Northeast Corridor Mass Transportation System Analysis Final Report May 9th, 2019 Natalee Coffman (Co-Team Lead) Yaovi Kodjo (Co-Team Lead) Jacob Noble Jaehoon Choi Sponsored By: Dr. George Donohue GMU/CATSR Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research 1 | Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to thank the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research (CATSR), specifically Professor George Donohue for his endless technical guidance and for sponsoring this project. We also thank the George Mason University Engineering Department faculty professors (Dr. Rajesh Ganesan, Hadi El Amine and Kuo-Chu Chang) for helping with our simulation and utility function approach. The authors would like to thank the Maryland Department of Transportation, specifically the Anne Arundel County Office of Transportation, for giving us the opportunity to brief our project and for providing us with constructive feedback. Our thanks go as well to Richard Cogswell from the Federal Rail Administration for giving us deep insight into the critical rail infrastructure that plagues the Northeast Corridor. Page | 2 George Mason University Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 2 Executive Summary 6 Gap Analysis Methodology 7 1 - Background 9 1.1 Air Transportation 9 1.2 Rail Transportation 14 1.3 Automobile Transportation 17 2 - Statement of Work 22 2.1 Problem Statement 22 2.2 Need Statement 22 2.3 Project Scope 22 2.4 Project Mission Requirement 22 3 - Stakeholder Analysis and Tension 24 3.1 Passengers/Corridor Population 24 3.2 Competitors 24 3.3 Regulators 24 3.4 Government/Congress 24 4 - Design Alternatives 27 4.1 Background and Selection approach 27 4.2 Design Alternative: Maglev 27 4.2.1 Technical Background 27 4.2.2 Comparison With Conventional High-Speed Rail (HSR) 29 4.2.2.1 Technical Aspects - Acceleration 30 4.2.2.2 Technical Aspects - Flexibility in Track Alignment 31 4.2.2.3 Environmental Impacts - Barrier Effect (Physical Separation of Landscape & Cityscape) 31 4.2.2.4 Environmental Impact - Need for Construction of Structures 31 4.2.2.5 Economic Aspects - Operation Costs 32 4.2.2.6 Aspects of User Friendliness - Travel Time 32 4.2.2.7 Aspects of User Friendliness - Image and Attractiveness 32 4.2.2.8 Operations - Achievable speeds in Urbanized Areas 32 4.2.2.9 Operations - Ability to Create a Connected High-Speed Transportation Infrastructure 33 4.2.2.10 Political Aspects - Political Feasibility 34 4.2.2.11 Political Aspects - External Economic Effects 35 Page | 3 4.2.2.12 Impact on the Northeast Corridor - Capacity & Travel Time 35 4.3 Design Alternative: Repair Acela Roadbed & Implement New Avelia Liberty Fleet 35 4.3.1 Context of Acela Design Alternative 35 4.3.2 History of Amtrak in the United States 36 4.3.3 Technical Specifications 38 4.3.3.1 Avelia Liberty - Travel Time 39 4.3.3.2 Avelia Liberty - Trainset Capacity 40 4.4 Design Alternative: ICE 3 High-Speed Rail 41 4.4.1 Context of High-Speed rail in the United States 41 4.4.2 Technical Specifications 41 4.4.2.1 ICE 3 - Trainset Capacity 41 4.4.2.1 ICE 3 - Travel Time 42 5 - Capital and Operating Costs 43 5.1 Capital Cost 43 5.1.1 High Speed Rail Cost 43 5.1.1.1 Electrification, Signalization, Power substations 43 5.1.1.2 Grade Separations 46 5.1.1.3 Earthwork 48 5.1.1.4 Track and the Right of Way 48 5.1.1.5 Utility Relocation, Miscellaneous and Stations 50 5.1.1.6 Design, Fees, and System Contingency 50 5.1.1.7 Maintenance Facilities, and Control Centers. 50 5.1.1.8 Special Structures: Elevated Structures, Retaining Wall, and Special Bridges and Tunnels on the NEC 51 5.1.1.9 Trains / Rolling Stock 51 5.1.1.10 Overall Contingency 51 5.1.1.11 Summary 51 5.1.2 Acela 53 5.1.3 Maglev 55 5.2 Operating Cost 60 5.3 Economic Analysis (Break-Even Point) 62 6 - Utility Analysis 68 6.1 Utility Function Methodology 68 6.2 System Comparison - Technical Aspects 71 6.2.1 Braking Performance 71 6.2.2 Train Weight 73 6.2.3 Wear and Degradation 73 Page | 4 6.2.4 Operating Travel Speed 74 6.3 Technical Readiness 76 6.3.1 Technology Readiness Assessment (TRA) 77 6.3.2 Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 80 6.4 Environmental Impact 81 6.4.1 Land Consumption 81 6.4.2 Energy Consumption, Noise Emission, and Pollutant Emissions 82 6.4.3 Interference with Natural Environment 84 6.4.4 Electromagnetic, Magnetics, and Electric Fields 84 6.5 Economic Aspects 87 6.5.1 Chances of Acquiring Grants and Ability to Use Existing Track 87 7- Simulation Analysis and Results 98 7.1 Simulation Overview 98 7.2 Simulation Part 1: Predicting Passenger Choice 100 Background/Overview 100 Assumptions 102 Process 102 Discussion and Results 107 Limitations 113 7.3 Simulation Part 2: Frequency of Service 113 7.4 Simulation Part 3: Rail System Capacity 116 Testing 128 Conclusions 130 Northeast Corridor Mass Transportation Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Proposed Plan 132 Table 26: Transportation Impact of HSR [85] 133 Models of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) 134 Table of Public-Private Partnership Models [85] 136 Management 139 6.2 Project Critical Path 141 6.3 Project Budget 141 6.4 CPI/SPI 143 6.5 Project Risk Management 144 References 152 Page | 5 Executive Summary In the 20th century, the United States (USA) led the revolution in highway constructions and in the aviation industry. However, in the 21st century, the United States is lagging behind in mass transportation investments. In particular, high-speed rail and its overall infrastructure are no longer competitive and need approximately $300 billion for repair [1]. This design study is addressing the critical need of this country by focusing its scope on the Northeast Corridor (NEC) which is the busiest rail corridor in the USA [2]. The NEC intercity transportation infrastructure is no longer responding to the growing population need. This project will analyse the choke points of the current forms of transportation and analyse potential new transportation systems by simulating all modes of transportation that can access the major cities along the Northeast Corridor (Air, Automobile, Rail), specifically between District of Columbia (D.C) to New York City (NYC). Finally, a trade-off analysis has been performed using a developed utility function. Since the introduction of the Acela Express in 2000, rail has captured over 75 percent of the high speed (air and rail) market between Washington DC and New York City [18]. There are a few hypotheses to be made on this relative growth of Acela. The first hypothesis is the more comparable travel time (door-to-door) of Acela Express and air travel shown in figure 13. The second hypothesis is the improved consistency. Further analysis will be done to accept or reject these hypotheses. However, it is assumed that the rail share may grow even larger with further rail improvements. Figure 13. Block Time Travel between Washington DC and New York City As mentioned in the ASCE’s Infrastructure report card, Amtrak improvements are limited primarily by funding. In this project, the team has analysed rail alternatives and Page | 6 developed a cost-benefit ratio for each alternative. The alternatives identified so far are: Amtrak improvements (Trainset & rail segments), a new Maglev line, and a new high-speed rail line. Gap Analysis Methodology To examine the gap between the growing population and available high-speed seats, several datasets had to be synthesized. For the Air capacity data, the three major airports out of Washington DC, as well as the three major airports that serve New York City (NYC), were examined. The NYC airports are: LaGuardia (LGA), John F. Kennedy (JFK), and Newark (EWR). The DC airports are: Dulles (IAD), Reagan (DCA), and Baltimore/Washington International (BWI). The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has a publicly available database of “Summary Statistics Origin and Destination Airport” [3]. This database provides flight counts based on origin and destination, as well as time range. For the purpose of this analysis, all 18 origin-destination permutations were accessed. Due to the format of the database interface, the retrieved data would automatically be aggregated across the given date range. To work around this, the database was accessed 8 times for each of the 18 Origin-Destination combinations. Each date range used was from January 1st (start year) to January 1st (end year) for each start-end year pair from “2010-2011” to “2017-2018.” Combining these data points produces a table of all direct flights by year, between the major airports of NYC and Washington DC. The average seats per flight data (by year) was taken from the MIT Airline Data Project (ADP) [4]. Multiplying total yearly flights by total yearly seats per flight, total seats by year were found. This measurement is considered the maximum air transport capacity between Washington DC and New York City for a given year. The maximum capacity for the Acela Express was calculated using data from Amtrak’s “Monthly Performance Report September FY17”[5]. This report shows Acela ridership as well as load factor. The maximum Acela capacity is calculated by dividing ridership by load factor [6]. The percent of high speed public transportation moveable population was calculated by summing the maximum air transport capacity and the maximum Acela capacity, and dividing this quantity by the total population. Ridership Shift As the total number of available air transport seats has decreased, the total Acela ridership has increased.