The Oil Drum

Density and Urban Rail, Another POV

A week ago we discussed the once wisespread network of interurban rail lines in small town & rural Iowa, Ohio, Indiana et al.

Now Leroy Demery has taken a different look; at the densest Urban Rail systems that do not operate in the densest urban areas (Moscow in this case).

Mr. Demery is the foremost US authority on Japanese rail and has forgotten more than I will ever know.

A "tennyson" is a unit of Urban Rail density. Take the # of pax-kms per year on a rail line or system and divide by the # of line kms. This allows one to compare quite different systems in their fundamental purpose.

Best Hopes for Better Understanding,

Alan
...............
...That figure [of population density] is deceptively low. There is a great deal of open space in this town (and other Russian cities). This is obvious from photos of the new high-rise housing districts.

(Many List members might be surprised at how much space per unit those high-rise blocks contain.)

For Moskva, Seal quoted a crude population-density statistic in excess of 10,000 / km2 (= 26,000 per sq mi). That's roughly equivalent to Manhattan . . . and here the similarity ends.

There's an organization in Moskva whose official title translates something like:

"'State Unitary Enterprise for the City of Moskva, [titled] "The V. I. Lenin `Order of Lenin' and `Order of the Red Banner of Labor' Metropolitan Railway of Moskva."'"

Which is now the world's busiest metro system in terms of traffic density.

If "population density" were truly the key determinant of transit ridership that Cox evidently wants people to believe, then this should not occur in Moskva.

But it does

At 2005, the system carried 113 million "tennysons" (pass-km per km of route) - that is, 113 million passengers, on average, over each km of system length. That's a lot, although down a bit from the "all-time" high, which was 119 million "tennysons," at 1984 (with a significantly
smaller network, and significantly fewer private autos).

The busiest Moskva Metro line carried (at 2005) a staggering 135 million "tennysons" - that's 135 million people, on average, over each km of line. What's even more noteworthy is that the world traffic density record - the Western Railway corridor in Mumbai - is not "that much" higher: a bit more than 145 million "tennysons" per year.

Traffic densities at this level do not occur in New York - and never have. NYCT carried 36 million "tennysons" at 2005. The IRT subway network - which was quite small compared to today's system - carried 52 million "tennysons" at 1914. The combined IRT subway and elevated systems carried 43 million "tennysons" at 1929. The good citizens of Moskva put up with even higher levels of crowding than New Yorkers do.

Hong Kong?

In terms of traffic density, the MTR carries significantly less than the Moskva Metro - less than 70 million "tennysons" per year - although that stat is a couple years old, and is on my "to-update" list.

KCR East, by contrast, carries 134 million "tennysons" per year (again the stat is a couple years old). But this, strictly speaking, is not a "metro," but a very busy single line (that serves a very busy border crossing).

Population density statistics have some significance, but perhaps less than Cox (and Seal) appear to believe.

Leroy W. Demery, Jr.