Performance-Based Technology Scanning for Intercity Passenger Rail Systems: The Incremental Maglev and Railroad Maglevication as an Option for Ultra High Speed Rail

New technologies offer ways for railroads to reduce costs, increase market share, and achieve higher profitability. Determining the best opportunities requires understanding of the marketplace and translation of technological improvements into competitive advantage for the rail industry. This three-year research effort uses the Performance-Based Technology Scanning (PBTS) methodology for identifying such “leveraged” areas. Applying PBTS to intercity passenger rail revealed that line-haul speeds and access times are both very important. High line-haul speeds differentiate the service from the private auto, while better access time competes with air service. The current high-speed rail research programmes in the United States have focused on two distinct approaches: (a) upgrading existing rights-of-way through conventional technologies such as tilting vehicles, track realignment and positive train control to enable service speeds of up to 150mph; (b) constructing new rights-of-way with advanced propulsion technologies such as magnetic levitation to enable service speeds of up to 300mph. The former approach sometimes fail to make appreciable difference in journey time or market share, and introduces conflicts with freight trains, while the latter isn’t currently considered economical for corridors longer than about 30 miles, due to the high cost of new infrastructure. We therefore recommend a hybrid approach for further engineering research & development. Rail vehicles with magnetic guidance equipment could travel as conventional trains over “wide open spaces” on low-cost existing rights-of-way at up to 110mph, then switch to magnetic guidance to climb very steep grades or achieve higher speeds around sharp curves. Climbing steep grades allows more direct new routes through mountains, avoiding potentially costly tunnels. Maintaining stability with magnetic guidance allows usage of existing, curvaceous infrastructure at higher speeds to reach downtown areas. Hybrid maglev vehicles and railroad maglevification is backwards compatible, thus allows sharing of the high, fixed infrastructure costs with commuter and freight trains already running over the national rail network. Word counts: 296 Words (Abstract) 9,219 Words (Abstract, Body and References) Lexcie Lu, Carl D. Martland, Joseph M. Sussman MIT Center for Transportation Studies Page of 24 2 Introduction New technologies offer ways for railroads to reduce costs, increase market share, better service offerings, and achieve higher profitability. Determining the best opportunities requires understanding of the marketplace and translation of technological improvements into competitive advantage for the rail industry. This three-year research effort uses the Performance-Based Technology Scanning (PBTS) methodology for identifying such “leveraged” areas. Applying PBTS to intercity passenger rail revealed that line-haul speeds and access times are both very important. High line-haul speeds differentiate the service from the private auto, while better access time competes with air service. The current high-speed rail research programmes in the United States have focused on two distinct approaches: (a) upgrading existing rights-of-way through conventional technologies such as tilting vehicles, track realignment and positive train control to enable service speeds of up to 150mph; (b) constructing new rights-of-way with advanced propulsion technologies such as magnetic levitation to enable service speeds of up to 300mph. The former approach sometimes fail to make appreciable difference in journey time or market share, and introduces conflicts with freight trains, while the latter isn’t currently considered economical for corridors longer than about 30 miles, due to the high cost of new infrastructure. We therefore recommend a hybrid approach for further engineering research & development. Rail vehicles with magnetic guidance equipment could travel as conventional trains over “wide open spaces” on low-cost existing rights-of-way at up to 110mph, then switch to magnetic guidance to climb very steep grades or achieve higher speeds around sharp curves. Climbing steep grades allows more direct new routes through mountains, avoiding potentially costly tunnels. Maintaining stability with magnetic guidance allows usage of existing, curvaceous infrastructure at higher speeds to reach downtown areas. Hybrid maglev vehicles and railroad maglevication is backwards compatible, thus allows sharing of the high, fixed infrastructure costs with commuter and freight trains already running over the national rail network. In this paper, we introduce the concept of maglevication of existing railroad infrastructure. When Pennsylvania Railroad electrified the Philadelphia-Paoli mainline in 1914, they designed the catenary such that ordinary steam freight trains could run ‘under the wires’ to reach Lancaster and points beyond. Maglev could be seen as the next step forward – and maglev infrastructure should be designed such that ordinary diesel freight trains could run ‘over the magnet’. More importantly, since maglev infrastructure is expensive, express passenger trains should be able to switch between maglev and conventional modes, to navigate different types of terrain at different speeds. We call this process of retro-fitting magnetic infrastructure to existing railroads the process of railroad maglevication. Lifting the steel wheels from the track may not actually be necessary to achieve the range of journey time savings customers desire. With advanced truck designs, rolling contact resistance could be substantially decreased compared to the typical levels when maglev trains were first proposed. Maglevication would utilize the existing steel wheel-rail interface to provide support for the weight of the rolling stock, while utilizing magnetic forces to assist horizontal and lateral movements. Performance Based Technology Scanning PBTS is a methodology whereby the process of determining the technology strategy for railroad carriers and industry is broken down into five distinctive steps, ranging from the general broad-brush explorations to the very specific strategic direction. The highest level is a generalized search for new and emerging technologies, often conducted by science and engineering graduates using industry sources and the science The Incremental Maglev and Railroad Maglevication as an Option for Ultra High Speed Rail Page of 24 REVISED FINAL DRAFT – 31 May, 2003 3 press (e.g. New Scientist, Scientific American). The objective is to identify novel and exciting technologies that may have an impact on the transportation industry. Technologies can affect transportation in quite subtle ways: travel patterns, nature of goods being transported, the technologies available to transport them, and the relative economics of different modes, could all change with new technological development. Generalized Search for New and Emerging Technologies (Step 1) Technology Mapping “Technology-Push” (Step 2A) Customer Requirements Analysis “Market-Pull” (Step 2B) Performance-Based Technology Scan Comparative Technology Evaulation (Step 3) Individual Technology Evaluation and Implementation Research (Step 4) Technology Focus (Optional) Detailed Technology Analysis Figure 1: The Five-Step Process of Technology Scanning Two approaches of classifying the impact of technologies could be distinguished: (a) Technology Mapping, and (b) Customer Requirements Analysis. The former is a “technology push” approach where vendors of technologies identified in Step 1 attempts to identify the areas where the emerging technologies could be applied to transportation. The latter is a “market-pull” approach where transportation companies actively seek technological solutions to existing operational problems. The potential technological applications are then evaluated using a comparative technology evaluation framework to ascertain whether the proposal will generate the best net social benefit (versus not deploying the technology, or deploying an alternate technology), in Step 3. The final step is to develop and implement the most promising (or leveraged) ideas. Substantial development costs could be incurred at this stage, and the comparative technology evaluation serves as a screening process to differentiate between lemons and silver bullets. Detailed discussion of the PBTS process developed as part of this project is detailed in a prior publication (Lu, Martland, et al., WP-2002-3). In the present paper, a promising idea for high-speed ground transportation, as identified in the Step 3 of the PBTS process is described. The State of Practice in High Speed Ground Transportation There are a number of technologies currently competing for the 100~600 mile transportation market in the developed world. Amongst them: (1) private auto, (2) intercity buses, (3) conventional train, (4) high-speed train, (5) magnetically levitated train, (6) conventional aircraft, (7) tiltrotor and other light aircrafts. There are also a number of permutations of each type of technology, e.g. high-speed trains could be electrically propelled, gas-turbine driven, or carry diesel prime movers; conventional aircrafts could be large aircrafts or regional jets. The argument between whether airbourne or land-based transportation modes should be preferred could rage on due to unaccounted externalities. Assuming that a ground transportation option is desirable, a range of current options is reviewed here, to better understand their cost structure and service characteristics. Lexcie Lu, Carl D. Martland, Joseph M. Sussman MIT Center for Transportation Studies Page of 24 4 The Private Auto In North America at least, the private auto is by far the dominating form of intercity transportation, at least in terms of trip volumes. For person-trips between 100~499 miles, the private auto captured 93.7% of the market, while commercial airlines captured 2.3%, intercity bus 0.4%, and intercity rail 0.7% [1]. This automobile dominance is not limited to the rural areas. In the Northeast Corridor, where intercity rail service is well developed, the private auto nevertheless achieved a 72% market share between New York and Washington (Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas), while airlines carried 22%, and rail 6% of all person-trips [2]. What explains this automobile superiority? There are a variety of reasons: (1) collective transportation requires either geographical or temporal consolidation, sometimes both, thus a high demand-density is needed; (2) other benefits are associated with having “your car” -including easier freight carriage, the convenience factor, choice of schedules, etc.; (3) usage of the private auto is subsidized to different extents by the government than other modes of transportation; (4) the incremental cost per person is approximately zero, for the same origins and destinations. For shorter trips in the 100~600 mile market, the access time is an important part of the total journey time, where the route structure could mean convoluted routings that make collective transportation unattractive. 55% of all passengers in New England drive more than 16 miles to an airport [3]; nationwide median distance for airport access is 21 miles [4]. These statistics suggest that with today’s North American metropolises, which are sprawled over large areas, the private auto has an important advantage in its totallyconnected route network that collective modes will find difficult to surpass. Lu & Martland (2002) discusses the accessibility question in greater detail in a previous publication.