Thank you very much for inviting me, members of the transport committee of the Canadian Parliament. It's a pleasure.
Let me introduce myself first. My name is Friedemann Brockmeyer. I am a director of Civity Management Consultants. Civity is a management boutique from Berlin, Germany, that is entirely focused on the mobility and infrastructure sector. We are working with all clients in the rail and public transport ecosystem in Europe. That means infrastructure management, ministries, railway undertakings, industrial players and all the important actors.
I presently have a very long track record of more than a decade in analyzing high-speed projects and newbuild projects, especially regarding capex and total cost of ownership. We've worked for several infrastructure managers in Europe: smaller ones like Bane NOR in Norway, but also larger ones like Network Rail, Deutsche Bahn and High Speed Two.
We have a lot of experience from several projects in Europe. I cannot share any experience from Asia. I think it's always worth looking into, but today I can share with you some highlights, findings and lessons learned from the European perspective on this.
First of all, I think it's a great chance for Canada to think about rail, because you have a very large country but are still very fortunate that the vast share of your population is in a very small corridor from Quebec to Windsor. It's always good to have a lot of people in the same area if you want to connect them by rail. In the end, we have to compare all the solutions by rail with other modes of transport, and you always have to be very sure that it's the best solution for transport and connecting these urban centres.
What I can share from the experience from Europe is that there are, let's say, two different kinds of high-speed rail systems. One is more the French style, let's say, so it's a little like wires connecting Paris to the rest of the country. There are long stretches and very high speeds. You can find the same in Spain, for example, connecting Madrid, the capital, to other cities, with longer distances.
Then we have other systems. If you're looking to Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria, we have more intercity services, metro-like services, and that means where we have densely populated areas and where we are connecting major urban population centres directly. There's a linear line layout. That means that if you have all the cities.... Let's say it's a string of pearls. For example, if you're looking into the whole corridor, it's coming down from Amsterdam like a wire to Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich and Vienna. This is a very long line, where we'll have maybe in the future one service, for example. It's a different approach.
The first lesson I would like to share with you from what I have learned so far from the Canadian plans is that it would be to your advantage to think about a linear line layout connecting Toronto via Ottawa to Montreal and Quebec. Don't have those direct connections: Have a linear line layout so that all the cities are on the same string of pearls. Then have very high frequency—30 or 60 minutes.
The second point is really to think about speed. As far as I know, you're calling this project high frequency rail because you're not planning a very high speed, or a high speed, let's say, of up to 200 kilometres per hour. High speed is a very useful instrument if the topography is easy.
As far as I know—and I've been looking at your maps—you have a very flat terrain in the corridor. If you have a flat terrain, that means you don't have to build a lot of viaducts and tunnels. If you have to build a lot of viaducts and tunnels, then it very easily becomes very expensive to build high-speed rail. If you're looking into your terrain, then I would assume that it's not that complicated to build high-speed rail for, let's say, a very reasonable price, and to improve the overall effectiveness of your commercial operations.
Another point is to look into capacity constraints. That's also something we learned bitterly in Europe. Often, we build high-speed rail from outskirts to outskirts and there's still the use of a legacy network in the metropolitan area. These urban stretches define the capacity of a high-speed or high-frequency rail network. This means that, if you want to have a successful business case and motion on the inter-corridor, you have to address this. You have to think about how you can use innovative methods, such as longer platforms and bi-level terrains, to increase the capacity and thus the overall economic benefits of the system.
The last point is also something that's very important. We often look into these projects from a capex perspective or a speed perspective. However, in the end it's all about customer satisfaction. What do I mean by customer satisfaction? Customer satisfaction means having a reliable service that is on time and at frequent intervals. This means you need long-term planning. First of all, you should start from the timetable. Which timetable do you want to offer, and what journey times? When you have this timetable, it's then about the infrastructure, rolling stock and speed you need in order to be competitive against other modes of transport, and also to be competitive against the existing system. These are the advantages.
It's also very worth—