Cost Benefit Analysis of Washington-Richmond High-Speed Rail

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Cost Benefit Analysis of Washington-Richmond High-Speed Rail Spring 2010 5.3 Operating Costs 29 32 Figure 5-1: Total Estimated Construction Costs The operating costs for HSR systems, according to The Full Cost of High-speed Rail: an Engineering Approach 30 by Levinson, et al, can be categorized as follows: • Sales and administration costs - labor and automated machinery costs for providing tickets and information; • Shunting cost; • Train operations costs - labor costs required to service, drive and operate the trains; • Fuel or energy costs; • Maintenance of way; and • Maintenance of equipment. These are costs that Amtrak would incur to provide additional service as a part of this project. Considering the proposed technology of the SEHSR system, the most useful method to calculate increased operating and/or maintenance costs was to use the aggregated operating costs that Amtrak releases in their annual and monthly reports. Although possible to use the methods used in previous 29 The Travel Demand Model used to determine these operating cost figures will be described in a following chapter 30 Ibid., 203.
Cost Benefit Analysis of Washington-Richmond High-Speed Rail Spring 2010 studies, using Amtrak’s numbers would be the most accurate. The proposed locomotives for the system are modern diesel locomotives that can operate at the intended 110 mph Maximum Authorized Speed (MAS). These locomotives would not have substantially different operating costs than those currently in the Amtrak fleet. Given the similarities between current Amtrak operations and the proposed new trips, this is the most accurate estimate of operating costs for the new service. 33 Unit Unit Cost Seat Mile 31 $0.237 Train Mile 32 $69.980 Passenger Mile 33 $0.554 Table 5-1: Units and Unit Costs for Amtrak Operating Costs The operating costs can be calculated using both passenger miles traveled and train miles traveled as shown in Table 5-1. The cost per seat mile is equivalent to the cost per train mile because, for the purposes of this study, each train has a constant number of seats. Other studies assume each train has 350 passenger seats. 34 Based on the above figures for seat mile and train mile costs, the average Amtrak train has 295 seats. This corridor is expected to have a higher volume than average, making 350 passenger seats per train a reasonable estimate. To calculate the costs based on passenger mile, the results from the ridership model were used. The difference in ridership from the build and no-build scenarios was multiplied by the miles of travel and by the operating cost per passenger mile. In order to calculate the increased operating costs based on train mile, it was assumed that new trains would be added according to the phases proposed in the DRPT technical report. 35 The exact years the trains would start running was not indicated in the report, but based on the estimated build timeline it was assumed that there would be one additional daily train (round trip) in 2014 as part of a pilot project. It was assumed that this train would continue running until the end of the analysis period. Four additional daily trains (round trip) are anticipated to begin in 2026 just before the proposed build-out completion date. Both of the calculations use a discount rate of 7% which is applied to the cost to account for the increased costs of service. The results of both calculations can be seen below in Table 5-2. The complete table of calculations can be found in Appendix C. 31 Amtrak, “January 2010 Report.” 32 Ibid. 33 Calculation from Amtrak, “Annual Report 2008.” 34 Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath, “Life-cycle assessment of high-speed rail: the case of California,” Environmental Resarch Letters, January 6, 2010, http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/1/014003/fulltext 35 Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, “Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transit, Statewide Rail Plan Technical Update,” 11-6
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Cost Benefit Analysis of Washington-Richmond High-Speed Rail

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