Overview

Our aim is to enhance understanding of the economics of rail transport demand and supply, rail operation and control, and the economic value of rail technical innovation and investment. Our unique perspective comes from taking a multi-disciplinary approach, in particular combining rail engineering and technical research with economics and operations, such that technical innovations that deliver social welfare gains can be identified. We also have a strong focus on the study of structural rail reforms, regulation, governance and incentives. Whilst our background over the last 50 years has been strongly in the area of rail economics, over the last 5 to 10 years this expertise has broadened to include an additional focus on railway operations including, network modelling, simulation and optimisation; digital train control; ERTMS; Signal optimisation and route choice. It has been agreed that ITS will lead the new UKRRIN Centre of Excellence in Railway Economics, Policy and Operations (CEREPO), working with Universities of Birmingham and Southampton, and drawing in other expertise from other UK Universities.

Core areas of research include:
Economic growth and welfare impacts of new rail investment
Economic appraisal/business case of rail technical innovations
Modelling railway performance (costs and efficiency)
Structure of charges, marginal cost estimation and incentives for implementation
Valuing aspects of rail (e.g. reliability, crowding, accessibility)
Rail demand forecasting, visioning futures – long term needs
Rail regulation pricing and the impact of international rail reforms
Rail operation and control
Rail operations and optimisation (“Digital Railway”)
Signalling and train control (ATO, ETCS Level 2/3)
Dynamic timetable optimisation
Application of AI in railway
Infrastrcuture resilience and value of resilience

Our impact: The UK Department for Transport’s WebTAG appraisal guidelines have for many years specified monetary valuations of travel time savings and noise directly from our research. The economic case for HS2 used these valuations. In the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook, our work on understanding trends in rail travel has underpinned the recommended elasticities to GDP over many years. Our research for the Passenger Demand Forecasting Council and the Office of Rail Redulation led to major updates in the parameters used to forecast changes in reilability; these new parameters were implemented in ORR’s 2013 Schedule 8 update. Our research on the marginal cost of vehicles running on rail networks in Europe was used to inform the European Commissions’s recasting of market access legislation. Train speed optimisation: tested on Beijing Metro Line 7 resulting in 11% reduction in traction energy consumption.