Multicriteria evaluation of the high speed rail, transrapid maglev and hyperloop systems

Abstract

This paper presents the multicriteria evaluation of the High Speed Rail (HSR), TransRapid Maglev (TRM) and Hyperloop (HL) passenger transport system assumed to operate as the mutually exclusive alternatives along the given line/corridor. For such a purpose the methodology is synthesized consisting of the analytical models of indicators of performances of these systems used as the evaluation criteria and the multicriteria Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method. Given the characteristics of infrastructure and rolling stock/fleet of vehicles/trains reflecting the systems’ infrastructural and technical/technological performances, the indicators of operational, economic, environmental, and social performances are defined and modelled respecting the interests and preferences of the particular actors/stakeholders involved. These are users/passengers, the systems’ transport operators, local, regional, and national authorities and investors, and community members. The proposed methodology is applied to the line/corridor Moscow – St. Petersburg (Russia) by assuming that three HS systems exclusively operate there according to “what-if’ scenario approach. The results indicate that, under given conditions, the HL is the preferable compared to the TRM and HSR alternative.