Location investigation of a high-speed rail using cost surface analysis: Case study Hässleholm-Lund

Abstract: The urge for more sustainable and environmental-friendly transportation has never been as high as it is today. The demand will probably continue to increase as the knowledge about climate change continues to widen and as the expectations, of mitigation and adaptation measures, intensifies. One sector that is in great need of taking more mitigation and adaptation measures is the transport sector. The transport sector is one of the heaviest emitters in the world. The most dominant emitter in the sector is by far the airplanes and the trucks used for freights. The focus is therefore to make the means of environmental friendly transport more effective and profitable for the public. A solution to this problem is the high-speed rail (HSR) that is being built and used in different parts of the world today. The overall purpose for this project is to plan out where the best placement of an HSR would be between the cities of Hässleholm-Lund with extra focus on the nature and Swedish laws. The HSR is to be plotted with 6 different cost rasters based on 6 different scenarios, some of which avoids protected areas and some that avoids the agricultural land use types. These 6 scenarios are then combined with the slope to avoid the slopes that are steeper than 2 degrees. Which means that in total there are 12 different scenarios that makes up 12 different cost rasters. To conclude this work; using this method, the time variations will lie around 2 minutes, which in this case translates to about 15-20 % depending on which scenario. This research also shows that, with this method, it should be possible to save the protected areas without setting aside the important criteria and variables.