Railway lines across the alps: Analysis of their usage through a new railway link cost function

In this paper, the usage of railway lines across the Alps is evaluated, both at present and after the new lines and base tunnels will be in operation. The railway network of a large part of Europe has been modelled through a graph, and the best routes between some of the most important origin/destination pairs in Italy and Europe have been determined. A new cost function has been developed for the links of the network. The proposed cost function is an improvement of those existing in the literature, because all cost components are taken into account in detail, while the traction cost and the number of locomotives utilized explicitly depend on the geometrical characteristics of rail lines. This last aspect is crucial in analyzing the rail lines across the Alps, as they are often operated in double or triple traction. The results of the study show the importance of new Alpine rail lines and base tunnels: the Ceneri base tunnel will remove a bottleneck on the Gotthard line, while the Brenner and Frejus base tunnels will take up a quota of demand currently served by other lines. Moreover, the new Alpine lines will create an east-west rail connection, through the Italian Padan Plain, alternative to the rail route which currently bypasses the Alps to the north.