[sustran] Re: rail vs road freight distribution

[Daryl Oster]

> Original Message From: D. Scott TenBrink
> 
> Todd makes good points here regarding rail vs road subsidy.

This depends on the definition of subsidy:  If you consider a transportation
subsidy to be government expenditures on transportation mode, in the US, the
government expends about 40 times more per passenger mile of rail
transportation than is expended on a passenger mile of road transportation.


If you define subsidy as a gift (negative rate of return on investment),
then roads are NOT subsidized, and passenger trains are subsidized, as road
expenditures are more than recovered by fees and taxes collected directly
from the users.  Passenger rail expenditures in the US have always been
incapable of recovering the direct costs.  

>  I also agree that a basic network formula does not reflect the 
> distribution patterns of nodes of use and production, the responsive 
> change of nodes and network to one another as well as other forces, or the

> potential for production and consumption nodes to be one in the same.  Yet

> I do notice a tendency on this list to say that rail will simply replace 
> road as a freight distribution system without considering
> the difference between the two networks, and the impact of these
> differences on distribution.

Well stated!  The network theory of (N-1)^2 has been experimentally verified
with empirical data.  It holds only for nodes that are optimally placed to
exploit their full share of capacity.  In the case of a real network, only
the initial nodes are optimally placed, and the "last mile" must be
subsidized by the profits of the initial most profitable nodes, to the point
of optimizing total system value.  

In the case of rail in the US, the government provided the incentive to add
enough value (land grants) to expand the network for greater value beyond
the simple limits of profitability.  

Now that network theory is much better understood, the extents of optimal
network expansion are better planned from the onset.  


> Stripping the main point from Oster's argument (and disregarding the
> somewhat unsettling breast-feeding obsession), he points out that rail has

> fewer nodes than road and that this results in roads being more effective 
> medium for transport for the produce farmer.  I see two reasons that it is

> better for the farmer: he can ship on his own schedule instead of timing 
> his shipments with the train and making reservations for space, and the 
> road goes right from his farm to the market with no need to transfer 
> goods.

Having grown up on a farm, I can attest to the fact that most grain in the
US is initially moved by truck.  Even though the US has the most extensive
rail network in the world, less than 5% of farms in the US have rail access.


Almost all produce is hauled from the fields by truck.  And the farmer
usually sells to produce companies that have a node (on rail or water) to
effectively ship great distances to large markets.    

In my opinion, building rail will not benefit the local farmer, but it will
provide opportunity for middle men to take advantage of their inability to
effectively reach the market over a good road with a community owned truck!


> 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.

Correctly deduced, and well stated.  Those who grow up in a train dominated
city do not understand, and are prone to believe the lies of those who would
profit by rail expansion.  


> Are people arguing that rail can accommodate the farmer better, or that
> the farmer should not have such a large voice in the decision (or 
> something else completely)?  I do agree with Oster that Sunny overlooks 
> the difficulties of switching from road to rail shipping, particularly for

> payloads that have widespread production/consumption locations.

History is rich with examples of produce transporters taking unfair
advantage of a farmers inability to access a market.  That is why most own a
truck, even though it is only uses 3 or 4 weeks out of the year!!   Survey
most farmers in the US, and you will find most of them hate the railroads.


> I also found the reference to HIV and lorry drivers to be a bit off.
> Certainly HIV is a concern that desperately needs to be addressed 
> regardless of profession.  Eliminating freight transport by road would be 
> quite a round-about and isolationist way to address it. I don?t think our 
> goal is to limit opportunities for human interaction.  I would advocate 
> education and condom distribution over lorry elimination.
> -Scott TenBrink

Scott, I fully agree.  It is far more powerful to build bridges to enhance
human interaction, than to build walls to stifle it.  Transportation should
never take the blame for education failings.  AND transportation is perhaps
the best tool to accomplish equity and education with.  

The developing countries deserve the highest value transportation, not
hand-me-down systems that will tend to perpetuate the lack of development
and equity.  

Evil has many masks, and the most dangerous is virtue.  Those who claim that
rail offers the poor equity, (while flying around to elitist conferences via
jets and limousines), are robbing those who can least afford to defend them
selves.  So the elite of developing countries grow stronger, while the value
producers remain dependant.  

Daryl Oster
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