The National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited of India is implementing an HSR corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad with the help of Japan International Cooperation Agency. A four-stage travel demand model has been developed, replicating the existing travel behavior and incorporating all the proposed land use and transport network developments across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region till 2051. Considerably large boarding rates on the HSR are estimated.

The JICA-financed Mumbai–Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (HSR) Project is 505 kilometers long and will have 12 stations. With advice from Japanese experts, the HSR Corporation has almost finalized the planning of the station plaza and access roads necessary to cope with transport demand when the HSR opens in 2023. The next stage of the discussion will raise issues on the expansion of the transport hub, improvement of feeder transport access, and development of areas adjacent to HSR stations.

In recent years, there has been an increasing move toward appraising the impacts of transport investments beyond the direct user benefits and costs. This presentation reviews the arguments in favor of measuring such impacts, the progress made in implementing such impacts in the appraisal, and the limitations of such an approach. It also shares disaggregate approaches that analyze the way new transport infrastructure, particularly high-speed rail, may lead to the restructuring and rebalancing of local and regional economies.