 High-Speed Rail: A game changer for Spanish motorway transport?Daniel Albalate and Carlos R. León-Gómez Economics of Transportation, 2024, vol. 39, issue C Abstract: Spain has deployed the world’s largest High-Speed Rail (HSR) network, in per capita terms, under the premise that this infrastructure provides a cleaner mode for reaching their environmental commitments. However, for observing environmental gains, there should be inter-modal substitution from polluter modes to the HSR. This paper analyzes the impact of new HSR openings on car traffic, using a Generalized and Staggered Difference-in-Difference approach. Unlike previous studies, we analyzes the entire Spanish HSR network. We matched the georeferenced data on car traffic with the origin–destination routes provided by Google Maps API to estimate the impact of the HSR on car traffic. We found that the HSR has not generated modal split, except for few of the HSR segments, in which we estimated a 6%–8% reduction in the annual average daily traffic. These results have public policy implications for the transport policy in the EU, and the effectiveness of decarbonization policies. Keywords: High-Speed Rail; Cars; Inter-modal substitution; Decarbonization policies (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecotra:v:39:y:2024:i:c:s2212012224000194 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecotra.2024.100360 Access Statistics for this article Economics of Transportation is currently edited by Mogens Fosgerau and Erik Verhoef More articles in Economics of Transportation from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.