Prioritising railway projects for investment

This paper describes the level of service offered by intercity rail in Ireland and analyses the importance of attributes in prioritising railway projects for investment. The study also quantifies the number of additional passengers who would use rail if ticket prices were subsidised. A stated preference study conducted in 2004 shows that current levels of satisfaction with the intercity rail service are low. The study shows that passengers are willing to pay higher ticket prices in order to improve service quality. The average values are: EURO13.6/h of saved journey time, EURO0(.)38 to reduce the gap between actual arrival time and scheduled arrival time by 1 min, and EURO0(.)16 per additional train to increase service frequency. The analysis finds that user benefits are the most important attributes in investment decision-making, followed by safety/accident benefits and total economic benefits of the project. The estimated values show that reducing the ticket price by 5% would increase the revenue by 0(.)12% under the Department of Transport forecast; similarly, the revenue would increase by 1(.)1% if the ticket price were decreased by 10%.