Russia is starting to implement a project of creating a high–speed highway Moscow – St. Petersburg, that is the first stage in the HSR network development. At the next stages will be created lines from Moscow to Yekaterinburg, Adler, Minsk and Ryazan. The total length of the HSR network is expected to be 4.7 thousand km. The HSR development is a response to the growing demand of business and population for a higher level of mobility and is a large–scale and expensive project.
Studying the experience of different countries in HSR developing allows us to form the idea of current issues of the payback and effectiveness in such projects. The experience of China, Spain and France and other countries indicates the availability of approaches to improve the efficiency of HSR construction: the larger the length of the network, the lower the unit cost of creation, due to standardization and scaling of the applied technical solutions.The usage of public–private partnership mechanisms on the example of France or China makes it possible to attract private investment at the stage of creating HSR lines, and also to share risks with a private partner at the stage of maintenance. The application of modern organizational and legal models and the separation of the functions of the HSR operator and the carrier allow projects to achieve a payback on operating costs, both in terms of maintenance HSR lines and in terms of passenger transportation. However, only selected projects in Japan, China and France were able to ensure a return on investment related to capital construction, while national HSR networks are far from payback.
At the same time, despite restrained estimates on the payback of such projects, the start of HSR development projects implementation in Russia will potentially become a factor in accelerating the development of the regions in which the lines will pass due to additional tax revenues, the increase in employment and in the tourist flow. The use of PPP mechanisms will make it possible to attract private investment in the implementation of the project, which will increase the indicators of social and budgetary effectiveness. The creation of the network will be a factor in the development of technologies in construction, engineering and IT. HSR will also ensure an increase in the coherence of regions with a population of approximately 100 million people. Thus, based on international experience, the combined effects of HSR construction in Russia will potentially justify the implementation of these large–scale projects.
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