[sustran] Re: rail vs road freight distribution
Todd Alexander Litman
litman at vtpi.org
Thu May 4 22:33:34 JST 2006
Rail is often the most cost effective way of shipping farm products.
Here in North America many farm groups have fought hard to maintain
rail service in their areas. For that reason some rural communities
have purchased rail lines that were scheduled for abandonment in
order to maintain service.
Researchers Kenneth Casavant and Jerry Lenzi ("Rail Line Abandonment
and Public Acquisition Impacts on Economic Development,"
Transportation Research Record 1274, 1989, pp. 241-251) found that it
is often cost effective for transportation agencies to subsidize rail
lines than to have rural freight (such as farm products) travel by
heavy trucks, which cause significant damage to roadways. An
efficient transportation system would charge trucks the full costs of
the road damage they impose, which would give shippers a rational
reason to use rail when it is most cost effective overall, but
currently most jurisdictions undercharge heavy trucks (i.e., they
impose significant economic externalities) making trucking appear
cheaper than it really is to society.
Of course, this is not to suggest that all freight should travel by
rail, but with improved logistics (i.e., more containerization and
more efficient terminal operations) and as fuel costs increase and
communities become more concerned about external impacts such as road
damage, congestion, accident risk and pollution, the role of rail increases.
Best wishes,
-Todd Litman
At 01:43 AM 5/4/2006, D. Scott TenBrink wrote:
>Todd makes the point that people are not randomly distributed, but
>clumped into
>urban areas. However, farms are quite widely dispersed and supermarkets tend
>to be (somewhat) evenly distributed across an urban area. Thus, it
>seems quite
>obvious why the farmer would choose to support road over rail, and I
>think that
>was the point of the original message.
Sincerely,
Todd Alexander Litman
Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org)
litman at vtpi.org
Phone & Fax 250-360-1560
1250 Rudlin Street, Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, CANADA
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
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