Life-Cycle Cost Estimation for High-Speed Vehicles: from the engineers’ to the airline’s perspective

This paper aims at upgrading the holistic Cost Estimation methodology for High-Speed Vehicles already developed by Politecnico di Torino and the European Space Agency (ESA) to encompass different stakeholders’ perspectives. In details, the presented methodology combines International Air Transport Association (IATA) best practices with a detailed Life- Cycle Cost (LCC) assessment, which includes the evaluation of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDTE) Costs, Production costs and of Direct and Indirect Operating Costs (DOC and IOC). The integrated approach allows to further extend the capabilities of the inhouse developed HyCost tool to support all the actors of the product value-chain (including engineers, manufacturers, airlines and customers) in assessing the economic sustainability of a newly under-development high-speed vehicle. However, considering the need of providing all these cost analyses perspectives since the early design stages, the derived Cost Estimation Relationships are mainly derived on statistical bases. To cope with the uncertainties that affect the initial statistical population and consequently, the CERs, this paper presents each cost item together with the estimation of related prediction intervals. Finally, results of the application of the upgraded cost estimation methodology and of the upgraded tool to the LAPCAT MR2.4 high-speed civil transport are reported and discussed

Economical assessment of commercial high-speed transport

© 2018, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. The potential future market demand for a high-speed aircraft along with an estimate of the related costs and ticket prices have been assessed. To address the future demand for a high-speed aircraft, the eligible origin and destination city-pairs and the potential network for such a vehicle have first been identified. Then, the number of premium passengers flying this network, over the next 20 years, is forecasted. Based upon technical characteristics of the potential future high-speed aircraft, it is finally possible to determine the number of vehicles that would be necessary to accommodate this expected future demand.status: publishe