Handbook on High-Speed Rail and Quality of Life

In addition to meeting the rapidly growing demand for high-quality infrastructure, researchers, policy makers, and all stakeholders must consider its implications and contributions to the overall enhancement of quality of life.

Handbook on High-Speed Rail and Quality of Life outlines global experiences of high-speed rail development, including its construction, impacts, and planning, with a special focus on countries that are planning implementation in the coming decade. High-speed rail infrastructure can bring considerable socioeconomic benefits that cannot be captured through econometric modeling alone. Thus, analysis of the true impacts requires a scalar as well as a temporal lens. The studies in this handbook discuss transport infrastructure projects of varying geographic scale and describe the underlying complexities of developing an infrastructure system while focusing on the aspects that can enhance quality of life.

The cases, concepts, and ideas presented in this handbook were discussed and refined during a conference and seminar series held at the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo and special sessions on transport and quality of life at the 15th World Conference on Transport Research at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in Mumbai. The special sessions were jointly organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute and World Conference on Transport Research Society Special Interest Group A4, “High-Speed Rail: Policy, Investment, and Impacts”. The conference and special sessions highlighted critical issues and delivered key messages on the broad research on high-speed rail and quality of life.