George Osborne’s proposal for a high speed rail line across the north of England makes a lot of sense. It will come far too late to resolve our present economic worries, but better train links are crucial…
As a young university student, I first visited Guangzhou during the mid-1990s and found it a gloomy and unsettling place. The third world, undoubtedly. When I went back again in 2010, it was transformed…
Despite impressive economic growth rates over the last decade, a third of Laos’s population still lives below the extreme poverty line of US$1.25 per day. Most of the extreme poor Laos are ethnic minorities…
The HS2 project survives. Despite ferocious attacks, the initial High Speed Rail (Preparation) Act 2013 was passed in November and the Hybrid Bill – where the real arguments are debated – is now going…
The expansion of UK airports could mean breaching climate targets, Climate Change Committee head David Kennedy has said. Ahead of a full report next summer that would examine the airport expansion plans…
Professor Peter Mackie Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds Leeds and its metropolitan region should be one of the big winners from HS2. Financial and legal services, engineering consultancy…
The last half century has seen the gradual development of high-speed rail (HSR) systems. From the inauguration of the first “bullet train” services in Japan in 1964 to the recent rapid developments in…
Next year, high-speed rail travel will celebrate its 50th birthday. In 1964, Japan put into service the first Shinkansen line, from Tokyo to Osaka. Its trains initially operated at speeds of up to 210…
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and co-founder of PayPal, has announced his vision for a new high-speed ground transportation system called “Hyperloop”. The system would connect Los Angeles to San Francisco…
A commitment to building a new wave of high-speed rail networks has emerged, such as HS2 in Britain. But given how costly they are, their wider impact has been under-investigated. It is little wonder that…
Transport megaprojects tend to make rather gloomy reading. The prevailing opinion, at least among social scientists, is that all big infrastructure projects share three characteristics: they take longer…
Welcome to the second in our new series of video collaborations with SBS. In this episode, Dr Rico Merkert, Senior Lecturer in Aviation Management at the University of Sydney, gives his view on the Australian…
There is no doubt that the creation of a 1748-kilometre high-speed rail network connecting Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne is an exciting endeavour. But given the large capital costs - $114 billion…
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese today released the second phase report for Australia’s High Speed Rail Study. The AECOM report plots out a preferred route from Brisbane to Melbourne, predicts how many…
East coast Australian cities could one day be linked by high speed rail, but with a price tag of $114 billion and a 40 year timeframe, according to a study released by the Transport Minister Anthony Albanese…
Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney