A few more transit stats
Posted by Stuart Staniford on December 15, 2006 - 10:11am
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: peak oil, public transportation, rail [list all tags]
- The Department of Transport transit infrastructure spending numbers I found were off by an order of magnitude, included vehicles, or were otherwise wrong.
- My statistics were old (around 2000), and it was All Different Now, because ridership was up following the increase in energy costs.
- It would be Even More All Different after peak oil, when transit would magically become Much More Effective in the US than it seemingly was hitherto.
These guys see capex on infrastructure as a little less than $10b/yr, and rolling stock as $3-4b/yr. Their numbers are not consistent with the BEA derived numbers the other day, but are in the same ballpark. Transit spending has been increasing sharply.
This has increased capacity in just about all forms of transit. For example, the total amount of light rail service available roughly doubled in the decade 1995-2004.
Bus service went up by a more modest 18% or so.
Available vanpool service more than tripled:
In response to all this increase in capacity, total passenger trips increased 19% over the decade.
Light rail for example, where available service miles went up 100%, saw an increase in passenger trips of 40%.
So that must mean that ridership is growing slower than the increase in capacity, right? Yup:
If we breakdown this number (the passenger trips per hour of service provided), we find that the utilization is dropping in most modes. It's particularly serious in light rail, but nothing is doing much better than holding it's own. The best is perhaps heavy rail (but that may be in part because heavy rail service increased less than others - only 20% or so).
Operating costs per trip started climbing about five or six years ago. I assume this is mainly due to the increase in fuel prices.
With costs per hour of service going up, and ridership per hour of service going down, the amount of operating costs covered by fares, never good, is falling:
Thus the operating subsidy per passenger is going through the roof (and this doesn't include costs of capital):
So, in summary, during this pre-peak run-up in energy prices, we invested more and more heavily in transit. The effect of that was to increase capacity, but lower utilization. Operating expenses increased, and thus the overall financial performance of transit systems degraded significantly, requiring much larger subsidies per passenger (and the number of passengers increased). Overall, we got diminishing returns from this strategy suggesting that the best transit opportunities are already in use, and newer ones are more marginal. Light rail seemed to degrade the worst of any of the modes.
Under the assumption that the post peak-oil period involves still further rises in energy prices, if we invest even more heavily in transit, it would appear to me that we are likely to get even more diminishing returns.
Very interesting graphs, thank you. They in fact spell a bitter tendency because they encompass years of higher energy prices, where people unfortunately didn't abandon private transport for mass transit.
But again you use the single Liberal view point where mass-transit is private and gets subsidies from the State to penetrate the market. And you continue to compare mass-transit to private transportation on that basis - which is ill formulated because it will always cost more to the State. I don't think that Liberalism will ever suit politics towards mass-transit.
Finally you can't possibly assume that in a post peak environment people won't use mass-transit because they aren't using it now. American folk still have wages above most of the countries' folk, and in fact can still afford for expensive private means of transportation. When (if) they loose that capacity they'll have to use mass-transit.
Here is the short list of places where mass transit systems work:
- Cities which have too few parking lots to accomodate commuter cars, e.g. New York, London, Tokio. You can drive in but then you have to drive your car back home because there is no place to stop.
- Cities which levy 100% luxury tax on cars and gas, e.g. Singapore.
- Cities which have too few parking lots and levy a 100% luxury tax on cars and gas. That would be Singapore.
Everywhere else in the world mass transit is an addition to automotive transportation, not its replacement.It is refreshing to see thought that once in a while someone shows up who just don't get it and still tries to make it a political matter. It is not. Mass transit is simply a matter of urban design. Some urban planners get a fighting chance to implement working mass transit systems and most don't. It does not matter how many billions of dollars get spent on a system. If it is in the wrong place, it will fail.
Now... that does not mean there should be none in places where they fail. There should be. They are simply a public service to those who can not or do not want to keep a car. Availability of cheap public transportation is simply a matter of quality of life. And quality of life, again, is independent of political affiliation. If a town sucks, it sucks for both, liberals and conservatives.
Not in Bulgaria and most of Easter Europe AFAIK. Living there gives the distinct feeling that the various forms of mass transit are the primary mode of transportation, while personal cars are considered a luxury (as opposed to necessity) and are accordingly taxed. It is the design of the cities (compact, walkable) which is guiding this policy as well as the cost of energy which has always been high. The mass transit is truly mass - meaning that the majority of the population is using it for most of the trips.
Personally I never missed having a car over there. Having seen both extremes (currently in suburban Atlanta) I can say that if I could choose it will be somewhere in the middle - which is to a great extent achieved in West european countries. I would love if I could take the train to work here and have some free time while travelling instead of being stuck in congestions and risking my life on the highway. I would have still kept the car of course for leisure trips or shopping.
My grandparents owned one automobile, as did my parents until the mid 1960s.I rode city busses to schoole until my graduation from High School.
Cars are fantasticially expensive. Depreciation, fuel, insurance, extra expense for driveways and inside parking, maintaince-I bet if we add it all up then the IRS 0.445 cents per mile deduction looks too low. Thats $5,000 or $6,000 a year for most automobiles and even more for luxery cars like Hummers or $60,000 dually pickups.
We subsidise automobile with huge streets, highways, bridges, and tax credits on many wastefull automobiles. They make subways look pretty cheap, and thats not counting the CO2 or emmissions problem. Our national security is a farce when we are importing 70% of our energy.
So be a chump. Label yourself and others Conservative and Liberal rather than take a look at reality-anyone who does this with the peak oil situation is just stupid and gullible. Its an old totalitarian trick-divide and conquer.
I guess its time to confess to my dark secret, Rove is my ex-husband-in-law. His first ex-wife was my third ex-wife. This is a relationship recognised on the Jerry Springer show and in any trailer park in Texas. It makes me overly sensitive to neocons.
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Rulers/norman.html
William the Conqueror down to Edward III.
Your story is almost as good!
I remember his ex wife was a Dallas oil heiress, and that brought him to Texas?
The man is the political genius of his age, although the strategy of 'divide and rule' hasn't quite played out: they vacated the political centre and the Democrats have, for the mo' at least, occupied it.
If they hadn't invaded Iraq, then I think things might have come out very differently, so you could say Rove was in part ruined by the materials (ie GWB) that he had at hand, rather than the strategy itself.
The benefits aren't capturable (entirely) by the operator and user.
If you use public transport, I benefit because I can drive to work more quickly, there is less air polllution, etc.
It's an uncaptured positive externality problem.
Interestingly, in the UK, when new roads are proposed, they are allowed to calculate the uncapturable externality (ie benefit to society as a whole) in the cost-benefit equation.
This is not the case when new rail systems are proposed.
In a true Libertarian perspective, ie an economic efficiency one, you would want a system that captured the benefits of taking public transport, for the operators of public transport systems.
Taxes such as the London congestion charge are a first step down this road.
Transit is and has long been the great Rorschach test of peoples attitudes about....well, just about everything.
My father was from a rural area, and hated buses and the very idea of them. Buses were a sign of poverty. My mother was raised in the city and was disappointed there were no buses in the country when she married and moved to a small town. She did not learn to drive until I taught her in her late 30's. It was one of the happiest days of her life when she got her drivers liscense. :-)
Trains are more interesting. Older people have a soft spot for trains running out through the country, but are not so keen on commuters or "EL" trains, such as are seen in the city. And let's not forget the helll that was most high school kids memory of riding a school bus, a moving torture chamber of bullies and jockying for position that often rivaled "The Lord of The Flies."
I got a job and saved money to buy my first car so I could drive to school, a waste of fuel, yes, but a JOYfUL change for me.
What has long been lacking is a very civil and well managed transit system, more in the European mold, that would be more like a cafe than a cattle car. Some friends of mine and I once did some pretty involved study on the city of Louisville KY, considering a mixed light rail or bus and river ferry system, to carry commuters/shoppers from the prosperous east end of the city down the river to the downtown office and shopping area. The distance is actually very short, and the river offered free real estate requiring no building of track. With only a handful of buses and a few nice river ferries, most of the city could have been covered.
There was no real technical barrier to the whole project, but we had to admit it....as long as fuel was cheap, there would be little ridership. What boosters of mass transit refuse to admit is that most people want a car, for weekends, for "just in case" for social reasons (back to the Rorschach test, try to impress a woman on a date by going by bus or commuter train and you will get a fast lesson in reality) and once a car is purchased, the fuel even at current prices is a very small part of the total cost of ownership, and is miniscule if the car is not driven great distances.
I have always felt that trolleys and trams succeed in Europe for purely social/psychological differences, and not simply because fuel is expensive there.
Here's a free prediction, probably worth what it cost: I think privately owned electric cars will have a bigger impact on fuel consumption than mass transit ever will, not because they are demonstrably superior but because they fit the American mindset better.
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
Indeed they did not succeed. They were widely abolished after WW2 throughout Europe. Trams were loud, screeching and badly maintained. Citys didn't want that wiring in the streets any more (that's why Bordeaux/France got a tram with a third (power)rail, that is activated by the weight of the train. This system failed to work at the day of opening, with the french president on board ..).
And, of course, streetcars are obstacles to driving, perhaps the most important reason to get rid of them.
These days a new tram line in Paris/France is opened, with HiTech trains, described as "superbe" by their drivers, very silent, very effective.
France is described as the new tram wonderland.
Not everyone threw away what they had.
By the way, I think Strasburg/Strasbourg uses the same type of train - they are very quiet, very convenient, but not that well suited for heavy ridership somehow. Just an impression for a couple of years ago.
For very different reasons. If you have experienced a ride on the East-Berlin tram before 1990 (during the GDR era) you will remember one. They couldn't abolish their tram because the socialist subjects had to wait more than 10 years until being rationed a car. So buses and street cars had to do.
In second-biggest western cities such as Nuernberg or Karlsruhe the tram was kind of tolerated for decades, though often majorities of car drivers were hostile to it. The main argument against it was municipal deficits in comparison to poor ridership/comfort and so on, but the real reason is, and was, that they were hindering individual (car) traffic.
The Karlsruhe region is an exception in Germany. Most regions could learn a lot from the planners of the Karlsruhe-Bretten-Pforzheim rail system, which is exemplary in entire Germany.
Unfortunately it is true what someone said: "Car drivers love transit. The others should give up driving and change to transit. The ultima ratio is, and is to stay, "cars first".
Transit will not work as an incentive, it will definetely not get drivers out of their cars; that is wishful thinking. Restrictive measures are necessary (and will not happen since in a democracy those who implement them will be voted out of office).
Our great poet Heinrich Heine knew it - already in 1843 - when he wrote:
"Womit man einlullt, wenn es greint,
Das Volk, den großen Lümmel."
He didn't know cars, of course. But he knew the people.
Car pooling with efficient small cars is at least as environmentally friendly as rail.
To illustrate my point. My small 5 year old Italian Fiat Punto not marketed in the US- but the best selling gasoline EU car in the mini segment weighs some 1000 pounds, 80 hp , EURO NCAP 4 star, emits 140 g CO2 per km (even 44.8 mpg average on my 2000 mile summer holiday in France). With 2 passengers well below 50 gram CO2 passenger km. The FIAT car fleet is by the way the lowest consuming car producer in the EU with an average 139 gram CO2/km - see table page 2 here. http://www.transportenvironment.org/docs/Press/2006/2006_10_25_car_brands_co2_en.pdf
Rail emissions:
Now most rail data for emission is in the range of 40 - 70 gram CO2/passenger km. This http://www.transwatch.co.uk/transport-fact-sheet-5a.htm
UK study gives ( table 1 : 14.4 gram times 3.67 = 52.8 g/passenger km )
So my humble conclusion is that Car pooling could be as good as rail - or even better, at least in terms of energy use and emissions and for reducing congestion.
regards
And1I see nuke as not more than 50% of US grid under any reasonable scenario.
Best Hopes,
Alan
- In UK 43% of passenger rail emissions and whopping 96% of freight rail emissions are due to diesel powered engines. Electrical trains are more CO2 efficient - south east is showing 12.5g/pkm vs 16.9g/pkm for intercity.
- The study is comparing real-world data for trains to theoretical data for lorries and cars. For example 10mpg for a coach and 50mpg. for a diesel car are not realistic real-world estimates, IMO. There is technological overhead, stop/go urban driving reduces MPG, etc.
- The biggest part of the CO and SOx emissions are from the diesel trains.
Conclusions: instead of moving rail to road transport, better electrify your network and build more carbon-free electricity generation. Increase the passenger rail load factor. Overall the potential for CO2 reductions in rail are an order of magnitude higher than for road transport.Only if you compare to ICE road transport. Electric vehicles use less electricity per passenger mile than rail.
You're making things much more complicated than they need to be. For instance, "materials costs, production costs, reproduction costs" seem to be redundant. "road infrastructure, public education, licensing, policing and health costs. " are all the same or cheaper for EV's. Policing???
EV's cost about $.02 per mile for electricity, versus $.10 for ICE's. They're simpler, and easier to make than ICE's: simpler transmission (the Tesla has only 2 gears), safer (no more hollywood exploding cars), have lower maintenance costs, negligible pollution at the vehicle and almost zero total pollution if powered by renewables. The Tesla is so expensive because they're only making about 200/year in the first year. Still, it's cheaper than comparable ICE sports cars.
The only barrier is batteries. Batteries are now light & energy dense enough to make the Tesla possible, but they're still too expensive (at $20k for the Tesla battery pack) to compete with really cheap gasoline - an EV would be competitive with gas at around $5-6/gallon.
The Tesla battery pack will likely cost about $.20-30 per mile, depending on miles/year. ICE's cost an average of $.10 per mile for fuel, and another $.35 per mile for everything else. All told, EV's probably cost about $.55/mile now, vs ICE's at $.445 (per IRS).
Battery costs are falling relentlessly 7-10% per year and are likely to fall faster with next generation li-ion chemistries with much higher cycle lives. Gas prices will rise, and the two lines will cross in the next few years. Of course, if you were to include all of the external costs of oil, EV's would be cheaper right now.
Someone make a real utility vehicle for the whole family that can compete with a well designed diesel or hybrid and we talk. We shall also talk about the extra power plants and power lines that will be needed to recharge that sucker once there are millions around.
:-)
No additional power plants and power lines would be needed to recharge: almost all charging could be done offpeak with current infrastructure (see the recent DOE/NREL study for verification), and additional power could come from wind.
Policing. Transit systems require policing. So do personal transport systems, including attendance at collisions. The point is that they need to be compared when preparing the balance sheet.
Download pdf on Rail Transit In America: Comprehensive Evaluation of Benefits. Chose Executive Summary or Full Report. Not exactly what you asked for, but close.
Best Hopes,
Alan
What are you concerned about in particular?
I.e. he's asking for a comparison of EV's with "an electrified rail mass transit system."
His first line seemed to imply a comparison with space-travel, which would suggest that EV's might be impractical, or inferior to present day vehicles. Apart from the basic question of battery cost (which I tried to address), I can't see any reason to think that way, so I was puzzled.
I'd be delighted to see a thorough-going comparison of all costs & benefits for EV's and rail. I think that's the thing that Stuart is trying to start to build.
EVs will have (when they arrive) minimal in any indirect energy savinsg by altering the Urban form. Most Urban Rail energy savings will be via indirect energy savings.
Alan
Again, I'm just trying to remind people that "road transport" isn't just Internal Combustion Engine cars, it is also EV's, and EV's are indeed among the solutions to Peak Oil.
I agree with "silver BB's". I think rail is great, though more for the indirect, hard to quantify benefits than for the direct costs like energy.
Rely solely on rail? 1) As you note elsewhere, it likely isn't going to get the required commitment, 2) it would be much more expensive than a pluralistic approach, and 3) rail is a centralized, government, long-term capital expenditure kind of thing, and EV's are a consumer-side kind of thing, and the two are going to happen simultaneously.
I think people will get very discouraged if they think rail is the only transportation solution, and I think it's a mistake to say so.
EV's will be much cheaper than scrapping the suburbs: they might cost another $100 per month at most. That's much cheaper than moving and losing one's home equity, paying much higher housing prices in the city, etc. I'm willing to pay 3x per sq foot to live in the city, but most aren't.
Some months ago I read Amsterdam intends even to use trams for freight transport (and to more and more keep the trucks out of the downtown area). So the Amsterdam tram may also be a hopeful story.
By saying "not succesful" I was trying to describe the past 50 or 60 years in Germany. The tram was abolished in virtually all major cities, as Hamburg or Berlin.
My personal view however, is that trams are by far one of the best means for urban transportation. There are new, modern trams in Nuernberg - really cool. But they are not cool for the average car driver.
Germany had the misfortune to have its major urban centres completely destroyed, at a time when urban planning philosophy was (post war) coming to favour the car. By contrast Austrian cities were not so badly hit (out of range of Allied bombers) and Dutch et al. cities were not targetted (friendly civilians rather than enemy civilians).
(there were similar effects in a number of British cities from the Luftwaffe bombings. The cities were rebuilt, but the tram systems never recovered from the damage.)
As of Germany that's not correct - quite the contrary. Since more and more buses were needed during the war the tendency to close down tram lines was significantly slowed! (Shutting down trams had begun long before the war - just at the time when car traffic started growing - or better: sprawling).
Trams were about the first means of transportation to take up service again even in totally destroyed cities as Hamburg or Berlin, and stayed in service until end of the sixties.
At first they were lots of incidents with cars, not used to look at the "new kid in town".