[sustran] Re: more on Bus and rail

[Peter Beste]

Alan

have the consultants for Dubai taken life cycle costs of vehicles and
infrastructure into account for their evaluation?




> I'm not an expert on US funding arrangements, but if NYCTA can get
> Maintenance treated as Capital (and thus presumably attract Federal
> funding), I can see why they do it.
>
> But the whole idea of separating Capital and Operating costs in the way
they
> do in the US is grotesque - the problem is that Americans think it is the
> way God planned, and what America thinks we all have to think too :-)
>
> The only thing to be said for it is that it (sort of) puts transit
spending
> on a level playing field with road spending. The big problem is that it
> skews comparison of different transit solutions depending on how
> capital-intensive they are (which is one of the reasons why our US
> consultants are recommending an LRT for Dubai).
>
> But the real answer is for proper cost-benefit comparisons of ALL
transport
> schemes, taking into account environmental factors too - as well as costs
of
> capital, and the sort of things Craig was talking about. Seems the reason
> this is not done in the US is that they can't agree on cost parameters for
> environmental effects - or even, I suspect, values of personal time. OK,
> that's a real problem, but it should not stop an attempt being made with
> quantified assumptions, plus a sensitivity analysis.
>
> Of course, if this was done, in urban areas at least, few road-based
schemes
> would be justified. Perhaps, bearing in mind who calls the shots,  this is
> why this approach is not followed in so many countries ...
>
> Just my personal opinions.
> --
> Alan P Howes, Special Transport Advisor,
>      Dubai Municipality Public Transport Department
> aphowes at dm.gov.ae
> Tel:    +971 4 286 1616 ext 214
> Mobile: +971 50 5989661
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: BruunB at aol.com [mailto:BruunB at aol.com]
> > Sent: Tue, March 05, 2002 3:40 AM
> > To: sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org
> > Subject: [sustran] more on Bus and rail (fwd)
> >
> >
> >
> > Is that you, Walter, who raised these good points?
> >
> > Just to complicate things further, NYC's capital costs are
> > higher than average
> > due to the abnormal complexity of the system and the starving
> > of repair
> > budgets for many decades, up to the early 1980s. I think this
> > is why normal
> > maintenance balloons into major capital investments.
> >
> > Eric
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > In a message dated 3/4/02 3:09:57 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> > mobility at igc.org
> > writes:
> >
> <snip>
> >  Regarding the costs of operations, it would seem to depend
> > on whether you
> >  consider large scale maintenance part of operating costs or
> > not.  If you
> > exclude
> >  large scale maintenance in New York,  the subways have lower
> > operating costs
> > than
> >  buses, but if you include large scale maintenance they are
> > higher.  We have a
> >  habit in the US of calling large scale maintenance
> > ''capital'' investment,
> > but in
> >  fact the entire capital budget of the NYCTA is not actually
> > building anything
> >  new, it is just keeping the system from further
> > deteriorating, other than
> > some
> >  very slow signalling system improvements and perhaps
> > marginally better
> > trains.
> >
> >
> >   >>
> >