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II. Examples of Public/Private Partnerships in Transportation

C. Next Generation High-Speed Rail Program (NGHSR): New Technologies for Intercity Passenger Transportation

1. Partnership Description

The Next Generation High-Speed Rail program is not a single project, but rather an interconnected set of partnerships. Each of these projects has a different focus and different immediate goals, but they share an overarching common objective of developing commercially feasible high speed intercity passenger rail transportation for the United States. The different partnerships under the umbrella of NGHSR include:

• the Advanced Turbine Locomotive (ATL) partnership, for development of a gas turbine-powered locomotive;
• the Advanced Locomotive Propulsion System (ALPS) partnership, for development of an integrated propulsion system for the locomotive with a gas turbine engine, an energy storage flywheel, and drivetrain; and
• several Positive Train Control (PTC) partnerships.

Two case studies are discussed here: the ATL partnership and the Illinois PTC partnership.

The model for these projects is based on high-speed non-electric locomotives (to avoid the high capital costs of electrification) with advanced energy storage systems to enhance acceleration capabilities to levels comparable to electric locomotives. Additional benefits of this concept are reduced energy consumption and emissions. PTC technologies, similar to those being introduced in highway and transit settings under Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), make it possible for railroad operators to use the current infrastructure more efficiently by running trains (including the high-speed trains of the future) more safely at closer separation distances from each other. The different partnerships seek to leverage the resources and expertise of the federal government, private sector railroad vehicle and equipment manufacturers, private sector railroad companies, and the academic/research community to develop the technologies and operating procedures required for successful and safe implementation of high- speed rail.

The ATL partners are the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation and Bombardier Transit Corporation. The partners for Illinois Joint PTC are: FRA (federal government); Illinois Department of Transportation (state government), and Union Pacific (UP) Railroad and the Association of American Railroads, or AAR (private sector). AAR is the industry organization of the major North American railroad companies, including UP.

The ATL is very simply structured, since it has only two partners. Bombardier conducts the R&D work, with 50-50 cost sharing between FRA and Bombardier. This partnership was instituted based on an advertised competitive solicitation by FRA for a partner with locomotive construction capabilities to build on the work of FRA's ongoing Advanced Locomotive Propulsion Systems (ALPS) project. Another major locomotive manufacturer had been a founding partner in the ALPS development efforts, but was not able to continue its involvement. The solicitation was addressed to all major North American locomotive manufacturers but the only response was from Bombardier, which proposed to implement FRA's goals regarding advanced propulsion systems while expanding the program objectives to install those technologies in an entirely new prototype locomotive.

The NAJPTC program has significant state government participation via Illinois DOT. All of the partners provide funding; Union Pacific Railroad is providing use of the 123-mile infrastructure segment on which the system will be tested, and Amtrak is providing access to its revenue service passenger trains, which will be equipped with the system. A joint program office has been set up at the AAR's subsidiary, Transportation Technology Center, Inc. in Pueblo, Colorado, to manage the demonstration program as well as to develop industry-wide PTC interoperability standards.

The ATL partnership has an estimated cost of $26 million, with 50-50 cost sharing between FRA and Bombardier. The project is phased to achieve an operating locomotive in 2000 which combines the best present state-of-the-art propulsion components including a 5,000 horsepower turbine engine and advanced power-handling electrical systems. Subsequent phases will incorporate the products of the ALPS program into the locomotive: a very high power density direct-drive generator (the generator rotor will spin at 15,000 rpm) followed by the addition of an energy-storage flywheel system also operating at very high rotational speeds. The advanced generator and the flywheel system will expand existing capabilities by orders of magnitude. This phased program approach increases program technical risk at manageable intervals while delivering concrete, visible progress (and hopefully success) before each new step is attempted.

The NAJPTC is estimated to cost $60 million over four years, with FRA funding covering 47% of the costs, Illinois DOT funding 20%, and railroad funding through AAR covering 33%. Union Pacific, in addition to funding they are providing through AAR, also provides the railroad track segment on which the test and demonstration will be conducted. Amtrak is providing access to its revenue-service passenger trains, which will be equipped with the system.

The primary federal objective for the NGHSR program as a whole is to enhance the mobility and efficiency of the nation's transportation system by improving the effectiveness and reducing the cost of the key elements of high-speed rail systems for intercity passenger travel in high volume intercity passenger corridors, thus reducing the demand for added highway and airport capacity. Safety, energy efficiency and emissions improvements are sought as collateral benefits of implementing the new technologies. The goal of the locomotive and equipment manufacturers is to develop technologies, and new applications for existing technologies, with potential for a sizable future market. The goal of the railroad industry is to develop technologies and operating procedures that can enhance the safety and efficiency of their operations. The state government participant in the NAJPTC program, Illinois DOT, needs the PTC system to accomplish its goal of high speed passenger service on the demonstration route because federal safety rules require enhanced train control systems wherever any train will operate at speeds greater than 79 mph. Illinois DOT also wishes to improve rail safety, and grade crossing safety in particular; enhance the efficiency of the state's freight transportation network, and reduce environmental burdens.

The FRA NGHSR program began in 1995. Secretary of Transportation Slater announced the FRA-Bombardier partnership in October 1998. The ATL project is assembling a prototype locomotive which will first operate in 2000, with subsequent phases incorporating the advanced propulsion system components through 2002. The NAJPTC project is expected to install and fully safety-validate a demonstration system by the end of 2002 to support the introduction of high-speed revenue passenger service.

2. Discussion of Challenges

In the ATL partnership, there is a clear convergence of motivations. FRA wants to develop a feasible high-speed rail option for the intercity passenger market. This is also in Bombardier's interest, because it creates a market for new locomotives as well as passenger coaches to be produced by Bombardier, which has invested extensively in completing designs and establishing production facilities. In addition, the new turbine locomotive and coach designs have potential for export to other countries, including developing countries, which are interested in providing high-speed rail passenger service without the high capital investments associated with electrification.

There are also diverging objectives in the ATL partnership. Bombardier wishes to preserve its potential market share by exerting strong proprietary control of any high-speed rail technologies developed through the partnership. It is in the federal interest to standardize the new technologies and increase competition, so that railroads including Amtrak and state sponsors of high speed rail can have more potential suppliers in the future; competition among suppliers will help to assure the cost-effectiveness of high speed rail operations. Bombardier is also interested in a producible locomotive that will meet demanding railroad operating and maintenance requirements; the success in this regard of the very advanced propulsion system components resulting from the ALPS program remains to be demonstrated.

In the NAJPTC program, the railroads want to acquire useful technologies that can be applied to enhance the safety and efficiency of their operations. Cost effectiveness is a program watchword; earlier attempts at PTC demonstration and implementation failed because cost-effectiveness could not be shown. The railroads have a declared objective of producing open-architecture, non-proprietary technology to the maximum possible extent to achieve long-term cost effectiveness for the general railroad system. Illinois DOT requires a successful PTC system to implement the high speed service they plan for the Chicago - St. Louis corridor, as well as improving the general safety of railroad operations in the state. Grade crossing safety is a particular issue for two reasons. First, the prospect of many additional high-speed train operations might represent increased risk. Second, Illinois was the site of two recent tragic grade crossing accidents: one in which a school bus was struck by a commuter train, killing seven children, and one in which an Amtrak passenger train struck a tractor-trailer, killing sixteen passengers. One potential source of conflict in the program is that Illinois DOT has an announced schedule requirement to support the start of high-speed passenger service. This does not directly benefit the railroads, which are interested in improved freight service at conventional speeds.

For both ATL and NAJPTC, the resource and funding contributions are clearly defined, minimizing the potential for conflict. There are significant contributions by all partners, which illustrates that all partners attach importance to the projects and are willing to contribute for the innovations that result. This is partly because the projects focus on near-term development of deployable technologies rather than on long-term, basic research with uncertain payoffs.

Success in obtaining funding has resulted from all partners being willing to obtain funding through their respective budget processes. In the NAJPTC program, the federal budget process, the state budget process, and the industry-association budget process of the AAR often rival each other in complexity and no two of the three operate on the same annual schedules. In addition, Illinois must obtain internal state approval for the expenditure of federal grant funds. Obtaining consistency to achieve appropriate funding levels at appropriate times from the three independent processes is a major program challenge, in view of a declared target date for program implementation.

The partnership with Bombardier for the ATL, like the partnership with DaimlerChrysler for CIREN discussed earlier, involves the federal government and a foreign (in this case Canadian) company, raising some of the same questions mentioned earlier. Similarly, it is also a partnership between the government and one of several competing supply companies to a major transportation industry, rather than with an industry association representing more than one company. The relationship between FRA and Bombardier was established by a competitive public solicitation in which efforts were made to assure that all major North American manufacturers were well aware that the solicitation was taking place.

The NAJPTC partnership between FRA, AAR, Illinois DOT, Union Pacific, and Amtrak has competitive issues as well. Early in the NGHSR program, a train control demonstration project was awarded to Illinois after an open solicitation from FRA to states advising of the availability of funding for train control demonstrations. A similar project, using a different technology approach, was begun and is continuing in Michigan. FRA is working to assure that the two projects in the two states are coordinated.

The Illinois project began on railroad owned by Southern Pacific Railroad (SPRR). As SPRR was merged into UPRR, FRA and Illinois DOT worked to enlist UPRR in the planned demonstration. UPRR and FRA successfully sought AAR involvement, and funding, to broaden the project scope to include industry-wide standards efforts and to insure that the project results would be more applicable for the industry as a whole.

The original demonstration project as conceived by Illinois DOT was to be built by the winner of an open competition among railroad signaling and train control suppliers. The project continues to follow this approach, with a competitively selected System Engineering support contractor team, and the competitive selection in the near term of a System Design and Integration (SDI) contractor (or team). This award is eagerly sought by the suppliers because of the involvement of all major railroads of the industry and FRA, and the obvious likely competitive consequences for train control systems into the 21st Century. The open-architecture approach also maximizes competition after the initial demonstration system is constructed, because other suppliers will be able to produce hardware modules to comply with open industry specifications. The project is exercising extreme care to assure that the competition is conducted fairly to address the extreme competitive issues presented by this situation for the industry supply companies.

3. Conclusions

The ATL is a rare example of a partnership with equal financial contributions by the partners involved. It shows that it is possible (though not necessarily common) for the public sector and the private sector to have sufficiently convergent motivations for them to give equal emphasis to a given partnership. Note, however, that the 50-50 sharing ratio currently in the ATL program applies for the first program phases which deal with moderate risk technologies and result in an operable locomotive at an early date. The sharing ratios may well change as the revolutionary new propulsion technologies resulting from the ALPS program become available for testing, unless they achieve outstanding initial operating successes.

The NAJPTC program is an excellent example of federal government, state government, and private sector railroads and supply organizations moving forward to address common interests. It also is a good example of technologies being applied by one mode of transportation with major implications for other modes. PTC applies computers, digital radio, and automatic location systems such as Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPS) in ways which are closely related to highway and transit efforts toward Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). To succeed in the PTC environment, these technologies must deliver very high quality performance in harmony with each other, on many vehicles, over wide geographic territories, and with extremely high reliabilities. Success in the PTC environment will foreshadow success in many other venues. There are significant opportunities for synergy, particularly at highway-rail grade crossings, as the technologies are developed and deployed. Opportunities are being pursued to coordinate operations across modes, making use of the enhanced location information and advanced communications networks that are being installed. In this sense, the development of infrastructure and communication protocols for PTC is a step towards even more sophisticated communication and control systems for the future.

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