The environmental impact of a shift to rail from short-haul flights

In the context of mitigating climate change, a shift from air to rail is proposed for short-haul journeys. The impact of this policy on the GHG emissions of aviation is small and will be even marginal if only journeys < 500 km are involved. These journeys account for 2.2% of the mileage of air travel, and the impact on emissions will be even smaller than this figure, mainly because not all air travellers (likely) will shift, and part of the emission reduction will be undone by increasing emissions of rail transport. When the upper limit of involved distances increases, the impact increases significantly as well; but even at a limit of 1200 km, which is about the upper limit of the market range of the train, the impact will likely be smaller than the opposite impact of the annual growth of air travel. Policy intentions seem to be prompted by just to do something that doesn’t hurt people so much rather than by a systematic analysis of possible measures and their effectiveness.