TITLE:
Least-Cost Path and Accessibility Analysis of a High Speed Railway Corridor: Victorville, CA to Las Vegas, NV
AUTHORS:
Max David McDonald, Fritz Connor Kessler
KEYWORDS:
Analytical Hierarchy Process, GIS, High-Speed Railway, Least-Cost Path Analysis, Route Analysis
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geographic Information System,
Vol.14 No.1,
February
24,
2022
ABSTRACT: Geospatial technology is a useful tool when identifying land corridors for transportation networks. The primary transit corridor between Los Angeles, CA and Las Vegas, NV is Interstate-15, approximately a four-hour automobile trip without traffic. Virgin Trains USA LLC proposes an alternative means of travel by constructing a high-speed railway along Interstate-15 connecting Las Vegas and Victorville, CA. This study uses least-cost path analysis to propose an optimized alternative corridor for Virgin Trains’ proposed high-speed railway through a system facilitated road and rail accessibility analysis. Previous research using least-cost path and accessibility methodologies evaluated the results of proposed high-speed railway corridors and the system facilitated accessibility changes by visually inspecting deviations from a planned corridor using single or multiple cost criteria as inputs for a weighted cost surface. However, robust analyses of previous least-cost path studies’ corridors are lacking. This proof-in-concept study proposes a less costly corridor through least-cost path analysis and measures the social impact on the stakeholders of a high-speed railway transportation system through system facilitated accessibility. This study’s proposed alternative corridor is 31% shorter than Virgin Trains’ planned corridor and system facilitated accessibility to Las Vegas, NV is increased in 99.74% of Los Angeles County’s census tracts. These results support this study’s position that geospatial technology can support transportation planning in a comprehensive method that considers the transportation corridor and benefits its stakeholders.