High Speed Rail UK

The pressing need to reduce our carbon footprint sits high on the UK agenda. HSR has a key role to play in protecting our environment and supporting the Government’s bid to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

London’s growing population is putting escalating pressure on the south east’s housing market and transport infrastructure. The number of rail users has grown to its highest level for more than a generation, and services are increasingly congested, unreliable and unable to cope with the overcrowding. Meanwhile the environment is paying the price for the overload of motor vehicles on our roads. If the UK economy is to fully achieve its potential, it must be underpinned by a transport infrastructure that not only meets the needs of business and leisure travellers, but is also sustainable.

Over 22million domestic air trips are made every year in the UK; shorter journey times can result in a massive switch to rail travel. The overseas experience has shown that when high-speed links mean a journey can be made in less than three hours, railways capture 50 to 60 per cent of the market from airlines – a figure that grows to 90 per cent if the journey takes less than two hours. And in a country the size of the UK, no two major cities need be more than three hours apart via HSR. The environmental savings become clear when we consider that the average short-haul plane journey emits 120g of CO2 per passenger kilometre compared to just 30g for HSR. And as high-speed trains are powered by electricity, their carbon efficiency will improve over time as the UK progressively decarbonises its electricity supply.