Jorden (in regard to rilways): "So how come no one can make it work in that "efficient" way?"
Well this depends on where you look, for instance Japan is very rail dependant and the railway there is very efficient, does it make a profit?
Probably not. But the efficiencies of such a mass transport system do not need to be translated into profits (or indeed can remain as public deficits) and still pass on value to the whole economy.
Indeed Japan without railways would deadlock.
"I agree: GB should be the perfect example of rail. It's (the non-Eire part anyway) a small country (even London->Glasgow is shorter than even Boston -> Washington DC; most interesting routes are shorter); much of the right of way has existed for hundreds of years; car ownership is low; it's part of the culture already."
"But if it's the "worst in Europe" then what does that say for it in general?"
It has been ill run for decades in the Uk, the rail rationalisation of the 1960s which closed down so many small lines led directly to a decline of industry in the countryside, but this cost was never included in the balance sheet.
One posting stated that the London network was absolutely necessary but the effieiciency of other lines (rural) may not be. However, an up to date national network has so many benefits and offers a level of integration that road usauge can never sustain. The 1960's cuts which seemed so sensible and efficient for running railways was not so for running a national economy across an entire nation, of course you could argue that the future lies entirely in vast congested cities, but this seems a less then ideal future as it seems to create more problems then it solves.
"And: I'm not sure what you mean by 'efficient' here: if it cannot be run profitably, how 'efficient' could it be?"
Specifically I mean technically effcient, as per costs and benefits. As a network the capital investment both initial and in maintaining let alone developing rail transport is very large. Reduce the number of services as has been the custom for so long, and its ability to function as a network declines but much of the cost remains - its a bit like any heavy industry which works best at close to full performance capacity, reducing costs by limiting capacity does save capital, but the tumble down effect can cost a lot more (less diversity of products in this case leads to orders going elsewhere and eventually even the profitable "staples" decline).
In Japan the urban passenger service runs every five minutes, in Australia some lines work every 40 minutes. The closer the time interval reaches the time taken to do the same thing by car then the less the service is used (a 20 minute trip with a 40 minute possible delay leads to an hour in transit, a car that takes 40 minutes in transit is thus more reliable - in Japan you would be mad not to use the urban train system, hence it is nearly always full).
Years ago in Sydney the trains stopped before midnight (which is probably still the case), the intervals up to this stopping time grew (sometimes over an hour between trains) very few people plan to use the train system for a night in town - the trains are nearly always empty.
"Let's focus on cost; here's what I see:"
"-- The train goes from A to B no matter if it has passengers or not"
True enough, but what effects its relative fullness or emptyness is not the necessity of a timetable, but can be a direct result of the intensity of that time table (services which bulge out during peak hours and retract into virtual non-existence at other times will not fill up the fewer trains running - they will contribute to emptying them).
Systems geared to relatively low average transit rates, usually cannot even manage peak travel terribly well. On the other hand systems geared to rapid transit rates also tend to deal with peak traffic rather well.
"-- Adding trainsets is difficult" If you mean arbitarily adding in trains, well yes this is a recipe for disaster. The inherent efficiencies of the system when managed to near full capacity can and does manage to transit massive loads of every desciption potentially at high speeds and down very ristricted corridors (when compared the massive corridors made available to automobiles).
The road network is inherently unstable precisely because effcient scheduling is impossible. The massive investment in wide corridor roads designed to deal only with peak conditions (an idle investment at other times) notoriously attract just enough extra traffic to average down the tranist rate by a fraction (in otherwords a lot of capital spent to achieve very little), adding an extra rail corridor could increase transit times enormously, in otherwords the expansion of trnasport corridors in one mode only fractionally improves the transit time, while in the rail mode can greatly expand the overall improvement.
"-- Adding/removing cars from trainsets seems unheard of"
There is a difficulty here, but it is technical only. If railways needed to do this on a regular basis then they are in a good position to concentrate the means for doing so, cost cutting of course has reduced the number of shunters and developments in shunting practice and technology while not difficult are hardly ever attempted.
Jorden how difficult is it to reduce the size of cars according to the number of occupants? (I mean most five seat cars appear to travel with but one person in them, the extra unneeded wieght alone must create a huge deficit in fuel consumption, let alone needless wear and tear on the other parts).
"-- Changing the schedule (dropping empty trains, adding more capacity
during peak times) is expensive and tricky (pax/freight conflicts)"
Well the main trick seems not to drop them but increase the number in order to fill them. Of course many alternatives exist - light rail (trams) using the heavy rail network for those routes which will always be small, adding a corridor when peak loads overload even the most efficient system. And yes it is tricky and expensive, but so are many things. The fact that a single authority is in charge does concentrate the costs of doing anything, it is a pity that the costs of excessive road transport are not also centralisied the true comparison may well make trains look like the cheap option.
"-- Maintenance is constant and expensive"
Yes it is. Now I wonder how we could asses the maintence cost of the alternatives - they may be born by millions of car owners but that does not make them cease to exist.
Of course road transport and rail are only in some places competitors, ideally they would complement one another, seeking an accounting resolution would not be simple or worthwhile. I am not suggesting this. What I am suggesting is that there is no abstract way of knowing whether a rail network is efficient or not. If it is running well then the value it creates is passed on to the wider economy. If it is running badly then the costs can be confined to the deficit they create - however it could be running extremely well and still have a deficit.
The solution is to treat it as a technical question with massive social implications. Is the rail service in a state to be efficient, can it be improved and extended, what are the plans to make better use of it in the future?
These are the questions one poses to an asset. Of course neglect it and it becomes less and less of an asset, so long as you are not dependant on its (as London is) then you could cut your losses and dispose of it, but beware chucking something simply because it has been negelected and become a bit rusty, may be throwing awy something you can ill afford to loose in the long term and such assets which take decades to build are not so easily recovered at a later date.
Sorry Jorden but a close inspection of the efficiency of rail do not make the alternatives look any better though most are far more profitable (well to others at least). The very things which make them costly also make them efficient.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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