| High speed ground transportation (HSGT) has been recognized by European and Southeast Asian countries as a necessary component of a balanced transportation policy. The governments of these countries took the lead in promoting and funding HSGT systems. In the United States, it was hoped that the private sector will undertake the development and financing of HSGT systems. Such hopes, however, did not materialize because none of the proposed projects was implemented. Currently, there is a renewed public and private effort to reexamine the merits of high-speed rail (HSR) and magnetically levitated (maglev) systems.; Both HSR and maglev systems offer comfortable and safe ground transportation at high speed. These systems, however, differ significantly in technology, cost structure, and operational and cost sensitivity to design changes.; The dissertation objectives are to describe the characteristics of the various systems operational today, develop an operational simulation model, study the cost structure of KSR and maglev projects, and formulate a simplified cost procedure for quick and efficient preliminary feasibility analysis of potential corridors.; The operational model simulates the operation of HSGT systems, taking into consideration systems' performance characteristics, comfort criteria, and route alignment. Default performance parameters for 14 systems were obtained and included in the model. New systems can be added easily.; The simplified cost procedure relies on a database software. The procedure's overall structure is described and illustrated with a model written in dBase IV. The model is interactive. Menus are provided for efficient data input. Cost estimation is performed in two steps: first, menus are used to generate a file containing the codes of the project's main items for each segment of the route; second, the model interacts with a separate unit cost database and replaces item codes with corresponding unit costs. Finally, menus allow the user to generate various types of cost summaries. The cost model supports programs that can be used to automatically capture input errors, upgrade unit costs, and perform cost adjustments to reflect job condition, soil type, location and other factors. |
