Economics and Behavioural Modelling GroupRail Research
For more than two decades, rail research has been one of the key areas of interest at ITS. Our involvement with the rail industry was fostered by close links with British Rail and subsequently with successor organisations. For many years, British Rail sponsored a lecturer in rail transport and a rail research fellow at ITS. Since rail privatisation we have undertaken projects on rail transport for SRA and OPRAF, ORR, Railtrack/Network Rail, Department for Transport, passenger and freight operators, the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), the British research councils, private sector consultants, ECMT and the European Commission.
Key research activities include demand forecasting and travel behaviour analysis; rail infrastructure cost modelling, efficiency analysis and pricing; project appraisal techniques and methodology; off-track and on-track competition; and transport safety, although many other fields are under study within the Institute. In many of these areas, ITS has contributed to the European research effort through its involvement in projects funded by the European Commission. Other major sources of funding are the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council and the Department for Transport.
Our key strength is in conducting rigorous, in-depth analysis using the most up-to-date approaches, often developed in-house, and applying our work to complex policy, regulatory and operating environments such as the rail industry in Britain
Rail research at ITS provides the hub of our unrivalled experience in transport economics and in particular centres on two key areas: demand and revenue forecasting, and costs and charges.
Demand and revenue forecasting
ITS has a long and distinguished history of railway demand forecasting. ITS research has made a major contribution to the recommendations and procedures contained in the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook, including the chapters on new stations and services, value of time and the impacts of service quality on rail demand. Indeed, the ‘Leeds Model’ has for many years underpinned the forecasting of the effects of external factors on rail demand. The latest edition of the handbook was edited by ITS and introduced fresh empirical work relating to fare elasticities split by ticket type, cross-elasticities between ticket type and disentangling the effects on rail demand of various external factors such as GDP, time trend, car ownership, fuel prices and road congestion. On freight where knowledge is less advanced, ITS has built a demand forecasting model, LEFT, incorporating latest evidence.
Costs and Charges
ITS has a long experience of rail cost modelling going back to pre privatisation days. This work includes analysis the structure of and of changes in rail costs, and of the influence of technological choices on them, estimation of the marginal wear and tear cost of additional traffic on rail infrastructure, regional and national benchmarking and cost comparisons, the estimation of statistical and accounting cost functions for railways and policy advice on charging for scarcity. We have worked extensively for the EC on infrastructure charges and have been responsible for advising UIC and ECMT in this area.
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Institute for Transport Studies - University of Leeds - Leeds - LS2 9JT