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72 comments on A Public Transport And Green City Manifesto For The Federal Election
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Good stuff, Garry. I would just note that I'm not in favour of the smartcard sort of system. Anything technological will annoy some of the users and confuse tourists. It's also much more expensive than conductors.
Here in Melbourne we have 500 trams and 200 train stations, so we'd need about 1,400 staff as conductors and ticket sellers for all of them (not all trams run all day, and stations are only open 2/3 of each day). But we already have 600 ticket inspectors harassing people, so after retraining them to be nice to people we'd only need 800 extra staff. Allowing a generous $60,000 each for salary and super, that's $48 million we'd need.
Connex and Yarra Trams tell us that fare evasion loses them $50 million a year. I travelled on trams in the days when we had conductors, and I can assure you there was a lot less fare evasion - those conductors would push through the densest crowd to find you and get your fare. Optimistically we'd have zero fare evasion, a net $2 million gain on today; pessimistically we'd have half the fare evasion, leaving us $23 million still to find.
Well, the Smartcard we're introducing here is projected to cost $494 million over ten years. That's $49 million a year. With conductors, we could scrap that entirely, and thus be $26 million better off than now. Perhaps we could add a few services with that, or tidy up some of the old stations a bit.
As well, conductors will make things more pleasant and friendly, increasing patronage and thus profits. Also much better with tourists, since tourists will as I said be confused by technology, and can be given directions and so on by the conductor, rather than distracting the driver as they do nowadays.
Technology is a good thing, but it's not always the best thing.
Conductors can also help with safety on the train. Smartcard won't call anyone if there's a crime.
And skipping the tech solution in favor of conductors will also give a lot of people good jobs.
Well, the tech solution gives people jobs, too. Presumably all those machines don't spontaneously form themselves from broken toasters and old photocopiers sitting in landfill.
But I prefer solutions which solve several problems at once. "Smartcard" only solves the "we need jobs" problem, whereas "conductors" solves the "we need jobs" problem, and the "how do we get good service to attract patrons?" problem, and the "how do we stop fare evasion?" problem, and so on.
I have 24 years of experience in public transit in the USA. I learned that money from the taxpayers for buses, buildings, and other capital equipment was readily available but money for operations (wages, fuel, spare parts, etc) was like getting blood from a stone. The other thing I learned was from a taxpayer's perspective the most expensive piece of equipment on the bus was the farebox. Operating costs per passenger would drop significantly if bus fares were eliminated. In the situation we had in Grand Rapids, Michigan it would of required only a 50 cent per week increase per person in our service area to eliminate fares. The evidence was there in front of us that every time fares went up ridership went down. If the goal is to draw people away from using their cars then eliminating transit fares is the way to go.
Pre-K, the Riverfront Streetcar Line in New Orleans was operating at 95% to 103% of operating costs from the farebox + ad revenue (on the sides of the streetcars).
St. Charles (with 1923/24 rolling stock) was about 80%, and Canal was about 100% (data was not fully available for a complete year, but that was the trend when Katrina drowned many records).
The best buses were in the mid to high 40% recovery. New Orleans could operate a streetcar for less/hour than a bus.
Best Hopes for Streetcars (trams)
Alan
Thanks Garry Glazebrook, an excellent case made for what could be done with relatively modest sums.
Does anyone have a good argument against conductors? Their demise might only be due to neoliberal prejudice against what was a well-unionised workforce, eg. Maggie Thatchers pogroms in the UK coal industry, Howards replumbing of tertiary sector in Aus.. Biggest problem i can see with bringing conductors back here in Melbourne is fitting them onto the peakhour trains.
Free-fares i don't support, as it messes with peoples ethics to give even the illusion of something for nothing. Instead maybe a combination of a compulsory regional levy (via rates or other local taxes) + a personally purchased subscription of modest but not inconsequential amount (?$20-50), giving you a 3-12month all zones ticket.
"I'm not in favour of the smartcard sort of system"
Have you seen the Oyster card system in London? It automatically gives the user the cheapest fare facilitating pay as you go, e.g. my first journey in the morning is 90p, the second is 90 again, then the next one is about 50p, then 30p, and every other bus journey is free. So it caps the amount you pay overall and pay as you go is a fabulous incentive for people to use public transport if they do not commute everyday. You can't do that with any other payment method. It also has similar benefits for season ticket holders because it even gives you money back automatically to your bank account if you don't use public transport for a week on travelcards (now that's pretty neat, eh?)
Oyster eliminates ques at stations, people board buses about 10x faster by not paying in small change, so routes become significantly faster, and is perfect for an integrated transport system, you can top up your balance on-line. The fact that only about 1 in 20 people pay for bus by change now means that you don't need a conductor.
The database of where you've travelled provides usage modelling that you couldn't buy for love nor money. You can map out demand at different times of the day and alter timetables and routes accordingly, so that the network is truly customer friendly and so that you can do better business modelling for investment in new infrastructure.
Technology does work in this instance m8y, just ask your friends who've lived in London.