Evaluating the environmental performance of the high speed rail project in the Basque Country, Spain

Gorka Bueno, David Hoyos and Iñigo Capellán-Pérez

Research in Transportation Economics, 2017, vol. 62, issue C, 44-56

Abstract: This paper analyses the contribution of the high speed rail project in the Basque Country, Spain, to energy consumption reduction and to climate change mitigation by means of a simplified Life Cycle Assessment. The calculation of CO2 emissions and energy consumption reductions over the service lifetime of the infrastructure (60 years) shows that, even in the most optimistic scenarios considered, it would neither compensate the CO2 emissions linked to its construction and maintenance (2,71 MtCO2), nor would it contribute to net energy savings before 55 years of service. Robustness of these results leads us to conclude that GHG emissions reduction and energy savings should not be used as a general argument in favour of investing in high-speed rail infrastructure.

Keywords: High-speed rail; Transport policy; Transport hierarchy; Life-cycle assessment; Sustainable mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L42 L92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0739885916301172
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:retrec:v:62:y:2017:i:c:p:44-56

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_2&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2017.02.004

Access Statistics for this article

Research in Transportation Economics is currently edited by M. Dresner

More articles in Research in Transportation Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().