Firstly I must state two important facts about East Coast High Speed Rail in Australia:
- I am a massive fan of High Speed Trains. Having ridden Fast and Very Fast trains on three continents, it is my preferred mode of travel.
- This week the government released a preliminary report which was designed to inform and scope a detailed (probably all the way to a business-case) final report.
Due to the combined facts that the news in this country has next to nothing to talk about (car crashes - woo!) and tend to barrack for the ALP, you would have found it hard to miss this story over the past couple of days. As usual, it seems that the journalists read only the executive summary before filing a story. All the stories just quoted the biggest figure they could find to finance the project and potential travel times and prices. Little mention of what route it would actually take or that the ticket prices used in the analysis were based on current low-cost airfares or existing rail fares. I will now attempt an unbiased summary of the salient points in about 500 words. I may fail both.
The study broke the Melbourne to Brisbane journey into four parts:
- Melbourne to Canberra
- Canberra to Sydney
- Sydney to Newcastle (the subject of a greater detail sub-study)
- Newcastle to Brisbane
Potential routes for the high speed railway were examined for each segment. There were about 20 potential routes examined and some were straight-line and impractical, but served as a good basis for comparison.
The study of these routes was done in two phases - an initial high level one to weed out some of the poorer options and then a second, more refined study of the remaining choices. Options were examined based on construction costs including likely tunneling and bridging, patron catchments, land acquisition costs and environmental sensitivity. Existing transport corridors and government development plans also played a major role.
The report estimates that an HST would be a viable operation with the potential for a profit-making enterprise to cover operating and maintenance costs. But, it's the fourth paragraph of the report that is the shortest and most damning:
"International experience suggests it is unrealistic to expect the capital cost of a HSR network to be fully recovered"
Which is both true and not true. The capital costs will not be fully recovered in dollars, but in less tangible ways like time savings, productivity gains, or accelerated growth in towns serviced by the HSR network. These benefits are real and estimated in the report, but also unlikely to be able to fully make up for the dollar costs over the study period (2036-2056). Then again, Melbourne and Sydney’s metropolitan railways were built largely in the 1880s and we’re still getting the intangible benefits from them.
Whilst I write this summary I had better not that it includes capital costs only. By that it means: “The risk-adjusted cost estimates include land acquisition, stations and city access, maintenance and stabling facilities, power infrastructure, civil and rail infrastructure and IT and ticketing systems. They exclude client planning and procurement management costs, which are likely to be in the order of 10 to 15 per cent of the estimate.” They also in no way cover operating costs like train leases and electricity.
Cutting to the chase, to build the whole thing based on these broad estimates will cost between $61 billion and $110 billion. This sounds like heaps which it is and it isn’t. Labour costs a lot in Australia, as does land in inner city areas plus you're dealing with some remote and sensitive areas between major cities. Also the $110b equates to a 90% probability of completion within budget (ie P90 in the table below). Maybe given current labour laws and government it is best to use this figure only?
Segment | Length | Stations | Risk Adjusted Cost Est ($2011b) | |||
Corridor Name | (km) | P10 | P50 | P90 | ||
Brisbane to Newcastle | ||||||
3 Direct Corridor (via Beaudesert) | 676 | 4 | $21.7 | $28.9 | $35.9 | |
3a Direct Corridor (via Gold Coast) | 701 | 5 | $24.9 | $32.6 | $40.6 | |
4 Coastal Corridor (via Beaudesert) | 701 | 7 | $20.0 | $23.8 | $27.8 | |
5 Coastal Corridor (via Gold Coast) | 706 | 8 | $22.2 | $26.9 | $31.7 | |
Newcastle to Sydney | ||||||
8 Central Coast Corridor | 120 | 4 | $10.7 | $14.2 | $17.9 | |
Sydney to Canberra | ||||||
11 Hume Highway Corridor (via Southern Highlands) | 271 | 4 | $10.9 | $15.1 | $19.2 | |
12 Princes Highway Corridor (via Wollongong and Southern Highlands) | 290 | 5 | $15.0 | $19.8 | $24.5 | |
Canberra to Melbourne | ||||||
14a Hume Highway Corridor (via Wagga Wagga and Albury-Wodonga) | 552 | 4 | $19.5 | $22.4 | $25.6 | |
Brisbane to Melbourne (totals) | ||||||
Best route (5,8,11,14a) | 1649 | 20 | $63.3 | $78.6 | $94.4 | |
cheapest (4,8,11,14a) | 1644 | 19 | $61.1 | $75.5 | $90.5 | |
dearest (3a,8,12,14a) | 1663 | 18 | $70.1 | $89.0 | $108.6 | |
You can get the reports at:
Another opinion:
So really what you're saying is you'd like it to work, and if everything went swimmingly from the off it could possibly, almost, be a profit making business.
ReplyDeleteBut, we all know it won't go swimmingly. Labour costs will skyrocket once the unions realize it's locked in, and we haven't even had the greenies throw in their two bob's worth for environmental impact studies and reports on sustainability (whatever that means in a VFT context).
So, is it wanted? yes. Would it be cool and a nice way to travel? yes. Do all the other factors point to it being unfeasible? yes, absolutely.
oh, by the way, something has gone proper wacky with your last paragraph and table.
ReplyDeleteSomething you may find of interest in relation to this.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2011/3317389.htm