ITS Rail Research

The Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds (ITS) is a freestanding transport unit and is the largest of the UK academic groups involved in teaching and research related to transport. ITS enjoys a worldwide reputation as a centre of excellence and in the 2008 RAE ITS again retained its position as one of the leading transport research centres in the UK. The RAE assessment panel identified 95% of the ITS submission as being of ‘internationally recognised’ quality for originality, significance and rigour. Of this, 65% was either 'world leading' or ‘internationally excellent’.

For more than two decades, one of the key areas of research at ITS has been the economics of rail transport. Our involvement with the rail industry was fostered by close links with British Rail and subsequently with successor organisations. In recent years we have undertaken projects on rail transport for the European Commission, the Community of European Railways, OECD, the World Bank, Network Rail, the British Department for Transport, individual rail operators, the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), the British research councils and private sector consultants.

Key research activities :
• demand forecasting and travel behaviour analysis;
• rail infrastructure cost modelling;
• efficiency analysis and pricing;
• project appraisal methodology;
• off-track and on-track competition;
• and transport safety;
Many other fields are under study within the Institute.

Examples of recent projects

European Transport Policy – Pogress and Prospects. Community of European Railways 2008-9.

The aim of this report is to outline progress in the implementation of European transport policy since the 2001 White Paper (CEC, 2001) and to put forward a vision of what further developments are needed over the next 5-10 years to attain the objective of the creation of a competitive European railway area. Hence, the focus of this report is on issues affecting the rail industry, both directly, in terms of initiatives and legislation targeted on the rail industry, and indirectly, in terms of initiatives and legislation having a bearing on rail as it seeks to compete with the other transport modes. It was concluded that good progress had been made on rail liberalisation, with many of the effects only just starting to show though, and that the immediate priority in this area was to ensure that existing legislation was fully implemented. By contrast progress with achieving fair competition between modes of transport, and appropriate investment was much more limited. To a large extent, then, we saw the policy for the next decade as a continuation and extension of that of the last, with an emphasis on achieving full implementation of the policies. But there remains doubt as to whether that alone will tackle the issue of achieving a sustainable transport system in the face of the threat of global warming. In a recent paper (CEC, 2009c ) the Commission has suggested that the transport sector should aim to cut its CO2 emissions by 50% from their 1990 levels by 2050. In pursuit of this, the Commission sees technological change on other modes: widespread use of electric cars, biofuels for aviation and so forth – as key measures.  But it will be difficult to achieve any of these developments without attention to transport pricing and the incentive of a much higher price for the use of carbon based fuels. That must in turn imply a growing role for rail in the markets at which it is most efficient – long distance and bulk freight, commuting into big cities, medium distance transport between major cities. The need for the next decade is to prepare the railway for this role by using increasing competition and carefully targeted investment on a major scale to raise rail productivity and quality of service.

Transport Research Knowledge Centre (TRKC) EU, 2007-9

We were part of a Europe-wide team to develop this website  which give an overview of transport research activities at European and national level. One of our particular responsibilities was to review rail research and to produce a brochure summarising research on the effectiveness of EU rail policy.

GRACE: EU (FP6), 2005-2007

The project involved a consortium of 15 partners in 11 countries. The aim was to provide new evidence on the costs of transport infrastructure use for all modes of transport, and on the consequences of charging these costs to users. For rail transport, we estimated both the marginal cost of wear and tear on the infrastructure, using econometric methods, and external costs such as noise, air pollution and global warming, in a number of case studies. As part of one work package, we applied our PRAISE model to look at the impact of scarce capacity and scarcity charging on the East Coast Mainline, looking at alternative uses of slots by different (freight and passenger) operators.

It was concluded that optimal charges for the use of rail infrastructure would typically be a long way below levels implied by full cost recovery, except in peak periods on heavily used lines, when a large scarcity charge would be justified.

CATRIN: EU (FP6), 2007-2009

This was a follow up project to the GRACE project, again involving a collaboration of European partners. The focus of the research is to develop further the methodologies for estimating marginal infrastructure costs across modes, and to generate new results. The work is aimed at informing transport pricing, and draws on the most recent theoretical microeconomic literature in respect of pricing rules (e.g. game theoretic approaches). As part of this, further case studies of both wear and tear costs and scarcity were undertaken.

Rail Research UK Phase 2: EPSRC from September 2006 to February 2010.

This work follows on from Rail Research UK Phase I through two projects. Project B7 is concerned with producing an operational rail system model that will test the impact of selected technological developments on whole system costs (for example, light weighting of trains). Project C6 builds on some work carried out for DfT, and seeks to develop a better understanding of the social costs of delays to passengers and freight trains and to establish delay cost values for different train types

Rail Research UK Phase 1: EPSRC from April 2003 to July 2006.

Work in the first phase of RRUK concentrated on a number of projects within the overall Rail Research UK programme. For project C3 on alternative rail strategies, we have developed new strategic rail passenger and freight demand models and used them to examine alternative future rail scenarios. For project B4 on cost modelling we have both constructed a simple spreadsheet model and undertaken econometric work to identify the variability of different elements of infrastructure and train operating costs. We have also reviewed trends in costs to try to understand the reasons for the large increases in recent years, and whether these are likely to be sustained or reversed. Phase 2 work is further developing our understanding of rail costs and looking specifically at the issue of reliability

FUNDING, EU,  FP6, 2005-2006

The overall aim of the FUNDING project was to develop a scientifically sound approach to the funding of large transport infrastructure investments in the EU, most particularly the TEN-T projects. ITS played a major role in modelling work, for both passenger and freight traffic, to determine how the use of new transport infrastructure on selected corridors is impacted by the method of infrastructure funding employed. See http://econ.kuleuven.be/funding/ for more details.

Railway Reform and Charges for the use of infrastructure, OECD, 2005-6
This study compared the access regimes in over 20 ECMT countries.  It found a wide variety of charging systems in use, in terms of the principles, structure and levels of charges for use of rail infrastructure. It concluded that it was important to ensure that adequate data was available for estimating the marginal social costs of rail transport, and that an agreed methodology should be developed. Whilst mark-ups would be needed in some circumstances, knowledge of marginal social cost remained the basis for an efficient access pricing system.