Abstract
Conducted prior to the launch of the High-Speed Railway (HSR) in Morocco, this study aims to be the first research to assess the HSR project through the estimation of the value of travel time savings. We focused on inter-urban routes to assess the HSR project impact. We conducted a Discrete Choice Experiment in the cities impacted (directly or indirectly) by the HSR project, which are Tangier, Kenitra, Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakesh. Our results show that at the sample average points of each mode of transport, the values of travel time savings are approximately 94MAD/h for car users, 27MAD/h for train users and 25MAD/h for bus users. We performed a simulation for the Tangier-Casablanca route and obtained satisfactory results (93MAD/h, 26MAD/h and 24MAD/h, for private car, train, and bus journeys respectively). Finally, our results show that the pricing strategies of the national railway operator (Office National des Chemins de Fer) present a potential risk of eviction, which could counterbalance the positive impact of the time savings.