[sustran] Re: Rail or bus

[Jonathan E. D. Richmond]

On Mon, 3 May 2004, Jain Alok wrote:

> 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?

Good point, and I certainly would call for rail where it makes sense.


> Why can't this be a rail plus bus discussion?

Because there are many situations where rail investments have had poor
results and we need to guard against further inapropriate developments
that squander scarce public resources and hurt those of low income.

 There comes a time when
> passenger traffic in a corridor becomes so heavy that rail becomes the
> logical choice.

Sometimes, but not necessarily. Look at Curitiba, for example.

 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).
>

I agree completely: the Hong Kong system is wonderful and makes complete
sense. So does the metro of Mexico City.


> 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.


Absolutely agreed.

 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.
>

As I said, not necessarily. First of all, you make the assumption that
there is a "backbone." If needs are dispersed, you may have the metaphor
quite wrong, and channeling flows down a rigid hieracrchical type network
may not serve needs.

Cost is also an issue. With limited resources, difficult choices must be
made about who to serve and how this is to be done, and rail is generally
a very costly approach.

> 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.

No, it is much more complicated than that. Not only is the difference
between rail and bus fares in Bangkok substantial, but rail provides only
limited service compared to a complex urban bus network (the network is,
indeed, in need of reform, with overly lenthy lines operated with poor
timekeeping, but that is another matter).

 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.

The passengers certainly would not be happy. The buses serve a whole range
of points in-between rail stations as well as beyond them.

 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!!).

In fact, I think there is a need for cool analytical work to look at the
complex characteristics of the population using public transport and the
costs and benefits of alternative approaches. This difficult work is
rarely done in an independent and unbiased way --Jonathan


>
> Keep up the good work.
> Alok Jain
>
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