The Preliminary Analysis of Introducing 500 km/h High-Speed Rail in Korea

초록

Following the success of the KTX (Korea’s first high-speed rail system) with a maximum operating speed of 300 km/h opened in 2004, experts in Korea started a research on the development of key technologies for high-speed rail (HSR) with a top speed of 500 km/h. This paper is a preliminary analysis of the research. It first reviews HSR experiences around the world, in terms of traffic and economic impacts of HSR, and presents a preliminary analysis of 500 km/h HSR in Korea. It is estimated that introduction of 500 km/h HSR with a 54% of travel time reduction will increase HSR passengers to about 9.8 million (about 78% of market share) between Seoul and Busan. It is a 23% of growth compared to the base scenario. Along with conventional rail passengers, air passengers are expected to be significantly impacted by the 500 km/h HSR. As a function of HSR travel time, the estimated market shares of both KTX and 500 km/h HSR compared to air are very comparable with previous international experiences. Based on the forecasted traffic, estimated total benefits are $758 million per year.