11-05-2015, 07:31 PM
(11-05-2015, 04:33 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: ...This is what happened in, for example, the Frankfurt-Koln corridor. You see hordes of bankers with their pressed suits in suit bags rushing to take the morning trains into Frankfurt...
This is the common experience in Spain in the years after upgrades to high-speed service. Toledo is now often referred to as a bedroom community of Madrid, 70 kilometres away, but a half hour commute. People even now live in places as far as Valladolid (quite like Cologne and Frankfurt: two hundred kilometres distant but only an hour and ten minutes by train) who need to commute to Madrid either routinely or occasionally.
There will be different levels of induced demand based on different service levels. We can all do our back-of-the-envelope calculations of demand based on 401 trips, air traffic, and current train traffic. But there is travel demand that doesn't exist yet, that will given improved service. A real assessment would be really involved, and I personally am really curious to see what kind of induced demand is anticipated for true HSR, and everything in between.