Metodología para la estimación de la combinación de velocidades máximas que permiten alcanzar el tiempo de viaje comercialmente requerido en una infraestructura ferroviaria
- Autores: Ignacio González Franco
- Directores de la Tesis: Andrés López Pita (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) ( España ) en 2015
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: José Rodrigo Miró Recasens (presid.), José Manuel Estradé Panadés (secret.), M. R. Bugarin (voc.)
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: TDX
- Resumen
Over the past 30 years, high speed railway in Europe has experienced a great development due to, among other things, the reduction of travel times, the increase of frequency and the continuous improvement of service quality. However, the construction of a new high speed railway infrastructure requires an enormous mobilization of resources, has a long lifetime but the alternative uses of this huge investment are very few. Consequently, this kind of investment is always preceded by a rigorous analysis in order to ensure the best possible result. In an analysis of these characteristics, there are different variables that have an influence on costs and benefits that a high speed line could generate and, therefore, it can be asserted that there are certain railway parameters with direct impact on the profitability of a high speed line. Among them, maximum design speed of a high speed line can be highlighted; speed plays a crucial role in a framework in which the efficiency and the social benefit are essential. The design speed has an impact on the profitability and, especially, on the economic and financial Net Present Value (NPV) of a high speed line; for example, a higher design speed implies higher investment costs (this impact is different depending on the type of terrain) and, sometimes, implies greater maintenance costs, but also brings journey time reductions and, consequently, an increase in the number of passengers that implies an increase in revenues and time savings. Besides, design speed has a direct impact on the exploitation costs of the railway undertakings. In short, the effects of the speed on the profitability are countless and complex. However, this parameter is usually a default parameter; usually it has been previously established (pre-determined) to an economic appraisal. Actually, if we analyse real experiences, real high speed lines currently in service or under construction, maximum design speed is essentially the same all over the European high speed networks (350 km/h), although it hasn¿t been found out a solid reason behind this pre-determined speed. This problem becomes more complex when the line is considered as a set of shorter sections. If each one of these sections is assigned a maximum design speed, it will arise many maximum speeds combinations per line, therefore, there is no longer a single speed, but now there is a combination of maximum speeds. Each combination of maximum speeds entails different investment cost, thereby, there will be multiple investment costs per line and, therefore, different economic and financial profitability in a single project as it is a railway infrastructure. At this point, this study develops a methodology capable of obtaining the maximum design speeds combination that allows to obtain the maximum incomes with the minimal cost, which implies to achieve the maximum profitability of a high speed line. In short, it will be developed and defined a methodology which determines the combination of maximum speeds that obtains the best results in terms of social-economic benefit (greater social-economic NPV) taking into account certain limitations (financial profitability and investment cost restrictions). The methodology proposed is applied in a theoretical scenario which corresponds to the Madrid-Valencia high speed line with a single route. The objective is to determine the economic and financial profitability of the scenario proposed, considering a new railway layout and different to the one nowadays exists. This economic and financial analysis is assessed for four different ticket prices, allowing not only to determine the combination of maximum speeds that obtains the maximum profitability of the line, but also allows to know the effect of the ticket price paid by the travellers on the economic and financial profitability.
