[sustran] Re: Rail or bus

[Jain Alok]

I fully agree that skytrain alone cannot solve urban transport problems of
Bangkok. It will take much more than that.

Though in principle, I support the idea of somebody providing the capital
for such projects and essentially writing it off (against possibly the
greater economic benefits to the community which cannot be directly realised
to the operating company) but in third world countries availability of the
capital is a big issue to deal with. Either a new type of lending model be
developed (may be instead of loading capital/depreciation and interest
upfront on the project, it should be delayed at a time where economic
benefits are actually expected to have accrued to certain threshold) or
capital intensive projects can never go ahead.

Difficult questions with no easy answers!!!

Alok
-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Fjellstrom [mailto:karl at dnet.net.id]
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 4:20 PM
To: 'Asia and the Pacific sustainable transport'
Subject: [sustran] Re: Rail or bus


Dear Alok,

Jonathan's right... For very short trips the fares are similar. (Though the
minimum skytrain fare gets you 1 station, the minimum bus fare gets you
8km.) But for a normal public transport trip of say 2 to 12km the skytrain
is a factor of 1.5 to 5 times more expensive than the same length trip by
a/c bus even with monthly pass discounts for the skytrain factored in.
Factor in longer bus routes and hence less transfers and the difference is
even greater. Microbus is a special case as it's a flat 20 baht fare but
people tend only to use this for long trips so it still works out a lot
cheaper per km.

Sorry to opine further on such a well informed list, but going back to where
we started: we can't simply attribute the skytrain's problems to the routing
of the buses, and argue that if this could only be solved everyone could
then be 'living happily thereafter' as you put it. I only reacted to your
comments on the fares not to be pedantic but because I've sat through
presentations by skytrain executives who trot out exactly this kind of
specious argument and then in the next sentence point out that the govt
should pay for extensions to the system. E.g. a top skytrain executive
argued with a straight face in Mar-03 in a presentation that (paraphrasing)
the beauty of the skytrain is that this kind of rail system extended
city-wide means that we can solve Bangkok's urban transport problems without
needing to take the politically unpalatable step of restricting cars....

As said, I think the skytrain is a great system even though the operators
spend so much time in bankruptcy court negotiations, and there may well be a
very good case to extend the system with public funds. And I'd support
skytrain extensions and other rail metro systems in Bangkok provided they
were based on a proper analysis considering all options (including bus-based
options such as BRT).

Best regards, karl

This email and any attachment to it may contain confidential or proprietary
information that are intended solely for the person / entity to whom it was
originally addressed.  If you are not the intended recipient, any
disclosure, copying, distributing or any action taken or omitted to be taken
in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. 
Internet communications cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as
information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, arrive late or contain
viruses.  The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or
omissions in the context of this message which arise as a result of
transmission over the Internet. 
No opinions contained herein shall be construed as being a formal disclosure
or commitment of the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation unless specifically
so stated.