Following the success of the KTX (Korea's first high-speed rail system) with a maximum operating speed of 300 km/h opened in 2004, experts in Korea started a research on the development of key technologies for high-speed rail (HSR) with a top speed of 500 km/h. This paper is a preliminary analysis of the research. It first reviews HSR experiences around the world, in terms of traffic and economic impacts of HSR, and presents a preliminary analysis of 500 km/h HSR in Korea. It is estimated that introduction of 500 km/h HSR with a 54% of travel time reduction will increase HSR passengers to about 9.8 million (about 78% of market share) between Seoul and Busan. It is a 23% of growth compared to the base scenario. Along with conventional rail passengers, air passengers are expected to be significantly impacted by the 500 km/h HSR. As a function of HSR travel time, the estimated market shares of both KTX and 500 km/h HSR compared to air are very comparable with previous international experiences. Based on the forecasted traffic, estimated total benefits are $758 million per year.
A direct demand model requires relatively little analysis time and incurs a low cost. It is also known to be useful for the preliminary screening of promising configurations or concepts. This study reviews direct demand models of 12 existing urban railways using demographic data based on a block group level which is approximately 1/24 of a traditional zone area. However, direct demand models are limited. Therefore, a new approach is suggested. The proposed method is based on a field study and an empirical analysis. The study finds factors that affect ridership at the station level. As a case study, the proposed approach is tested using 54 light railway transit stations. The results of this empirical study demonstrate its applicability to improve the error rates of the predicted ridership at the station level.
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