WP3: Rail Passenger Transport - TOSCA Project

speeds in the range of 220–250 km/h are expected. This may an underestimation, as some
networks already today partly run this class of trains at top speeds in the range 200–230 km/h
(Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, UK, etc).
For ‘High-speed trains’ the commercial top speed in Europe (2009) is 320 km/h, while a more
common operating top speed is 300 km/h that is also defined as the reference case in Table 2-1.
In China trains for 380 km/h are already on order, although it is uncertain when and to what
extent such speeds will be utilized commercially in the near future. European high-speed trains
are assumed to have a typical top speed around 370 km/h in 2050, corresponding to an average
annual increase of 0.5 % per year. Thus, the historical trend of about 0.9 % long-term annual
speed increase is assumed to be broken. This is due to assumed difficulties to abate noise
emissions as well as increased cost for infrastructure investment and maintenance.
In local train services however, with shorter stopping distances, the top speed will increase at a
slower rate, estimated to be 0.3–0.4 % per year. In diesel operations the average speed is
assumed not to increase at all, as the more competitive routes are assumed to be electrified,
although exceptions may occur.
It should be pointed out that the average speed, including stops and other delays, will usually
increase at a lower rate than the top speed. This will be shown in Table 5-2 of Section 5.2.
Load factor - seat occupancy
Many railway operations have a comparatively low average seat occupancy rate or load factor
(30–50 %) if compared for example with airlines. High-speed trains however, usually have an
average load factor of 60–75 %, which is more comparable with domestic airlines. Too many
empty seats are, of course, not desirable neither from an economic nor from a specific energy
point of view. With deregulation, increasing competition and more business-oriented railway
companies the load factor would improve, by flexible fares and by other means. This is to a
large extent what has happened to the airlines in Europe and North America after deregulation.
Increased load factor is not a “technology”, its future potential is hard to quantify with
precision and is therefore not considered in the following analysis. This factor could be an
option of additional improvement in energy and GHG emissions per passenger-km.
3.5 Technology scenarios to be further considered and investigated
Some of the technologies described in Section 3.3 are very promising for the future, as they
offer large energy and GHG savings in at least some types of services and also experience high
possible market penetration, i.e. in several types of rail services with considerable total market
share. These promising technologies constitute five scenarios (1–5) to be further considered
and investigated in this study.
1 PA. Low-drag
2 PB. Low-mass
3 PC. Energy recovery
4 PD. Space efficiency
5 PF. Eco-driving
The following combined scenarios are also studied:
6 Pcomb electric: PA + PB + PC + PD + PF + Incremental
7 Pcomb HS electric: As (6) + Higher Speed
8 Pcomb as (7) + low GHG electric power
9 Pcomb diesel: PA + PB + PC + PD + PF + Incremental
Deliverable D4 – WP3 passenger 13