  The installation of high-speed rail in the world during the last two decades
resulted in significant socioeconomic and environmental changes. The U.S. has
the longest rail network in the world, but the focus is on carrying a wide
variety of loads including coal, farm crops, industrial products, commercial
goods, and miscellaneous mixed shipments. Freight and passenger services in the
U.S. dates to 1970, with both carried out by private railway companies.
Railways were the main means of transport between cities from the late 19th
century through the middle of the 20th century. However, rapid growth in
production and improvements in technologies changed those dynamics. The fierce
competition for comfortability and pleasantness in passenger travel and the
proliferation of aviation services in the U.S. channeled federal and state
budgets towards motor vehicle infrastructure, which brought demand for
railroads to a halt in the 1950s. Presently, the U.S. has no high-speed trains,
aside from sections of Amtrak s Acela line in the Northeast Corridor that can
reach 150 mph for only 34 miles of its 457-mile span. The average speed between
New York and Boston is about 65 mph. On the other hand, China has the world s
fastest and largest high-speed rail network, with more than 19,000 miles, of
which the vast majority was built in the past decade. Japan s bullet trains can
reach nearly 200 miles per hour and dates to the 1960s. That system moved more
than 9 billion people without a single passenger casualty. In this systematic
review, we studied the effect of High-Speed Rail (HSR) on the U.S. and other
countries including France, Japan, Germany, Italy, and China in terms of energy
consumption, land use, economic development, travel behavior, time use, human
health, and quality of life.
