Efficient railway transportation helps ensure both population mobility and a functioning supply chain, but railway reliability is often threatened by inadequate capacity, aging infrastructure, increasing freight costs, and potential security threats. RAND researchers have explored and recommended different approaches to modernizing rail systems and keeping them safe.
COMMENTARY
Good data can inform decision makers about what really works—how best to relieve congestion and improve supply-chain connectivity to make freight transportation—and hence the U.S. economy—more competitive, write Mortimer Downey, Joseph Schofer, and Johanna Zmud.
REPORT
RAND Europe's annual report, Spotlight 2011, focuses on selected present and past RAND Europe signature research. With 2012 being our 20th anniversary year, the report features some of our most recent work while reflecting on how RAND Europe has developed and remained relevant over the last two decades. It also highlights selected research and corporate activity in 2011.
REPORT
This report provides new empirical evidence from a study into the factors influencing demand for high-speed rail in the UK. The forecasts developed from these models will inform the debate around the future of high-speed rail in the UK.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This paper presents empirical findings from the comparison between two principal preference elicitation techniques: discrete choice experiments and profile-based best-worst scaling. Bes-worst scaling involves less cognitive burden for respondents and provides more information than traditional "pick-one" tasks asked in discrete choice experiments.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
In this article, we present an application of jointly estimated attitudinal and choice models to a real-world transport study, looking at the role of latent attitudes in a rail travel context. Our results show the impact that concern with privacy, liberty and security, and distrust of business, technology and authority have on the desire for rail travel in the face of increased security measures, as well as for universal security checks.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
To what extent would people sacrifice their right to privacy and liberty in exchange for potentially safer and more secure travel? This paper uses a stated choice experiment to quantify individuals' tradeoffs between privacy and security within a real-life context, namely rail travel in the UK. Using a nationwide sample, the empirical analysis yields the importance of improvements in the security infrastructure and identifies areas of…
NEWS RELEASE
The long-term efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. freight transportation system is threatened by bottlenecks, inefficient use of some parts of the infrastructure components, vulnerability to disruptions, and crucial environmental and energy concerns.
REPORT
Existing railroad infrastructure in the United States may lack sufficient capacity to accommodate the projected increase in demand for rail freight over the next several decades. Getting America Back on Track: U.S. Policy on Public Railroads discusses whether and how policymakers should invest in expanding U.S. rail infrastructure. Such investments have significant potential public benefits, but outstanding concerns exist and…
NEWS RELEASE
Pennsylvania leaders have an active role to play in coordinating public and private efforts to improve the safety and security of Pennsylvania's extensive and complex railroad system.
REPORT
Pennsylvania leaders have an active role to play in coordinating public and private efforts to improve the safety and security of Pennsylvania's extensive and complex railroad system.
MULTIMEDIA
Building on analyses that RAND conducted between 2002 and 2004, this presentation explores the options for strengthening the physical infrastructure of a potential future independent Palestinian state.
REPORT
The volume of freight transported in the United States is expected to double over the next 30 years. Greater use of rail freight could allow the supply chain to accommodate this increase while minimizing highway congestion and reducing fuel consumption.
NEWS RELEASE
U.S. communities depend on reliable, safe, and secure rail systems, but such systems are vulnerable to terrorist attack. A framework developed for rail security planners and policymakers can help guide cost-effective plans to secure their rail systems from attacks.
REPORT
U.S. communities depend on reliable, safe, and secure rail systems, but such systems are vulnerable to terrorist attack. A framework developed for rail security planners and policymakers can help guide cost-effective plans to secure their rail systems from attacks.
REPORT
How much data regarding U.S. defenses is publicly available and how easily could it be found by individuals seeking to harm U.S. domestic interests? A new framework guides assessments of the availability of such information for planning attacks on the U.S. air, rail, and sea transportation infrastructure.
RESEARCH BRIEF
This fact sheet describes a framework for assessing the availability of publicly available information for planning attacks on the U.S. air, rail, and sea transportation infrastructure and the results of applying the framework in a red-team exercise.
NEWS RELEASE
May 9, 2007 news release: RAND Supply Chain Policy Center to Research Critical Issues in Freight Transportation.
COMMENTARY
Published commentary by RAND staff: Tighten Up Mass-Transit Security, in Newsday.
REPORT
This project was undertaken to provide all the elements necessary to estimate the value of punctuality effects, and to calculate the impacts of punctuality improvements. The results have been used to develop a robust operational methodology that enables the user to assess possible alternative investments aimed at improving the quality of the suburban rail services to and from Paris.
REPORT
The development of a robust method to appraise the monetary benefits of different possible ways to improve regularity of the Paris suburban train network required values for its level of reliability. These values-of-reliability were obtained from a large-scale Stated Preference (SP) data set that was collected specifically for this project. This technical report presents the estimation results of models developed using this data set.
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