Evaluation of passenger train concepts : Methods and results of measuring travellers' preferences in relation to cost

Abstract: Politicians would like the railways to help to solve futuretransport and environmental problems. People can travel to andfrom work and on business during the day on modern trains whichare faster than any other alternative on journeys ofintermediate length. Moreover, travelling times on comfortabletrains can be utilised more effectively than those in cars,buses and aircraft. One problem nowadays is that it is often difficult tooperate rail traffic with sufficient business profitability. Atthe same time, many people feel that travelling by train is tooexpensive. This is primarily due to the fact that it isexpensive to produce trains and rail traffic. In some cases,the railway has to reduce scale and, in many cases, trainservices must be made more attractive. This project aims to find means of reducing the cost andthereby the ticket price and, at the same time, enhance thelevel of attractiveness so that the profitability of therailways improves. This will enable rail traffic to expandunder its own steam(!) and play an increasinglyimportant part in the society of the future. This projectconcentrates on long-distance regional and inter-regional trainservices. One of the objectives in the KTH project entitled "Efficientpassenger trains for future passenger services", of which thisdissertation is a part, is "trains at half price". Thisobjective is thus interpreted as the new relationship betweenthe value of trains and the cost that can be obtained when thevalue increases and the cost level is reduced simultaneously.This project primarily investigates the importance of variouscharacteristics in passenger trains in terms of cost levels andthe way different timetable, comfort, on-board service andquality attributes are evaluated by passengers. By presentingthese evaluations in monetary terms, itis possible to comparethem with the corresponding cost.