An accessibility-based methodology to identify corridor speed upgrades in the European rail network

The European Union's Trans-European Transport Network policy (TEN-T) is a key instrument for developing rail networks and achieving the European Union's modal shift and territorial cohesion objectives as set out in the White Paper on Transport. High-speed rail (HSR) is a key element of this policy, as the core TEN-T rail network is to be designed for high speeds. Since the effectiveness of HSR in achieving its objectives has been repeatedly criticized, it is difficult to justify the high cost of developing rail corridors for such speeds. The European Commission has therefore proposed a reduction in the minimum speeds for HSR in a revised proposal concerning the regulation defining the TEN-T network. In this paper, we apply the betweenness-accessibility methodology to model the contribution of each rail corridor in the European long-distance rail network to the accessibility by rail of EU metropolitan regions. After simulating the completion of the already defined TEN-T network which is to be completed by 2030, we simulate speed increases on all remaining corridors with speeds below 160 km/h up to this speed to evaluate the potential accessibility gains of these speed increases. A total of 13 corridors have been selected for the estimation of their upgrade costs, most of which are in Eastern Europe. The upgrade costs were compared with the potential accessibility gains to provide guidance on the most cost-effective way to improve rail accessibility on the European long-distance rail network.