Page 540 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

González Franco, Ignacio

4. Effect of the speed on costs

The final aim of this section is to establish the relationship between speed and the different
costs and then apply it in the study case in order to analyse the results obtained.
This section will focus on: (i) operational and Exploitation costs, (ii) investments costs.

4.1 Operational and exploitation cost

Not necessarily, an increase on the speed (commercial or maximum speed) implies increases
in operating costs. An increase in commercial speed implies a reduction in the journey time,
which entails, a reduction in the usage time of the available resources (i.e. rolling stock),
and therefore, it may cover a higher number of kilometres and increase its production (seats-
kilometre).

This effect (an increase in the speed and a reduction in costs) is even bigger in the case of on
board personnel. An increase in the commercial speed implies an increase in the kilometres
covered during its service hours, thus the annual productivity of the staff increases and,
therefore, the cost per kilometre assumed by the operator is reduced.
This can be asserted, although there are not many studies which relate both parameters. As a
relevant analysis the one performed by (Kottenhoff, 2003) can be highlighted. In the Spanish
case, others can be highlighted, on the one hand (Minayo de la Cruz, F. & García Álvarez,
2009) and on the other hand, the paper presented for the 7th High Speed Congress held in
Beijing (García Álvarez, 2010).

Besides, the doctoral thesis written by (García Álvarez, 2012) may be underlined where a
detailed analysis of the relationship between the exploitation costs and the speed of the trains
is carried out. This study defines, quantifies and provides the methodological foundations for
the calculation of the cost function and for the estimation of the influence of the speed in
them; methodology used in (Roanes-Lozano, González Franco, Hernando, García Álvarez,
& Mesa, 2013), and also used by the author in this paper.
As a summary, the cost assumed by the transport operator can be divided into two different
costs; exploitation cost and operational and, in turn, each of them can be also divided into
different items, as follows:

• Regarding exploitation costs, costs produced by the movement of the trains, the
following have been identified: (i) Costs related to train ownership; (ii) Cleaning and
maintenance costs; (iii) Traction energy costs; (iv) Train operation personnel costs.

• The operational costs are those incurred by the movement of vehicles (exploitation
cost) and by offering safe, fast and quality service. These costs include: (i) Passenger
services; (ii) Distribution, sales and access control costs; and (iii) Overhead cost.

4.1.1 Study case: Effect of the commercial speed on exploitation costs

After using the methodology defined in (García Álvarez, 2012) for each of the costs
assumed by the operator in the study case here analysed, the following results were
obtained Figure 4.

538 360.revista de alta velocidad