Development of Multicriteria Decision Method for Evaluating High-Speed Rail Corridor

Projects for high-speed intercity passenger rail are complex and require many years of planning and environmental activities before construction can begin. Given the complexity of planning and environmental reviews associated with planning a high-speed intercity passenger rail corridor, a systematic approach for high-level screening of various alternative routings for proposed high-speed rail corridors is desirable. In this context, a multicriteria decision-making framework was proposed to assist planners of high-speed rail with the preliminary screening and ranking of potential high-speed rail corridors. The proposed framework was applied to the question of ranking 13 alternative routings for connecting the South Central and Gulf Coast federally designated highspeed rail corridors located in Texas. Attributes that were incorporated into the decision framework include population, travel demand, capital costs, land use and environmental impacts, and engineering suitability. Although the developed framework cannot be used to replace the environmental review process and formal alternatives analysis completely, it can be used by planners as a tool for preliminary screening or ranking of proposed high-speed rail corridors for detailed analysis.