[sustran] [sustran] More on Denver thread

[Mark Diesendorf]

My former colleagues and I at Institute for Sustainable Futures, 
University of Technology, Sydney, have calculated the effect of land 
value on the economics of cars, buses and trains in Sydney, 
Australia. We found that the highest cost, in $ per passenger-km 
travelled, was that of motor cars, followed by heavy rail and then 
buses. The paper was on the ISF website until recently, 
www.isf.uts.edu.au/, but the site was revamped after I left the 
institute a month ago and the paper has temporarily disappeared. No 
doubt it will be restored shortly.

Recently, I went back to our original data and calculated the user 
charges and subsidies to cars, trains and buses in Sydney. Here is 
the abstract of a paper I submitted recently to an international 
transport conference.

"The Effect of Land Costs on the Economics of Urban Transportation Systems"
Using Sydney, Australia, as a case study, this paper reports on 
calculations of the costs of automobiles, heavy rail and buses, 
taking into account the costs of land, infrastructure, rolling stock, 
operations and maintenance. Land is found to be the principal 
contributor to the total direct economic cost to society of 
transportation by automobile. This total cost, measured in cents per 
passenger per kilometre travelled, is about 1.5 times the cost of 
train travel and is about double the cost of bus travel. All three 
urban transport modes receive public subsidies. The annual subsidy to 
automobiles is largest in terms of billions of dollars and second 
largest (after heavy rail) in terms of dollars per passenger per km 
travelled. These results suggest that, in Sydney and many other 
cities where land costs and car use are high, the economic optimal 
mix of transport modes would contain a smaller contribution from 
automobiles and a larger contribution from trains and buses.

Thus our research in Sydney seems to contradict the Denver hypothesis.



>With respect to new rail systems, it can generally be posited that the
>subsidy of trips that are all or part on rail will be more highly subsidized
>than those on buses, due to the very high capital subsidy for rail. US
>transit agencies treat capital as manna from on high --- something free that
>does not have to be accounted for.
>
>Whatever one can do with feeder buses to rail can also be done with feeder
>buses to trunk line buses. One of the more intractible  problems in the US
>has been the bias of transport planners in comparing modes.
>
>DEMOGRAPHIA & THE PUBLIC PURPOSE (Wendell Cox Consultancy)
>http://www.demographia.com (Demographics & Land Use)
>http://www.publicpurpose.com (Public Policy & Transport))
>Telephone: +1.618.632.8507 - Facsimile: +1.810.821.8134
>PO Box 841 - Belleville, IL 62222 USA

Dr Mark Diesendorf
Director, Sustainability Centre Pty Ltd
PO Box 221, Epping NSW 1710, Australia
phone: +61 2 9801 2976; fax: +61 2 9801 2986
email: mark at sustainabilitycentre.com.au
web: www.sustainabilitycentre.com.au
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