3.3 Developments in railway traflc Ë 61respect several regulations, such as limitations in utilizing highways and primary
roads, limitations in peak traffic, or obligations for driver safety breaks. Road traffic
is a disordered traffic tool. Traffic “jams” often block roads, causing a great waste of
time and economic loss. In 1991, in 37 American cities each with a population over 1
million, 91% of the cars experienced traffic jams with a total economic loss near $100
billion.
Investigations of consumer preferences for air and HSR services in Japan were
conducted by Fu [5]. Overall, airline, road traffic, and HSR modes compete actively
with each other in the distance range of 300 to 1000 km. The results show that the
rail market share was 53%, 69%, and 36% for 300–500-, 500–700-, and 700–1000-
km distance ranges, respectively. Airline’s market share was 5%, 19%, and 56%,
respectively, for the same distance ranges in intra-Japan markets. Road traffics’ market
shares are 42%, 12%, and 8%, respectively, for the same distance ranges in intra-
Japan markets. Thus, it can be seen that the HSR for 250–300-km/h speed has obvious
market advantages for the 1000-km journey.
For those reasons, more than 200 countries will construct urban railway transit
systems, and the vast majority are funded by government. Rail transportation is the
mainstream of the 21st-century transportation. All countries in the European Union
have express trains running between their major cities with several countries also
operating high-speed trains. The HSR is also being developed very rapidly in China.
3.3 Developments in railway traflc
The traditional railway has an almost 300-year history (since 1825). Railway traffic
plays an important role in human progress. Now, traditional railway traffic will be
quickly replaced by HSR. The limitations on HSR traffic will be discussed in this
section.
The advent of HSR in 1964, with its subsequent improvements in operating speed,
brought a new economic era to Japan. The Japanese technology has significantly
improved since then, and nowadays, the Shinkansen is running at 250–300 km/h.
Before the Chinese HSR, the Japanese HSR operation routes were longest in the world.
Developers of the German Intercity Express (ICE) set the goal that HSR should offer
an average traveling speed twice that of the car and half as high as that of air travel.
The German ICE test train achieved 406 km/h in 1988, and the German ICE system
achieved an average speed of 350 km/h.
The French Train Grande Vitesse (TGV) achieved a new speed record of 417 km/h
on the long line between Paris and Lyon in 1981. The French TGV system achieved an
average speed of 317 km/h. This was followed by another leap in the speed record in
1991, on an experimental run, the French TGV train established the record speed for
rail systems of 515 km/h [6]. It is worth mentioning that a new world rail speed record