This paper unprecedentedly benchmarks the environmental and economic impacts of notable High-speed rail (HSR) networks. The goals are to (i) point out the environmental impacts from the HSR networks and (ii) evaluate the whole life cycle cost of HSR systems. The emphasis of this study is placed on five HSR networks from five countries to depict the effectiveness of sustainable transport policies in each particular country. Both life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) models are adopted for a new critical framework capable of benchmarking the lifecycle sustainability of HSR networks. The new findings exhibit that CRC's system is the leader in energy-saving, who consumes only 67.55 GJ/km yearly, and emits lowest CO₂ at an amount of 77,532.32 tCO₂/km annually. These impressive results are stemmed from key enabling policies related to eco-friendly rolling stock design, sustainable construction, and green energy grids. With respect to the LCC analysis, the SCNF network takes advantage in the economy of scale and unleashes the lowest cost among other networks. It estimates that the SNCF network spends approximately 1,990,599.51 £/km annually at a % discount rate. The implications of these finding are discussed that the initial project has a high chance to be successful on economic than the late project due to an influence of the time value of money.

本文以空前的基准衡量了著名的高铁（HSR）网络对环境和经济的影响。目标是（i）指出高铁网络对环境的影响，以及（ii）评估高铁系统的整个生命周期成本。这项研究的重点是来自五个国家的五个高铁网络，以描绘每个特定国家中可持续交通政策的有效性。新的关键框架采用了生命周期评估（LCA）和生命周期成本（LCC）模型，能够对高铁网络的生命周期可持续性进行基准测试。新发现表明，CRC系统是节能的领导者，每年仅消耗67.55 GJ / km，并且排放最低的CO ₂，总量为77,532.32 tCO _2。/ km每年。这些令人印象深刻的结果源于与环保型机车车辆设计，可持续建筑和绿色能源网格相关的关键扶持政策。对于LCC分析，SCNF网络在规模经济中占据优势，并释放了其他网络中最低的成本。它估计SNCF网络每年以％的折扣率花费约1,990,599.51英镑/公里。讨论了这些发现的含义，由于货币时间价值的影响，与后期项目相比，初始项目在经济上取得成功的可能性更高。