Investigation of the impact of traffic composition on the economic profitability of a new railway corridor

This paper investigates, with the help of a mathematical model, the impact of traffic composition on the economic profitability of a new railway corridor. The model permits, for various exploitation scenarios (mixed traffic operation, dedicated passenger operation, dedicated freight operation), first, the calculation of the economic profitability of each scenario (net present value (NPV) and the internal rate of return of the investment), and second, the selection, on the basis of demand for passenger and/or freight to be transported via rail on the new corridor, the exploitation scenario that presents the highest economic profitability. The obtained results show that the basic criterion for the selection of the optimum scenario concerns the characteristics of transportation demand (type of goods and volume transported) and, second, the topography of the landscape. Specifically, for average demand values, mixed exploitation scenarios present the highest NPV, whereas for high demand values, dedicated operation scenarios are the most profitable. Furthermore, the dedicated freight operation scenarios presents a higher NPV compared with passenger operation scenarios when the ratio of the demand of the number of passengers to freight tonnes approaches 1:3 (traffic train composition percentage of 50:50), this favours mixed operation scenarios.