576 522,508 746,440 Ground Access Market 124,547 217,958 311,369 Rail-as-Feeder Mode (not quanfied) Total 423,123 740,466 1,057,809 Table 12-1. Diversions to HSR at Chicago O’Hare airport.

181 in all three levels of the hierarchy. Thus, the operation of a late-night rail service from an airport might be evaluated dif- ferently in Switzerland (where public policy is clear) than in the United States, where the mandate to the rail operator is less discernible. Component One: Marketable Services from a Network Perspective The most important factor governing the success of an inte- grated air/rail system is the role of the station within complex markets and networks that feed those markets; this will deter- mine the outcome of the project. The first requirement is that air services at the host airport offer an aviation product that is sufficiently attractive to lure riders from outside its immediate market area. The second requirement is for the rail operator to provide a set of services to support this demanding market segment. The Services Provided by the Air Companies Consistent with the interview with Hans Fakiner of Fraport, the host airport must be offering some product characteristic not offered at an airport closer to the user’s actual origin. Air- port managers in Lyon (Figure 12-3) learned that people will not take a train to a distant airport in order to gain access to a set of services qualitatively similar to those offered at the air- port closer to the traveler’s point-of-origin. These basic market facts set in motion a spiral of consequences in which the long- distance train operator chooses not to stop many trains at the airport, making the combined product even less competitive. While this was happening in Lyon, the parallel decision by German Rail to stop fewer long-distance trains at the new Dusseldorf Airport stop had a similar market effect. In the United States, the differentiating market characteristic may be price. Several interviews revealed that when Southwest Airlines was offering unusually low prices at BWI, and was not providing such services at PHL, air travelers took Amtrak south to BWI, a pattern which has decreased today. Similarly, the quick characterization of an airport as a “low-cost airport” is much less of a pattern today than it was a decade ago. Although the reasons for this are largely beyond the scope of this study, some “low-cost” carriers returned to (or developed in) traditional air- ports over this decade, which resulted in airports such as Boston Logan offering air service at a wider range of price points than a decade ago. This, in turn, would affect the number of Boston travelers desiring to take rail services to the Providence airport to access a low-cost carrier, for example. In Europe, the differentiating market characteristic may be direct, non-stop airline service, particularly to destinations beyond the continent of Europe. A major challenge to the growth at Gatwick Airport (Figure 12-4) has been varying mix of flights offered from there over the decades; high-quality rail has been a given. In Germany, the provision of many direct flights to Asia and America occurs primarily from one single hub, FRA. Thus, it makes sense to tolerate a relatively long train ride in Germany to get the non-stop service to Qatar, for example. This could be contrasted with a resident of Philadelphia, who, upon con- sidering a long train trip to JFK or Newark, has a wide variety of direct flights from her/his own metro area, and sees no logic in a long feeder segment. The market strategies in play must be examined in detail on a case-by-case basis. The managers of strategy at Amsterdam Schipol might conclude they had a better chance of pulling rail customers in from Belgium, where the traditional air carrier had ceased operation, rather than from areas to the east where competition is intense with German airports. Zurich might Figure 12-3. The air/rail station platforms at Lyon are largely empty. Source: www.Shutterstock.com. Copyright: procasson Frederic. Figure 12-4. Gatwick offered high quality rail connections from its inception in 1956. Source: www. pprune.org (image from original postcard).

182 conclude it would be more competitive to pull rail passengers down from southwestern Germany than from Italian-speaking markets within Switzerland itself, but located beyond mountain ranges difficult to traverse. In each case, rail either does or does not fill a market niche that positions the airport to compete with other airports all offering essentially the same network ability to provide services from airport of origin to airport of destination. Examination of the importance of the host airport provid- ing superior aviation services suggests that JFK, EWR, SFO, PHL, ORD, and LAX meet the criteria of provision of superior long-distance aviation services. The Services Provided by the Rail Companies Just as the airline services from the airport must be attractive, the scheduled ground mode to the airport must offer a schedule that mimics the actual operational patterns of the air network. It is common for arriving air passengers to be one or two hours late because of missed connections, etc. An Amtrak schedule with three or four services per day might be inadequate to be competitive in this element of the trip selection process. Fakiner sets one train per hour as the gold standard, which is usually met by German Rail services to FRA. On the West Coast in the United States, some peak departure hours occur around 7 a.m., making extraordinary time demands on a rail system. In short, the connecting rail service must offer a consistent set of ser- vices to accommodate both planned and unplanned air service schedule patterns. Most importantly, the business case for the rail company to provide these services must be strong enough to entice the rail managers to provide them. Over 24 million long-distance rail trips to a sample of Euro- pean airports were identified for this report. Each airport was designed to benefit from the long-distance rail infrastructure, with long-distance services designed to gain market share from airport passengers. In short, with supportive market condi- tions, rail companies can provide services that work. At the same time in many other cities rail managers have opted not to send HSR directly to airports. In London the pres- ently proposed initial HS2 system does not serve Heathrow directly. While a later airport spur is under debate, the Govern- ment does not intend to extend the present HS1 line further beyond London, ending speculation about a possible service from Heathrow to destinations on the Continent. The national rail system around Madrid received a massive investment in HSR; this investment did not attempt integration with air- ports. Additional cities well served by HSR, but not integrated with the airport, include Rome, Hamburg, and Munich. The Replacement of Air Feeder Services with Rail The European interviews suggest that developing feeder rail services to the level where they replace feeder air services has sel- dom happened in Europe. Any air service that is a candidate for deletion will be reviewed critically both by the airline affected and the long-distance rail carrier. Clearly, the business case for deleting a feeder flight and substituting a rail connection must be beneficial to both air and rail companies before such a dele- tion will occur. As documented in Chapter 2, the air passenger from Boston to Cologne who, for one reason or another, does not like the train between FRA and Cologne is offered a robust set of competitive air service options via Paris, Amsterdam, and Munich. Seen in terms of network connections, no airport or rail company can conclude they have a monopoly position over any link or segment. A decision to eliminate a feeder air option has market implications for the airline and the airport. The European experience suggests that early successes at pro- viding feeder services by rail in Frankfurt and Paris CDG air- ports may be difficult to replicate in Europe or elsewhere. Concerning “Component One,” the first question is whether the airport-to-airport aviation offerings at the rail-served air- port make sense to the traveler. This is followed by a decision about the quality of rail access. In the home based trip, access options include possibly small feeder planes, scheduled rail or buses to the airport, or possibly unpleasantly long personal driving distances and associated high cost parking. However, in all cases, they must be accessing an airport that has appeal- ing air service characteristics compared with a competing air- port closer to the origin of the traveler. Assuming that these underlying market requirements have been met, the question can turn to the quality of transfer at the airport. The Role of Good Design The Research Team does recognize that high-quality archi- tectural design of the rail/airport terminal/station does not solely guarantee, or result in, ridership success in bringing inter- city, commuter, or even HSR services to an airport. However, if all other factors (e.g., rail service characteristics, frequencies and fares, airport and rail providers in full partnership, financial framework in place, and proximity to the terminal processing/ check-in functions) are in the right synergistic state, then the architectural design of the rail/air terminal can make a meaning- ful contribution to the success of the integration. The architec- ture can enhance the sense of arrival, convenience/orientation, and the LOS for the air traveler using the rail mode and serve as a marketing/PR tool to reinforce the overall “experience” of this mode of access to the airport terminals (Figures 12-5 through 12-7). This concept is explored further herein. Component Two: The Quality of Air/Rail Transfer Facilities Provided at the Airport More conventional questions of site planning and design become relevant once both conditions of good aviation and rail service have been established. This section of Chapter 12

183 • Third, the transfer station could take place at a non-airport location, with high-quality transfer back to the airport pas- senger terminals. What Functionality Would Be Required for an Optimal Transfer? In the optimal system, the passenger emerging from the train would be processed at a reasonable walking distance from the rail platform, including the critically important security clearances. After this point, the psychology of the traveler sug- gests that he/she has “arrived” and will be served from that point forward. It is productive to examine two kinds of air- ports when looking at the design constraints influencing the physical quality of intermodal connections. First examined are airports built in the “greenfield” context, where the designer could specify connections to rail services from the earliest conceptualization of the airport master plan. Second to be reviewed are airports where extensive existing infrastructure must be retrofitted to adapt to the addition of a rail service to an already functioning airport. Air/rail Connections at “Greenfield” Airports Examples of where the airport site planner has had the lux- ury of designing an airport and rail as one integrated design include the European airport with the highest overall share to public transportation, Oslo (Figure 12-5), and new airports in explores the lessons learned about optimal site planning attri- butes for a successful airport air/rail transfer. In the review of existing conditions at case study airports, earlier chapters of this report defined three site planning con- cepts for locating the rail station relative to the airport: • First, the long-distance rail alignment could be re-routed into the area of the main passenger check-in terminals. • Second, the long-distance rail alignment could be brought as close to the passenger terminal as reasonable, with a min- imized distance for a people-mover connection to the main terminal(s). P Figure 12-6. At Berlin Brandenburg Airport, the rail line is in a tunnel through the airport, allowing a through-routed rail station, shown by the symbol “S.” Source: Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Figure 12-5. At Oslo Airport, the rail alignment under the terminal (center) and under the airside area allows through-routed intercity service. Source: Oslo Airport.

184 Berlin (Figure 12-6) and Shanghai (Figure 12-7). Similarly, the expansion of Orlando International Airport will take place on an empty parcel of land, allowing the designers considerable latitude in the integration of air and rail terminal facilities, providing, in effect, a “greenfield” addition to an older exist- ing airport. Greenfield Airport Designs Outside the United States Shanghai. Figure 12-7 shows a good example of careful design integration of long-distance intercity rail with airport design in Shanghai. The airport complex shown is designed to deal with the considerable number of rail platforms inte- grated into the system. The need for multiple rail platforms is a particularly challenging design problem for the retrofitting of existing airports to add long-distance rail. The landside air terminal has been designed to provide passenger car drop off on both sides of the terminal, while minimizing walking distance from both the long-distance rail station (left) and the metropolitan rail station (center). Functionally, the Shanghai intermodal complex forms the same set of functions as that in Oslo Airport, shown as Figure 12-5. Long-distance trains are provided with through service as the design routes the rail alignment through (and beyond) the airport, rather than using a stub-end terminal. In the case of Shanghai, the tracks are kept to the side of the airside portions of the airport; in the case of Oslo, the tracks use a tunnel under the taxiways, a design detail that allows the rail station to be located directly in the basement of the air terminal. Berlin. The Oslo terminal concept, where the long-distance rail line is tunneled through the airport, with a major rail sta- tion under a central landside air terminal, has been adopted in Berlin Brandenburg Airport (Figure 12-6), scheduled for open- ing in 2016. The initial concourse will serve up to 30 million passengers per year; two satellite airside concourses connected by people-movers will be added later, increasing the build-out capacity to 50 million. The full build out is entirely served by the landside air terminal with the rail facilities in the basement. Gatwick. Other examples where the airport designer accommodated through-operated intercity rail services for a newly built airport include London Gatwick (Figure 12-4), where the idea was first demonstrated in the 1950s. With the present consideration of doubling runway capacity at Gatwick, Figure 12-7. At Shanghai Hongqiao, inter-city bus (left) connects to long distance rail, to Maglev (center), to the air passenger terminal, to the airplane gates (right). Source: Jiangsu Region Office of Travel and Tourism (2014).

185 designers there are exploring the best way to connect new land- side terminal facilities with the existing rail alignment. In other cases, designers have brought about integration with new air terminals by placing the rail station in a stub-end configura- tion, as was done at London-Stansted Airport, which offers rail service to regional locations in addition to its dominant rail market to London. Greenfield Airport Designs in the United States Existing American Airports. In the United States, only a few airports have been built without the need to adapt existing terminals, with completely new terminal facilities, and most of those were not designed to accommodate long- distance rail. Many of these newer American airports have been designed around a single, highly centralized landside “central processor” terminal including airports in Tampa, Orlando, Atlanta, Pittsburg, and Denver. Such a centralized landside configuration would be a positive factor in dealing with a rail service, if one were offered. Of these, only Atlanta is currently served by local rail, with Denver now building a local rail station; only Orlando has active plans to link to longer distance rail. Orlando. The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority announced in 2013 an ambitious expansion plan for its Orlando International Airport. The expansion will occur in a now-empty parcel located just two miles south of the existing facility. The new complex is being designed from the ground up to deal with rail routes being planned by others to the airport. While Orlando International Airport was originally designed to operate out of a single landside terminal, now called the North Terminal, the Airport Authority has deter- mined that a second, and somewhat independent terminal area complex will have to be built, called the South Terminal Complex. The airport believes the existing facility will accom- modate about 45 million passengers per year in about year 2019, requiring a new approach to expansion. The master plan documents call for a multimodal strategy which includes: • “Development of a viable Mass Transportation Commuter Rail System • Regional Development of a viable Intercity Passenger Rail System • Strategic Geographical Location as an opportunity for Multimodal Connectivity • Seamless Integration of Multimodal Transit in the South Terminal Complex (STC) Master Plan Concept” (Greater Orlando 2013) In terms of its site plan, the Orlando STC (Figure 12-8) can be compared with that in Shanghai (Figure 12-7). By placing the intermodal transfer terminal in the center of the complex (see Figure 12-1 for full site plan), a single rail terminal can serve one major air passenger terminal complex to the east, and one to the west. Looking only at partial build out (with the first terminal assumed to be on the east side in the dia- gram), the Orlando rail rider would emerge from the rail terminal area, proceed through a garage/hotel complex, and then to the air passenger terminal. After processing there, an airside people-mover would connect to all six STC airside concourse areas. This is similar to the path from the long- distance rail platforms to the airside concourses shown in the Shanghai diagram, except for the parking garage com- plex. The Orlando walking experience is similar to that exist- ing today in Frankfurt (Figure 2-3), where the long-distance rail user proceeds through the hotel/commercial complex and then to the air terminal, after which an airside people- mover is available to get to the more distance concourses. Air/rail Transfers at Adapted Older Airports European Examples of Adapting Older Terminals Most airports served by longer distance intercity rail were not designed for such connections. While Oslo and Berlin stand as optimal new European models for transfer between rail and a centralized landside passenger processing area, good examples of “best practice” for adapting older airports Figure 12-8. In Orlando’s South Terminal Complex, the terminal for long distance and local rail is on the right, with a parking garage (center) and air terminal (left). Source: Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, 2013.

186 can be found in Amsterdam, Zurich, and Copenhagen. The ambitious construction process at Amsterdam Schipol took the through-routed rail line to the center of a complex with three passenger terminals, where baggage pick-up is highly centralized around the rail station. As documented in Chap- ter 2, each of these airports followed the strategy of bringing the rail line as close as possible to the actual airport facilities while minimizing the construction impact on a functioning airport. Each of these three airports links the train station by a short-distance walk to both check-in and baggage claim/ customs clearance locations. While some European airports with longer distance rail connections have been able to provide all landside termi- nal functions (check-in and baggage claim) adjacent to an air/rail station, the larger airports have not. Simply stated, as airport volumes get bigger, it becomes more difficult to process all passengers in one location. Consistent with the problems faced in Paris CDG, Terminal Two in Frankfurt is more than a mile from the intercity rail station, and expansion plans for the airport call for more terminals on the opposite side of the runways. This mirrors the dilemma faced by ground access planners at Heathrow, who found that they could not connect the Heathrow Express to both Terminal Four and Terminal Five; the layout of the multi-terminal airport was simply too complicated for the provision of direct rail service everywhere. In short, best practices and lessons learned from European airports support the idea that the largest airports must accom- modate some kind of passenger distribution system (usually an automated people-mover system) to connect the rail station(s) with a set of air passenger terminals. The design of these systems is often a challenge to the system designer. The new people-mover connection from Paris CDG’s older Terminal One to the high-speed rail station is nearly two miles in length. American Examples of Adapting Older Terminals for Rail Transfer There are not many examples of favorable transfer condi- tions between long-distance rail and airport landside terminals at major North American airports. In terms of site planning theory, the people-mover connection from the Northeast Corridor (NEC) main line station to Newark Liberty Airport’s three passenger terminals provides much of the functionality noted here. Its early designers strove to provide the traveler with the option of checking in to the “airport” at the train station (a service since abandoned). In practice, design limi- tations and general quality of service from the people-mover connection have been a concern (Zupan et al. 2011). Thus, this section focuses on several American examples of transfer facilities under design and development. Miami Intermodal Center. As discussed in Chapter 9 (from the point of view of funding), any review of American best practices in the site planning design of transfers should include the recent developments at the MIC at the Miami International Airport (Figure 12-9). The airport has opened Figure 12-9. The “Miami Central Station,” labeled “MIC Core,” is located about 1.2 miles from the airport station of the MIA Mover. Source: Miami Intermodal Center, Florida DOT.

187 a people-mover, called the “MIA Mover” between the Miami Central Station and the central garage of the airport terminal area. At the Miami Central Station plans are being realized for a joint complex, including a new Metrorail rapid transit station, and a rebuilt rail station for both the local Tri-Rail service and two Amtrak trains per day, all adjacent to the Rental Car Facility (RCF in Figure 12-9). The users of all these access modes, plus some bus services, will now have a direct APM to the center of the main parking garage at the airport. From there, travelers use several bridges to cross the airport roadway, using elevators down to the five sepa- rate landside check-in areas and security clearance locations. From there, most concourse gate areas are accessed by foot (with some within-terminal people-movers in operation). An estimate of the distance from the MIA Mover station in the airport garage to the furthest airline gate in the North Terminal is somewhat more than 3,000 feet. The North Ter- minal’s Concourse D is described by the airport as being a “mile-long concourse” (Miami Airport 2012). Terminal 7 at Chicago O’Hare. Importantly, the func- tional concept of a rail terminal complex with good people- mover connections to the gates on the concourses, such as that in operation in Atlanta and planned for Denver, is similar to that developed for the Chicago Department of Aviation in the Terminal 7 project (detailed in Chapter 6). In the Chicago concept, rail services (both metropolitan and long distance) to the airport were to be consolidated at the new Terminal 7, where full check-in functions were proposed. Although the concept of a check-in service at the rail station is not new, the concept of a people-mover from this point to all the existing airside passenger pier/concourses was highly unusual, with some implications for construction impacts. In this site plan- ning concept, the user of Terminal 7 approaches by a variety of modes (including a new highway connector), experiences full check-in and security clearance, and proceeds on a people- mover system that is entirely within the secure areas of the air- port. Issues faced in retrofitting an older airport include the question of where the travelers pick up their bags, and how to get them back to the train platforms. The experience at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport (ORD) dem- onstrates the difficulty of providing a “seamless connection” by retrofitting a dispersed set of airside concourse piers that are already built, in operation, and unable to be moved. Unlike the luxury of having a greenfield setting, planners at most American airports must deal with the extensive infrastruc- ture already in place which constrains the realistic options for locating a long-distance train station on the site, as was discussed in Chapter 7 concerning site planning options avail- able at SFO. Future Intercity Rail to JFK. Because JFK airport is con- nected to a commuter rail line, and not served by Amtrak, the AirTrain connection between the JFK terminals and Jamaica Station has been considered beyond the scope of this study of long-distance rail connections. However, it should be noted that several studies currently underway concerning the effec- tiveness of operational patterns at New York’s Penn Station are exploring the logic of turning back fewer trains at New York’s Penn Station and encouraging more through-routed opera- tions eastward towards Jamaica Station. Under such a vision, trains traveling from New Jersey might serve Jamaica Station or other more distant destinations in the future. This “integrated” service concept is being further discussed in the NEC Future project now being undertaken by the FRA (NEC Future 2014). Destination Lindbergh, San Diego. The site planning options for connecting rail to air in San Diego are harder to categorize here. In the mid phases of the Destination Lindbergh staging, some passengers would be processed in a central pro- cessing facility near the rail station and shuttled to concourses adapted from older terminals. In the final phase, all passengers would be processed near the rail station, then taken by people- movers to the airside concourses. Of all the American airports reviewed in this research, San Diego International Airport com- pares with Berlin Brandenburg as having the best opportunity to make a new, high-quality connection between long-distance rail and a newly configured air passenger terminal for all its passengers. The resulting SAN terminal facility could have a seamless transfer capability comparable to the best in Europe, as exemplified by the “greenfield” airports at Oslo and Berlin, or the adapted airports in Zurich, Amsterdam, or Copenhagen. In its final configuration the Destination Lindbergh concept would offer a single, centralized landside facility with APM access to airside concourses, functionally similar to those in Atlanta or Denver, but, for the first time, with long-distance rail as a feeder mode. Component Three: Mechanisms for Ticketing and Integrated Services This final Chapter emphasizes both market strategies and physical strategies that might require major improvements in the quality of institutional cooperation among the rail com- pany, the airline, and the airport. A major conclusion of this ACRP study is that fully integrated ticketing mechanisms form an exceedingly small role in major European airports and only exist for a small number of destinations: Basel, Brussels, Cologne, and Stuttgart. Chapter 2 reported that, of all those accessing flights by HSR at Paris Charles de Gaulle, only about 4% used an integrated ticket. Chapter 2 also reported that of the 5 million persons accessing Frankfurt Airport by long- distance rail, only about 4% of them were using a rail ticket issued by an airline for a train with a flight number associated with it. Beyond this, an integrated air plus rail ticket, which provides for baggage check-in at the terminal of origin to bag- gage reclaim at the terminal of destination, no longer exists

188 in Europe (n.b., the Swiss Railways provides a for-fee baggage transfer system offered independently of the airlines, and thus not incorporated into an airline ticket). Two patterns are observed when looking at the future of institutions that could influence the attainment of the truly seamless (or at least less problematic) air/rail connection. First, in terms of stated policies, major aviation institutions are pub- licly advocating for an overarching “door-to-door” approach. Second, in terms of actual services offered to consumers, air and rail carriers alike are emphasizing just the opposite approach. Categories of Air/Rail Agreements for Ticketing A recent “think tank” study by IATA examined the need to provide the user with more integrated services on a “door- to-door” basis. The special study group, called Simplify the Business (StB), prepared a report titled, “A Road Map to Pre- pare for Tomorrow’s Passenger.” The authors noted that, “In a recent IBM survey, none of the respondents indicated that they were able to complete their travel booking needs in one website visit.” In the report, they observed, “Customers cannot experience a seamless integrated journey with reduced stress if travel partners are not connected. When a flight is changed, for example, the airport pick-up service may not be notified. The changes in the travel distribution landscape have forced many customers to assume the role of travel agents respon- sible for finding schedules that work well across travel modes and also monitoring connections between modes in transit.” While the exact role of the airlines in dealing with this chal- lenge is not prescribed in the document, they note: “If airlines had more information about the final destination of their passengers they would be in a better position to delight the customer with more information, better service, and choices on how to adjust when things change . . . by reaching agreement through cooperation with travel partners, the future could be a single travel wallet for the entire journey, with all travel segments talking to each other, to the passenger, and being able to exchange information with the consumer at different points during his trip” (IATA 2011). This work of the IATA Task Force shows some policy interest by the airline industry in improving the integration of informa- tion over carriers and organizations. The question of the form of institutional cooperation between airlines and rail companies in Europe has been explored in the article “Air-rail Intermodal Agreements: Balancing the Competition and Environmental Effects” (Chiambaretto and Decker 2012). The authors divide the agreements into three categories, providing a worthwhile structure to support this discussion. The trend is clear: airlines will cooperate with rail operators using schemes that force the minimum amount of integration. Highest Level of Integration—German AIRail While Chiambaretto and Decker place the German AIRail product at the highest level of integration, it is only offered to two destinations, Stuttgart and Cologne/Bonn by Lufthansa. As discussed in Chapter 2, the airline buys a block of tickets on selected trains and sells them as airplane tickets. Lufthansa passengers are given separate compartments; first class air passengers are offered drinks and snacks, while economy passengers are given a voucher to use at the bar car. The ticket is sold as a product for which the airline assumes branding and bears responsibility consistent with the rules of an IATA ticket. “Moderate” Level of Integration— TGVair, Swiss AirTrain The article places the French National Railway’s TGVair product, in the “moderate” integration category, with 10 air- lines have opting to use it (see Figure 12-10). The system is sophisticated—on the Qatar Airlines website, the airline three- Figure 12-10. The TGVair reservation system shows code-shared tickets from Nantes (France) to Doha (Qatar). Source: Qatar Airlines Website.

189 letter code for the airport at Nantes, France, was entered, but not for the Nantes train station. The system immediately rec- ommended the connections via the train station, with some additional connections to fly to the airport, as shown in Fig- ure 12-10. By comparison, the US Airways site did not rec- ognize the word “Nantes,” even for the airport itself, nor did it recognize the train stations at any French site served by the TGV ticketing program. Thus, passengers seeking informa- tion from websites of Qatar and Etihad Airways, for example, would be shown high-quality integrated ticketing options, and offered a through, code-shared ticket from the airline. Presumably, the ability to offer this product seamlessly could be of value to the airline competing in the marketplace with an airline that does not list the destination. The fact that only 10 airlines have bought into the project (see Chapter 2) is of concern to its managers, who are working to improve the quality of ticket integration. The Swiss Federal Railways AirTrain service between Basel and Zurich Airport belongs in this middle category of inte- gration, as the airline sells the rail ticket. The Swiss Inter- national Airlines website offers a ticket from Boston to Basel, via the AirTrain from Zurich Airport, at the same price as a ticket to Zurich alone. A barcode is provided that serves as a rail ticket once the ticket is printed out by the passenger; no airline personnel are involved in processing passengers at the Basel rail station or aboard the train. The ticket does not include any services for baggage check-in or reclaim; these can be arranged through a separate program from the rail- way, for a fee. At present, there is no direct rail access between Heath- row Airport and cities to the west such as Bristol, Plymouth, and Cardiff. This notwithstanding, Singapore Airlines (Fig- ure 12-11) has announced plans to offer unified ticketing from such cities in southwestern England by including First/ Great Western Railway services to London’s Paddington sta- tion, where the traveler can change platforms and proceed back towards the west on the Heathrow Express. Given that the Heathrow Express offers direct service from Paddington to Terminal 5 in about 21 minutes (with faster times to the Terminal 2 complex), the program offers reasonable levels of service to the passenger. Full implementation of the program was planned for 2014. Lowest Level of Integration—German Rail&Fly Chiambaretto and Decker categorize the German Rail’s Rail&Fly product in the ‘low’ category of integration. By far the biggest and most purchased of the integrated ticketing options, the Rail&Fly program is offered through any airline that chooses to market the service to the customer. To get a Rail&Fly ticket, the traveler must buy the airline ticket, not just inquire about it. With the purchase of the airline ticket, the traveler can click on a Rail&Fly link, which will transfer the date of origin and date of return flights into the system. The user then chooses his/her rail ticket (specific to city pair), good within one day before departure from Germany, and one day after arrival in Germany. After the conclusion of the process of purchasing both the air ticket and the rail ticket, a barcode confirmation e-mail is sent to the purchaser, who simply prints it at home and carries it during the trip; alternatively, the DB rail ticket kiosks can be used. As sold by Lufthansa, the ticket costs only 29 Euros, and is good for any train trip operated by DB. Although the program is for Lufthansa international trips, trips to the hubs of their competitors are not covered; thus, the product is not offered for flights between Germany and Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Salzburg, Vienna, Basel, or Zürich. DB only sells the product through the airlines (and their related travel agents) and DB offers them great flexibility in the products they choose to sell. For example, American Air- lines offers the product to any rail station in Germany for free on its flight from Dallas Fort Worth. Thus, a given airline can use the product in a manner responsive to their marketing needs. Rail&Fly represents something of a middle-level solu- tion, positioned between the full code-share service offered in the program between FRA and Cologne and Stuttgart, and the lack of an integrated solution existing in most situa- tions. Most importantly, the product offers the airlines a smoothly functioning system to offer marketing incentives they choose without creating new burdens of responsibil- ity and liability into the air ticketing business. It has been reported in the literature that over 1.5 million such tickets are sold each year; these tickets are purchased primarily by residents of Germany (Grimme 2007). The Question of Liability for the Missed Connection Walking a fine line, Lufthansa helps the user buy a discounted train ticket from the train company, but it does not have any Figure 12-11. Singapore Airlines has formed a marketing alliance with First/Great Western Railway to sell integrated tickets. Source: Singapore Airlines.

190 role in approving it or taking responsibility for it. The airline states, somewhat enigmatically, “The travel times for your train journey shown on your itiner- ary do not represent valid connections. Please choose the fitting connections for your journey by yourself. . . . When choosing your train connection, please consider the check-in deadlines for your flight, so you arrive at the airport in time” (Lufthansa 2012). The question of how rail tickets can be sold through the airline-based ticket distribution system has been resolved. A private company, AccesRail, based in Montreal, has created a set of IATA-approved codes for its product. For example, “QYG—means ‘Railway Germany’ and it is IATA city code for any German Rail’s railway station” (Access Rail 2011). For the Netherlands Railway and the Belgian Railway, the car- rier code is “9B.” In this manner, German Rail&Fly can be booked through Abacus, Amadeus, Apollo, Galileo, Infini, Sabre, Travel Sky, and Worldspan. The major ticket distribu- tion channels accept these codes, and the travel agent can sell the ticket under conditions authorized by the airline selling the ticket. The travel agent creates a ticket code number, and any German Rail ticketing kiosk honors this code, which then generates a paper ticket up to 72 hours before the day of rail departure. About 75 airlines are listed as business partners with AccesRail, including American, Continental, and US Airways. A review of the US Airways booking site, however, found no mention of this product offering. What Level of Integration in the Future? The success of Rail&Fly suggests a new paradigm for inte- gration. Such a paradigm includes the airline, which takes only minimal responsibility for the rail segment (i.e., no code- share), but would indeed facilitate the provision of all needed information to allow the customer to choose a subsidized rail ticket. Those wanting rail tickets can get them at the same time as the actual air ticket purchase, thus dealing with the issue reported by IBM that the customer must visit too many sites just to plan a trip. Functionally, there is a certain hierar- chical logic here in terms of information provision; intensely detailed questions about the 5,000+ stations of the German Railway system are displayed on a screen managed entirely by the rail operator, not added onto a system designed to serve three-letter airport codes. Importantly, the organization issu- ing the ticket is the organization providing the rail service. The airline bypasses the issue of service problems, including that of missed connections. Dealing with Missed Connections Sweden has developed a compromise strategy. Although not currently well advertised, the traveler can work his way to a site jointly operated by SAS Airlines and the state railway, flyrail.se (as shown in Figure 12-12). The customer is informed at the beginning that use of the site will add 50 Swedish Kroner (about $7.45) to the cost of the ticket. However, this buys the traveler the “get you there guarantee.” The program offers the trav- eler a series of itinerary options in which the only connect- ing times offered are of more than 45 minutes for domestic, 60 minutes for European, and 2 hours for intercontinental flights. The flyrail.se program states: The “get you there” guarantee will rebook, but not refund, your ticket. Passengers who miss a connecting flight due to a train delay will be booked onto the next flight at no extra cost. Passengers who miss a connecting train due to a flight delay will be booked onto the next train at no extra cost. If the delay time exceeds two hours, the passenger will be looked after and may, for example, be offered food, overnight accommodation or vari- ous types of transportation. The system is not a code-share: tickets for rail services are provided by the rail company and tickets for the air services are provided by the airline. The explicit acknowledgment of the problem of liability associated with connections with sepa- rate tickets is unique, however. Interestingly, those leaving the Copenhagen Airport (Kastrup) and proceeding to Sweden can buy an integrated air/rail ticket, while those proceeding to a destination in Denmark cannot buy an integrated air/rail ticket. When the potential traveler on the Kastrup website clicks on the link to Danish Railways, she/he is immediately offered a local trip itinerary planner, which provides door-to-door trip plans from Kastrup airport to any address in Denmark, including all public transportation services. The Danish national railway Figure 12-12. The Swedish system sells an air ticket and a rail ticket, with a guaranteed connection. Source: flyrail.se.

191 system does not emphasize the need for advance reservations; thus, the task of purchasing the intercity ground rail service can be left to the user upon arrival at the train station. The national rail system website does offer the option to pur- chase rail tickets and print them at home; currently, though, this feature exists only in the Danish and Swedish languages. Danish Railways does not offer an integrated air/rail ticket program. The Future of Integrated Ticketing? This report concludes that the institutional mechanisms needed to support the sale of integrated air and rail services to the consumer have not reached their full potential. The origi- nal concept, in which an airline would sell a specific rail ticket and guarantee a specific seat, has been replaced with a looser relationship, in which the airline subsidizes the rail ticket, but leaves all issues of trip planning to the customer and the rail- road. Except for the new Swedish model, customers are on their own to plan a connecting rail trip. Interviews with managers of these systems reveal that major improvements are now being implemented, particularly con- cerning the need to manage the difficulties associated with transforming a ticket number into a usable railroad ticket, which still can involve long lines at airport train stations. The common acceptance of bar-coding technology by railroads could improve the present system at Paris CDG, for example. However, this study concludes with the observation that uni- versal offering of easily obtained railway tickets at the time of airline ticket purchase has not yet occurred, even though the technology to make it happen is readily available. In gen- eral, the traveler who has already decided to find a rail ticket through an airline website (or travel information system such as Expedia or Travelocity) can often explore the site and find the service. However, in most of the systems tested, users who do not enter the railroad station’s three-letter code will not be shown existing service options, if they exist. In short, the potential for increased sales of rail connection tickets of all kinds may be being constrained by the disjointed nature of the present marketing efforts. Part Two: Next Steps and Possible Further Research Concerning the Adequacy of Tools and Information to Support Regional Decisions As discussed in detail in Chapter 10 of this report, some of the problems concerning the adequacy of tools identified in the study process have been explored in the latter phases of the research effort, and some have not. Most obviously, the work program of ACRP Project 3-23 has addressed the need for a transparent and usable model of air rail competition—one which emphasizes policy sensitivity on a quick turn-around basis. Less visibly, the project has helped to address the ques- tion of availability of a national rail travel trip table, which is now available from FHWA, allowing the analyst to deal with national flows for air, rail, and auto from the same source. This responds to the concerns noted in New York interviews with the Regional Plan Association and the Port Authority. Similarly, the data presented in Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 makes possible a level of comparison between the European and American air/rail experiences, filling a gap in the availability of data for the American practitioner. This research effort has identified the challenges to better- integrated inter-agency planning processes. As discussed in Chapter 10, decision makers in the New York region, the Mid- west around Chicago, and throughout California are aware of the challenges stemming from poor data and lack of intermodal planning tools; however, they have also developed professional “workarounds” so that key decisions need not be delayed. That said, there remain areas where additional tools could be made available to the analyst, in order to follow up on the major themes revealed in Chapter 10. • In the interview with NJ Transit, it became clear that many participants in the planning process do not understand the need for the stated preference modeling process (which is used in analyzing access to airports and diversions from air) to be grounded in experience with these modal circumstances and not simply lifted from the modeling process used in the metro- politan areas. • Regional planners think they lack the tools to understand how passengers will divert from a specific airport. Planners in north- ern California wanted more attention to modeling needs when considering diversion from air to HSR. All organizations inter- viewed asserted a strong interest in evaluating air/rail comple- mentarity. Clearly, predicting the propensity of the separate modal players in the marketplace in the creation of joint prod- ucts will require tools that do not exist. • The issue of rail as a feeder service to longer distance flights in North America remains unresolved. Technical work in the northern California RASPS study, based at MTC in Oakland, creatively applied models created for other purposes to provide an early estimate of change in air trips serving as a feeder mode to SFO. The FRA’s NEC Future project plans to explore an expanded role for rail in support of JFK and Newark, but the quantitative analysis tools are weak. Further Research Needs and Potentials Competition with Low-Cost Carriers? There are many possible areas for further research into the way air and rail services compete over time. Major shifts in the services provided by either mode would logically impact not only the mode of the future trip, but also the destination

192 terminal of the future trip. Use of the concept of a “corridor” might tend to oversimplify what happens to long-distance travel behavior over time, as traffic may shift within corridors. The major study on these issues by the European Union (SDG 2006) was based on the concept that the relationship between the long-distance mode industries exists as three phases. First, the rail sector makes a vast improvement in travel time, which lowers the amount of O-D traffic between the major airports in the corridor. Second, the legacy airlines react with an initial lowering of the amount of service offered. Third, the aviation industry refines its response, with new lower cost services in a general corridor of influence, but not necessarily between the original hub airports in the corridor. In Europe, arrival of the high-speed train network occurred at a time of rapid development of the so-called low-cost carriers. Without question, the low-cost carriers have eroded rail market share on longer trips; in a recent paper, Grimme con- cluded, “The analysis indicated that there is robust evidence for effective competition between low-cost airlines and rail opera- tors.” Jorritsma (2009) noted, “Unfortunately, hardly any research is available about the impact of low-cost carriers on the substi- tution rate. Eisenkopf (2006) estimates a substitution rate from rail to air ranging from 5 per cent (Cologne—Hamburg) to 13 per cent (Cologne-Munich).” While Grimme has noted the impact of the low-cost air carriers on existing rail rider- ship patterns, the competition is not one-sided; in January of 2014, Ryanair announced it would no longer compete with rail in the corridor between Milan and Rome (Business Traveler 2014). In cases where the new HSR dramatically altered the network at one point in time (e.g., Madrid-Seville) it is straightforward to calculate the number of riders diverted from air. Further research could better document the role of situations in which strong rail shares have been built up incrementally by staged investments over a multi-decade period, as is often the case in German corridors served by air and rail. Often, it is difficult to examine a given corridor mode share and estimate how many were diverted from air, and how many from auto, as some of the diversion may have occurred years ago—further complicat- ing the role of induced demand. In a mature market like New York to Washington, DC, it is harder to calculate the number of passengers “diverted” from air, and the process of incremental market development has occurred over several decades. Further Research on Ground Access and Airport Choice Further research might emphasize a closer integration between air/rail competition studies and those of airport choice. The connection between the two research areas was flagged by a timely paper by two Dutch economic geographers, Terpstra and Lijesen, in their article titled, “High-Speed Train as a Feeder for Air Transport” (2011). “Several empirical studies have studied airport choice in mul- tiple airport regions, with the majority focusing on the San Fran- cisco Bay Area (Harvey, 1987; Basar and Bhat, 2004; Pels et al., 1998; Suzuki, 2005) and the Greater London area (Bencheman and Ashford, 1987; Hess and Polak, 2006). The general picture from those studies is that airport choice depends on airport access time, flight frequency, fare, flight time and frequent flier program membership.” While most of the research referenced in the previous quote is not about longer distance rail in any role, there is a need for research that better explores the role of all ground access ser- vice quality as an input to airport choice. The research ques- tion might turn to, “Given that the traveler chose airport Y over airport X with its present access services, might the trav- eler chose airport X if high-quality rail services were offered?” Early explorations of this research question were undertaken in a series of studies done for the PANYNJ and Metro-North Railroad concerning the possibility of attracting more air passengers to Stewart Airport in a far suburban location of New York (RSG 2010). ACRP Report 98: Understanding Airline and Passenger Choice in Regions with Multiple Airports, seeks “to help air- ports and their stakeholders understand the dynamics of air- line and passenger decision making in multi-airport regions” (Parella 2013). While the report was designed to fill a gap in the study of airline decisions about which airports to serve, it contains a strong Literature Review appendix which cov- ers the extensive literature about airport choice from the passenger perspective. While its several case studies did not include any in which rail might be expected to play a role in airport choice, the role of auto travel times in airport choice was noted. Modeling the Impact of Improved Rail Service on Air Markets Further research could well build upon the very early results of the new policy-sensitive model of the relationship between air and rail, whose development was described in Chapter 11. The component elements of that research effort are sum- marized in the chart reproduced here as Figure 12-13. With this model, policy makers can directly input a wide variety of assumptions about determinants of market behavior into its spreadsheet format, as the model operates on the widely used MS Excel program. Users are provided with the impli- cations of those assumptions for modeling predicted change in market behavior. Researchers and practitioners concerned with integrated transportation policy would benefit if such a modeling process could be expanded to better reflect the reality

193 that choice of any one mode for the medium-distance trip is impacted by competitive conditions from all modes, not just the air vs. rail scenario explored in the present study. Both air and rail ridership patterns need to be analyzed in terms of competition from auto and intercity bus to meaningfully support public policy analysis. Modeling of Specific Networks As noted in Chapter 11, this project has included the cre- ation of a policy-sensitive model to explore the relationships between and among major policy factors including both the direct impact of variation in times and costs of the subject mode, and the cross elasticities associated with variation in competing modal characteristics. To provide an early illustra- tion of how the model could be applied in scenario analysis, the model was applied to a set of scenarios in both the East and West Coasts. Much remains to be explored in further research, however, concerning the ability of the model to deal with highly specific variations in network characteristics, includ- ing, in theory, full simulation of alternative rail networks and air service characteristics. A wide variety of further research efforts could be based on the existing Air/Rail Diversion model, and its several component model elements. Expanding the Modeling Process Beyond Times and Costs As exemplified by the times of input variables used in the ACRP Air/Rail Diversion model, most predictions of future mode choice are made through the examination of travel times and travel costs. An alternative theme explored in the existing literature is the idea that, in addition to the analysis of times and costs, issues associated with attitudes, values and cultural preferences could also be included in the travel forecasting process. The approved Amplified Work Plan of NCHRP Proj- ect 03-02 of the National Cooperative Rail Research Program, entitled “Intercity Passenger Rail in the Context of Dynamic Travel Markets,” calls for further research into the competition between air and rail, incorporating these additional sets of market conditions. At the conclusion of that research project, suggestions can be made about the need for further research of more detailed modeling of these factors in the subject area. Understanding the Relationship Between Rail Supply and Air Supply Chapter 11 (as well as the Technical Appendix) summarizes the implications of the model research concerning the rela- Figure 12-13. Component elements of the ACRP diversion model could be further developed.

194 tionship between the supply of rail service and the supply of air service. As discussed, rail travel times around one hour are associated with about 40% of the flights that would be expected without rail service. This effect attenuates so that a 7-hour rail service would be associated with 80% of the flights expected under a non-rail scenario. The effect disappears entirely at a rail travel time of around 11 hours. Chapter 11 notes that although the coefficient estimates are significant, there remains consid- erable uncertainty about the actual coefficient values, and thus about the relationship shown in this diagram. Further analysis is required to reduce this uncertainty. The work of the project team shows varied airline responses to rail service. The Research Team does find evidence that in some markets, rail service is correlated with lower air service. While this correlation does not prove rail service directly reduces air service, it does indicate the possibility that new rail routes will interact with, and possible reduce, certain aviation service. The Research Team also finds a correlation between the introduction of rail service and airlines preserving fre- quency and augmenting aircraft size due to passenger loss. The variety of airline responses to rail calls for a suite of mod- els to, in detail, document the air/rail competitive feedback loop. Such models would capture how passengers shift from air to rail due to the introduction of rail, how airlines respond to this new competitor and passenger loss, and the feedback loop of passengers responding to these further modifications in air service. Such work could also consider how passengers choose between air and rail in both competitive and collab- orative configurations. Further Research on Ticketing and Product Integration Further research could probe what attributes of integrated air/rail services are valued by customers in various market segments. Are there some market segments who, when con- fronted by feeder air vs. rail in a feeder mode, would always prefer the air mode? Are there other segments that would always prefer the rail mode? Beyond the factor of simple geo- graphy (proximity to terminal of mode X vs. proximity to ter- minal of mode Y) are there some market segments who value the reliability of the rail mode in bad weather? Are there other segments that prefer the simplicity of airline check-in/security clearance at the earliest possible time? What is the trade-off between the security of a seat reservation on a short connect- ing rail segment compared to the spontaneity of being able to board the first train out, no matter when the flight arrived? Do travelers really want to part with their bags early, com- pared to keeping them nearby? These hypotheticals illustrate the diversity of questions left for future research, but they do not represent an exclusive list of questions. Finally, the Swedish model is particularly noteworthy. This program could provide for a nearly “experimental” research context in which most variables are held constant, but varia- tion occurs concerning the treatment of the liability for the failed connecting trip. Arguably, the additional cost of $7 buys the insurance policy for the failed connection; this is assuming that the trip maker could buy an air ticket and a rail ticket sep- arately with minimal additional effort given that reservations for seats are not mandatory on the national rail systems. By offering the connection guarantee, the two carriers deal with one of the most vexing issues in intermodal service design— and this could be the subject of meaningful future research. 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