ارزيابي اقتصادي طرح توسعه شبكه حمل و نقل ريلي كشور با در نظر گرفتن منافع ناشي از صرفه جويي انرژي

Economic Evaluation of Expansion of the Rail Network in Iran with an Emphasis on Energy Savings

In this paper, we review the traffic load in the country and determine the most important couple of routes from the perspective of freight carried and energy consumed. We then focus on assessing the feasibility of investing in a two track rail route of 1152 km from Tehran to Bandar Abbas through cost_ benefit analysis. The costs of the project during the 26 years of the construction and production phases include initial investment, costs of procuring the fleet, and operational costs of the operating phase, while benefits include revenues from freight carriage, as well as savings in energy consumption, increased security and reduced deprecation of the fleet and environmental pollution as a result of the transfer of road traffic to rail. Net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) are the two major economic indicators of the project and the discount rate applied is 11%. On the basis of anticipated traffic and costs and benefits of the project in the construction and operating phases, the project is not financially feasible but it is economically beneficial.