Relationship between rail service operating direct costs and speed

The purpose of this study is to establish an approach to the function of rail operating direct costs for passenger transport, focusing on medium and long distance transport, and identifying inducing factors on which such costs depend; and particularly establishing the relationship between operating direct costs and train speed. This does therefore involve identification and analysis of operating direct costs on passenger services (long distance and regional) by analyzing how they are influenced by factors such as average speed, number of stops, infrastructure features, the size of trains or route configuration. Operating direct costs will be examined excluding costs arising from infrastructure use over the marginal cost; and excluding any commercial costs related to passenger services and ticket sales, which are considered indirect cost. Cost differences exist between countries, and even in the same country costs may evolve differently over time. The study will therefore use orders of magnitude and they will only be specified when data is available from certain specific countries.