Double Digit Ridership Increase Leaves London-Paris-Brussels High Speed Rail Behind Projections

Wendell Cox — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:03:53 -0500

The Eurostar, the high speed rail service that links London with Paris and Brussels remains more than 60 percent below its ridership projections as of 2010, according to recently released ridership information. This is despite a double digit (12 percent increase in ridership between 2009 and 2010.

According to a Parliamentary inquiry, consultants projected that Eurostar ridership would reach nearly 25 million passengers by 2006. As of 2010, ridership still languishes below 10 million, at 9.5 million. Rosy ridership and revenue estimates have often occurred with major infrastructure projects, especially rail projects, as has been documented in research by Flyvbjerg et al.

In 2009, the government of the United Kingdom has assumed £5.2 billion in debts of the builder/operator of the high-speed rail Channel Tunnel link to St. Pancras Station. This is in addition to the £1.7 billion that had been granted by the government to the builder/operator to extend the line.

World Urban Areas and Population Projections

Mark Schill — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:27:51 -0400

Our colleague and frequent NewGeography contributor Wendell Cox of Demographia.com recently released the latest edition of his World Urban Areas and Population Projections publication.

This 5th comprehensive edition includes:

Ranking of the largest world urban areas (over 2,000,000 population).

Population, urban land area and density estimates for all 763 identified urban areas with more than 500,000 population, comprising 49 percent of the world urban population.

Population, urban land area and density estimates for 1,370 urban areas of all sizes, comprising 53 percent of the world urban population.

Population projections for the world’s largest urban areas in 2025 & 2030 (over 2,000,000 population).

Summary of United Nations world population projections and summary by gross domestic product, purchasing power parity (from 4th Edition)

Charts on urban density and prosperity (from 2nd Edition)

Documentation

Check it out.