Government of Canada, Canada

Estimation of Unit Costs of Rail Transportation

Transport Canada initiated, in collaboration with Provincial and Territorial transport departments, a project called the Full Cost Investigation. Its purpose was to estimate the total financial and social costs of transport by all of the major modes and to reveal the total resources consumed by transport and its impacts on the health and environment. This study was part of the overall Full Cost Investigation. Its goal was to estimate the variable and fully-allocated financial costs of rail transport for selected freight and passenger movements. CANARAIL’s cost model was used to estimate the costs of freight transportation by Canadian National (CN)and Canadian Pacific Railways and the cost of CN’s provision of infrastructure and related services to VIA Rail, Canada's railway passenger service provider.