A 2006 study, High Speed Rail and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the US, released by the Center for Neighborhood Technologies, found that HSR lines in Europe and Japan released 30-70 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-kilometer, versus 150 grams for automobiles and 170 grams for airplanes.

The rise in HSR has been very rapid. In just three years, between January 2008 and January 2011, the operational fleet grew from 1,737 high-speed trainsets worldwide to 2,517. Two-thirds of this fleet is found in just five countries: France, China, Japan, Germany, and Spain. By 2014, the global fleet is expected to total more than 3,700 units.

—Worldwatch Senior Researcher Michael Renner

Although there is no universal speed definition for HSR, the threshold is typically set at 250 kilometers per hour (155 mph) on new tracks and 200 km/h (124 mph) on existing, upgraded tracks. The length of HSR tracks worldwide is undergoing extensive growth in order to meet increasing demand. Between 2009 and 2011, the total length of operational track has grown from some 10,700 kilometers to nearly 17,000 kilometers. Another 8,000 kilometers is currently under construction, and some 17,700 kilometers more is planned, for a combined total of close to 43,000 kilometers. That is equivalent to about 4% of all rail lines—passenger and freight—in the world today.

By track length, the current high-speed leaders are China, Japan, Spain, France, and Germany. Other countries are joining the high-speed league as well. Turkey has ambitious plans to reach 2,424 kilometers and surpass the length of Germany’s network. Italy, Portugal, and the United States all hope to reach track lengths of more than 1,000 kilometers. Another 15 countries have plans for shorter networks.

In Europe, France continues to account for about half of all European high-speed rail travel. HSR reached 62% of the country’s passenger rail travel volume in 2008, up from just 23% in 1990, thanks to affordable ticket prices, an impressive network, and reliability. In Japan, the Shinkansen trains are known for their exceedingly high degree of reliability. JR Central, the largest of the Japanese rail operating companies, reports that the average delay per high-speed train throughout a year is just half a minute. On all routes in Japan where both air and high-speed rail connections are available, rail has captured a 75% market share.

Further highlights from the research:

• A draft plan for French transportation infrastructure investments for the next two decades allocates 52% of a total of $236 billion to HSR.

• In 2005, the Spanish government announced an ambitious plan for some 10,000 kilometers of high-speed track by 2020, which would allow 90% of Spaniards to live within 50 kilometers of an HSR station.

• Currently, China is investing about $100 billion annually in railway construction. The share of the country’s railway infrastructure investment allocated to HSR has risen from less than 10% in 2005 to 60% in 2010.

• Intercity rail in Japan accounts for 18% of total domestic passenger-kilometers by all travel modes, compared with just 5–8% in major European countries and less than 1% in the United States.

• In France, rail’s market share of the Paris-Marseille route rose from 22% in 2001 (before the introduction of high-speed service) to 69% in 2006. In Spain, the Madrid-Seville rail route’s share rose from 33 to 84%.