[sustran] Re: Rail or bus

TR Saranathan tr_saranathan at hotmail.com
Mon May 3 12:29:11 JST 2004


Dear partners,

Throughout the world the conditions and factors are different and many times 
complicated. Even in the biggest Democracy in India, there is a trend of 
coalition Government.
We are nowadays talking about Integrated approaches to balance many vital 
factors. We talk about Integrated Pest Management, Integrated Solid Waste 
Management or for that matter any Environmental issue. Hence we have to 
accept Integrated Transport Management.
I agree with Mr.Jain Alok.

Dr.T.R.Saranathan


>From: Jain Alok <ajain at kcrc.com>
>Reply-To: Asia and the Pacific sustainable transport 
><sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>
>To: 'Asia and the Pacific sustainable transport' 
><sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>
>Subject: [sustran] Rail or bus
>Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 10:29:51 +0800
>
>Dear Eric and Jonathan,
>
>Some interesting arguments in your mails about rail vs. buses. No doubt I
>have enjoyed your discussions but it has gone a bit philosophical and
>leading to a bit of activism. Why should this be a rail vs. bus discussion?
>Why can't this be a rail plus bus discussion? There comes a time when
>passenger traffic in a corridor becomes so heavy that rail becomes the
>logical choice. You have cited European and US examples but in Asia, Hong
>Kong is a good example (for the record, I work for a HK railway company).
>
>Buses and rail co-exist and both provide fantastic service. The prices are
>comparable (so the poor vs rich issue is not a prime concern). Bus lanes 
>are
>provided in corridors with heavy bus traffic. Usually, at these corridors
>the railway loadings are higher too. While nobody can argue about the point
>to point service provided by buses, a corridor requiring over 80,000 pphpd
>capacity cannot be served by buses (theoretically yes, some may argue, but
>practically speaking, it would create chaos and service reliability would 
>go
>haywire). Railways can provide this service. In most of the circumstances 
>if
>the journey is about 15-20km or more, buses can't beat the railway travel 
>in
>terms of journey time.
>
>Ideally, depending on the demand a new area can be served by buses most
>efficiently but there comes a threshold beyond which the backbone movements
>should be moved over to fast, trunk routes such as railways and buses can
>still supplement and provide local service.
>
>I have seen Bangkok system (I studied in AIT, worked in Bangkok briefly, 
>and
>visit once in while) and the problem with railways is not because they do
>not provide efficient service but the prices. And these prices have to be
>kept high because there is no committment to reduce the parallel running 
>bus
>services. Not the non-aircon services, which serve an entirely different
>segment which may require a certain level of subsidy, but the aircon buses
>which charge much higher but are bleeding anyway. The alternative would be
>to cancel these inefficient aircon bus routes in exchange for a price
>reduction on railway and both will live happily thereafter. Institutional
>issues may be difficult to resolve but there is need for somebody with a
>political courage to take the tough step instead of empty rhetorics (such 
>as
>the one of solving Bangkok's traffic problems in 3 months time. Reminds me
>of Harry Potter!!).
>
>Keep up the good work.
>Alok Jain
>
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