We may not be right about our estimates of the worst polluting commuters, at least I wasn’t, with the airplane topping my list. A study conducted by Mikhail Chester and Arpath Hovard of the University of California, Berkeley, has revealed that all our assumptions aren’t correct and it is the train not the plane that causes maximum damage.

Steam Train

The study took into consideration aspects that we never thought of before, comparing 11 modes of transportation on an equal footing. The comparison is well drawn as it considers the pollution created by factories whilst manufacturing the commuters, the distance traveled in the lifetime and even the number of passengers on each commuter in a lifetime.

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In some worlds trains are faster than airplanes, or at least definitely more convenient considering fuel and airline ticket prices, rising the way they are.

Image by Nicola Beccu

Europe’s first high speed train link from Paris to Lyon saw air traffic drop significantly. This was followed by the same phenomenon more recently in the Paris-London, Paris-Brussels and Paris-Amsterdam combinations. Madrid-Barcelona high speed trains caused an 18.4% drop in airline passengers. When I lived in Japan, Tokyo was linked to Niigata by bullet train and the air route was canceled altogether.

It’s faster to get on the train and than to going to the outer limits of the city to reach the airport, check-in, fly, check-out, etc.

Image by Dan Holder

Train speeds are pushing along faster – 300 kph (200mph) about the speed and sometimes better of small commuter airlines. In any event, can we expect trains to overtake plane routes in more places? I don’t see it happening in the States. The country is too big. However, there has been talk of a high speed train route from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

But, those talks always stall because of some special interest group. In this case, the environmentalists prevent environmentalists from trying to do ‘good.’ Then what?

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Aside the architecture in Barcelona, the next thing that impressed me was the railroad system they have in place. It gets on time, you don’t have to check in or check out and it’s fast.

Renfe is the company that invested in the new high speed train network in order to take you from Barcelona to Madrid in just two hours and a half which is much faster than a normal flight. Another advantage is the fact that if it’s a windy day or heavy rain an airplane may not be able to take off.

400 passengers will be able to travel with the new AVE S103 (pdf link) that can hit speeds of up to 350 km/h and produces four time less pollution than an airplane. The cost of a trip is going to range between $30 and $80 depending on the class you’re traveling.

The Spanish Government is prepared to spend over 80 million Euros to develop their high speed inter-city railroad so that it can take you across Spain no more than 30 miles from your final destination. Rumors say that the AVE system will also be extended to France with a line going from Barcelona to Paris any time soon.

Add to all these the fact that Renfe will reimburse your ticket if the train is 5 minutes late and I can already see how flying short distances might die.

via Inhabitat