A Review of Ex-Post Evidence for Mode Substitution and Induced Demand Following the Introduction of High-Speed Rail

To date, relatively little is known about the nature of the demand for high-speed rail (HSR) soon after inauguration of the services, despite close to 50-year experience of HSR operation and 17 166km of HSR network around the world. This is a real lacuna given the scale of HSR construction around the world, the amount of resources committed to it, the desired accessibility, economic and environmental effects associated with HSR development and the relatively poor track record of forecasting demand for HSR services. Focusing on mode substitution and induced demand effects, this review aims to fill the gap in knowledge about the ex-post demand for HSR services in order to facilitate a learning process for the planning of the future HSR network. Although there is not much evidence on the demand for HSR services and existing evidence is largely influenced by route-specific characteristics, a methodological limitation that must be acknowledged, the evidence presented allows a better characterisation of HSR as a mode of transport. The review shows that the demand for HSR a few years after inauguration is about 10-20% induced demand and the rest is attributed to mode substitution. In terms of mode substitution, in most cases the majority of HSR passengers have used the conventional rail before. Substitution from aircraft, car and coach is generally more modest.