Railway in Sweden and Japan - a comparative study

[Kitayama]

As a part of an agreement between the ministries responsible for transport in Sweden and Japan, the Swedish Transport Analysis institute has done a comparative study between the railway systems in Sweden and Japan. "The study compares the current organization of railways in Sweden and Japan. The scope includes infrastructure and traffic organization, freight and passenger traffic solutions, and railway sector authorities." Even if you aren't interested in the railways of the obscure little country in Northern Europe, the study may be interesting to read. Many readers of this forum would already know most of the information. But, I actually learnt something new about the financing of new Shinkansen lines.

 

 http://trafa.se/PageDocuments/Report_2014_12_Railway_in_Sweden_and_Japan_-_a_comparative_study.pdf

 

[katoftw]

LOL - Japan runs so many empty trains to low use use line everyday.

 

"Second, Japan can learn from Sweden about organizing rail traffic in parts of the country where it is unprofitable to run rail traffic but where it is important for socio-economic and regional development reasons to maintain the traffic. In Japan, providing this traffic is included in the business of the railway companies; in the Swedish model, the Swedish Transport Administration determines where there should be traffic, and if no traffic can run commercially in an area that needs it, the traffic is procured through direct competition."

 

Sweden is a geographically blessed country when it comes to building HSR. It could quite easily have a single North to South line with a kink in it to move the line closer to Stockholm. This single line would service the whole cournty due to the small latteral spacing the cournty has.

Edited November 24, 2014 by katoftw