Starting with http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb26/Spreadsheets/Table9_10.xls, Amtrak's most recently-reported energy use is 2700 BTU/passenger mile, down from a high of 3200 in 2000 and up from a low of 2400 in 1991. Using a figure of 125,000 BTU in a gallon of gasoline (the high heating value) and 140,000 BTU in a gallon of #2 Diesel, this works out to 46 passenger-miles/gallon gasoline (MPG will be gasoline unless indicated). Their averages work out to 20 persons per train car. A train car averages 2.6 Diesel MPG, contrasted with a figure of 6 Diesel MPG stated for intercity buses.
To put these numbers in perspective, I looked into some train resistance calculations - the Davis formula had been suggested on another thread. My source for train resistance is S. F. Hoerner, 1965, Fluid-Dynamic Drag Dr. Hoerner was a German aerodynamicist who emigrated to the US after WW-II. The book was recommended to me by a Mechanical Engineering professor at Northwestern University when I had asked about drag numbers for determining the fuel economy of trains. The book is self-published by the author, and I had ordered a copy from his widow at Hoerner Fluid Dynamics, PO Box 342, Brick Town, NJ 08723, but that was over 30 years ago. But the laws of physics haven't changed. Page 12-15 gives a chart for rolling resistance (Davis formula) and aero drag for a 400 ton train with "conventional" aerodynamics and with streamlining.
My baseline train is the Amtrak Hiawatha Service, currently operating a 5-car train with a P42 at one end and an NPCC (non-powered controlled cab) F40 at the other end. The weight of this train is 525 tons -- 125 tons at each end and 55 tons each times 5 cars. I am assuming the upper end of Dr Hoerner's drag numbers for this train, owing to the unstreamlined underbodies of the Horizon cars and the step mismatch between these lower profile cars and the locomotive or cab units at each end.
My first comparison train is a 10-unit Talgo consist (each Talgo unit is 45 feet long) with a Talgo XXI Power Car at each end. I am assuming 20 tons per Talgo unit (somewhat heavier than the standard Talgo 17.5 ton unit for strengthening to meet FRA limits) and 90 tons each for the Talgo XXI Power Cars. I am assuming the low end of Dr Hoerner's drag numbers owing to the streamlining and height match of the Talgo consist. That consist weighs in at 380 tons.
My second comparison is a 5-car consist of a Colorado Railcars single-level DMU at each end (80 tons each) with three 55 ton trailers in the middle. The CRC DMU is faired and streamlined and height matched, so I will assume the same aero drag numers as Talgo. The CRC consist is lighter than Talgo -- 325 tons. The CRC consist achieves its weight savings by carrying passengers in the power cars, which employ truck-type high-speed Diesels and fluid-drive transmissions, in contrast with the Talgo XXI, devoting two carbodies in the consist for propulsion with the weight of Diesel-electric drive.
For calculating fuel use, I am assuming that a Diesel engine uses .4 pounds of fuel per HP-hr, and that a gallon of Diesel weighs 7 pounds times 20,000 BTU/pound of hydrocarbon fuel giving 140,000 BTU per gallon of #2 Diesel. I am using the Hoerner drag figures to compute fuel usage at a constant 80 and 110 MPH, and I am assuming that the Hiawatha train has to accelerate to that full speed four times. The trip length is 86 miles. I am assuming the the HEP requirements average to 40 kW per car, and that the total trip time that the HEP is in use is 1.5 hrs for 80 MPH, 1.25 hrs for 110 MPH peak speeds.
Assuming 500,000 passenger per year on the Hiawatha service, that works out to an average load of 100 passengers per train. So if the locomotive gets 1 mile per gallon, the train averages 100 passenger miles per gallon Diesel or 89 passenger MPG (gasoline reference). It is interesting that the passengers per car (average of 20) are at the Amtrak system average. Many will consider these load factors low, but the Wis-DOT recently pushed for a 5th car on the consist on account of peak travel times, and they don't vary this consist with changes in traffic.
I label the trains Horizon for Hiawatha-Horizon cars, Talgo, and CRC DMU for Colorado Rail car DMUs plus trailers.
Train Weight Cruise HP Trip gallons (#2 Diesel)
(tons) 80 MPH 110 MPH 80 MPH 110 MPH
Cruise+Accel+HEP= Total Cruise+Accel+HEP=Total
Horizon 525 1377 2860 85+28+23 = 136 128+53+19 = 200
Talgo 380 645 1155 40+20+23 = 83 52+38+19 = 109
CRC DMU 325 583 1070 36+17+23 = 76 48+33+19 = 100
This works out to a max of 200/86=2.3 gallons/train-mile for the Horizon consist at 110 MPH, to 136/86=1.6 gallons/train-mile for the 80 MPH Hiawatha consist, to the best case 80 MPH CRC consist of 76/86=.9 gallons/train-mile. As a sanity check on those numbers, I talked to someone at Wis-DOT about the Vision Report fuel economy assumptions, and I was quoted 1.7 gallons/train-mile for a single locomotive, an 8-car Amfleet-type consist, and no cabbage car.
Expressed as BTU/passenger mile / passenger MPG (gasoline equivalent)
80 MPH 110 MPH
Horizon 2240 BTU/PM / 56 PMPG 3220 BTU/PM / 39 PMPG
Talgo 1400 BTU/PM / 89 PMPG 1820 BTU/PM / 69 PMPG
CRC DMU 1260 BTU/PM / 99 PMPG 1680 BTU/PM / 74 PMPG
The current Hiawatha is scheduled Mil-Chi at 1:35 Hr:Min -- my computer simulations of a 110 MPH Hiawatha give Mil-Chi at 1:15 Hr:Min.
OK, I have given you a topic. Now discuss this amongst yourselves . . .
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Paul,
Thanks!
This points out the effect of the extra 132 tons being hauled around on the Hiawathas.
My concerns are whether there is room for a fast 300-passenger train in the rush hours, how to best accommodate the demand for longer-distance travel, and what is the cost of additional capacity for limited periods?
Another issue is the practice of focusing on maximizing revenue per passenger rather than increasing overall revenue and ridership more than cost. The trains then can become a social tool to reduce less efficient driving, highway congestion, energy consumption, emissions, and consumer cost.
You may be interested in an article, "Optimizing Aerodynamics to Raise IC Performance" by Jean-Luc Peters in the Oct, 1982 Railway Gazette International. I was able to translate this into the Davis formula and program calculations using Basic. Unfortunateley, Basic is obsolete and current programming languages are beyond this old dog.
Harvey
Paul Milenkovic wrote:Starting with http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb26/Spreadsheets/Table9_10.xls, Amtrak's most recently-reported energy use is 2700 BTU/passenger mile, down from a high of 3200 in 2000 and up from a low of 2400 in 1991. Using a figure of 125,000 BTU in a gallon of gasoline (the high heating value) and 140,000 BTU in a gallon of #2 Diesel, this works out to 46 passenger-miles/gallon gasoline (MPG will be gasoline unless indicated). Their averages work out to 20 persons per train car. A train car averages 2.6 Diesel MPG, contrasted with a figure of 6 Diesel MPG stated for intercity buses.
Dear Paul,
I am getting the impression that you are comparing apples to oranges here. How exactly did you arive at the 6 MPG figure for intercity busses? Since you cite no details on this figure the rest of the information in your post is useless.
A better way to compare the fuel efficieny of busses to trains would be to compare the MPG per passenger seat rather than the average number of passengers carried. By this method you can compare the potential energy savings of one mode over the other on equal footing.
However I must also note that there is more to energy efficiency than just MPG. To be fair you must also compare the energy consumption of the infrastructure that supports the two modes of transport. Wich consumes more energy to build and maintain, a mile of interstate freeway or a mile of 79 MPH mainline track? You simply leave this part out of your equations.
When you come up with appropriate facts and figures Paul you will see that trains are the most energy efficient means of land transportation.
Scott
Data on bus MPG is available from Bureau of Transportation Statistics at http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/excel/table_04_15.xls
That is an interesting point that the energy-intensity of the guideway/roadway should be taken into account in comparing the energy intensity of transportation modes. I don't have any data on that but would welcome any input or comparisons on this issue. One should also add the energy required to manufacture the rolling stock -- cars, buses, trains. On the other hand, when the energy use of different modes of transportation is discussed in many forums, the fuel consumed by the vehicle is what is often reported.
As to the "apples and oranges" and the matter of a "fair" comparison between buses and trains, a large part of the improved fuel efficiency of buses is that they operate at higher seating densities, with the seats practically crammed together, and they operate at higher load factors, more people packed into those seats. On the load factor issue, bus operators will dispatch more buses during peak travel times; Amtrak, however, is running fixed consists on its corridor trains.
There is also an expectation in the advocacy community that trains provide a greater level of comfort through much lower seating densities along with amenities provided by non-revenue cars on long-distance trains. The lower seating densities, the low overall load factors required so as to not turn people away at peak times, and the expected levels of amenities on trains are a tradeoff against fuel efficiency. If the reason for promoting train travel is to save energy, for reasons of reducing oil imports, greenhouse gas emissions, and so forth, the advocacy community may have to accept reduced levels of such amenities on trains.
There is a widely-held assumption that not only are trains more fuel efficient than other modes but that trains are more fuel efficient by orders of magnitude. Unfortunately, this has not been the case -- see David Lawyer's statistics and explanations at http://www.lafn.org/~dave/.
Amtrak as it is currently operated is not making a meaningful contribution to reducing energy consumption, owing to the current low level of patronage and current equipment and operating practices. People keep saying "with the outrageous price of gas, Amtrak ridership is increasing and people will switch to trains." Given the slim energy advantage offered by Amtrak, that more people are riding Amtrak reflects that the Amtrak fares are subsidized to the extent that they don't reflect Amtrak's energy costs.
Trains in theory could offer substantial savings in energy, but that would require changes in operating practices and perhaps some changes in expectations on the part of the advocacy community. I offered some examples of how lighweight, streamlined equipment, none of it exotic by current standards, could double Amtrak fuel efficiency.
SRen wrote: Paul Milenkovic wrote: Starting with http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb26/Spreadsheets/Table9_10.xls, Amtrak's most recently-reported energy use is 2700 BTU/passenger mile, down from a high of 3200 in 2000 and up from a low of 2400 in 1991. Using a figure of 125,000 BTU in a gallon of gasoline (the high heating value) and 140,000 BTU in a gallon of #2 Diesel, this works out to 46 passenger-miles/gallon gasoline (MPG will be gasoline unless indicated). Their averages work out to 20 persons per train car. A train car averages 2.6 Diesel MPG, contrasted with a figure of 6 Diesel MPG stated for intercity buses.Dear Paul, I am getting the impression that you are comparing apples to oranges here. How exactly did you arive at the 6 MPG figure for intercity busses? Since you cite no details on this figure the rest of the information in your post is useless. A better way to compare the fuel efficieny of busses to trains would be to compare the MPG per passenger seat rather than the average number of passengers carried. By this method you can compare the potential energy savings of one mode over the other on equal footing.However I must also note that there is more to energy efficiency than just MPG. To be fair you must also compare the energy consumption of the infrastructure that supports the two modes of transport. Wich consumes more energy to build and maintain, a mile of interstate freeway or a mile of 79 MPH mainline track? You simply leave this part out of your equations.When you come up with appropriate facts and figures Paul you will see that trains are the most energy efficient means of land transportation.Scott
Paul Milenkovic wrote: Starting with http://cta.ornl.gov/data/tedb26/Spreadsheets/Table9_10.xls, Amtrak's most recently-reported energy use is 2700 BTU/passenger mile, down from a high of 3200 in 2000 and up from a low of 2400 in 1991. Using a figure of 125,000 BTU in a gallon of gasoline (the high heating value) and 140,000 BTU in a gallon of #2 Diesel, this works out to 46 passenger-miles/gallon gasoline (MPG will be gasoline unless indicated). Their averages work out to 20 persons per train car. A train car averages 2.6 Diesel MPG, contrasted with a figure of 6 Diesel MPG stated for intercity buses.
The amount of energy used in building a highway or railway line, when depreciation or the life of the project is considered, is probably marginal compared to the energy used in operations.
Highways and railway lines, together with their support facilities, are capital projects. The cost of building them, at least in the case of a private railway line or one owned by a quasi governmental agency (Amtrak) is capitalized and depreciated over the estimated life of the asset. The depreciation period runs for decades.
The major costs associated with a capital project are labor, equipment, materials and overheads. Most of these projects are built by contractors. If the contract is a time and materials arrangement, the contractor bills out the equipment at so many dollars an hour. Included in his equipment billing rate is the cost of the fuel. If it is a lump sum contract, the contractor builds the cost of fuel into his estimate of the total cost of the contract.
The cost of the fuel is capitalized along with the other costs associated with the project and is an element in the annual depreciation schedule.
I have never worked for a government agency. I am not sure whether the cost of highways is capitalized or expensed. If it is not capitalized, then the cost of the fuel used to construct the highway would be a one off, which means it would have a big impact during the construction period, but it would have no impact over the remaining life of the project. At the end of the project's life the outcome would be the same.
Although the cost of the energy used in construction may be capitalized, it is fair to say that the pollution is not embedded in the project. So one might argue that it is a one off, which means there is a big blip in air pollution while the project is being constructed, offset by no construction pollution once the project is completed.
Paul Milenkovic wrote:There is a widely-held assumption that not only are trains more fuel efficient than other modes but that trains are more fuel efficient by orders of magnitude. Unfortunately, this has not been the case -- see David Lawyer's statistics and explanations at http://www.lafn.org/~dave/.... Trains in theory could offer substantial savings in energy, but that would require changes in operating practices and perhaps some changes in expectations on the part of the advocacy community. I offered some examples of how lighweight, streamlined equipment, none of it exotic by current standards, could double Amtrak fuel efficiency.
...
I looked at Lawyer's website and while I would quibble about the relative efficiencies of cars and locomotives, he does get it right in that LD trains weigh A LOT per passenger. Interestingly, that is something that John White brought up in the mid-1970's in his book The American Railroad Passenger Car. I'd also argue that an electrified line offers the advantage of a much more diversified energy supply, but the only LD electric line is the Northeast Corridor.
Kind of a shame when remembering that both the M-1000 and the Pioneer Zephyr could hit 110 MPH with a 600HP engine and the M-1000 was originally designed to use engine heat for heating the train.
Commuter rail is a different story in that the GO Transit design weighs less than a 1,000 pounds per seat. A further improvement could be made by using hybrid locomotives to store braking energy, though batteries don't yet have the cycle life and ultracaps don't have the specific energy needed to make a practical hybrid commuter locomotive.
Autobus Prime wrote:People who claim that buses are the transportation be-all end-all forget that buses were largely responsible for driving people away from mass transit.
Do you have anything to justify that opinion? My opinion is that automobiles were the largest factor to cause people to abandon mass transit.
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
gardendance wrote: Autobus Prime wrote:People who claim that buses are the transportation be-all end-all forget that buses were largely responsible for driving people away from mass transit.Do you have anything to justify that opinion? My opinion is that automobiles were the largest factor to cause people to abandon mass transit.
My limited recent experience with Amtrak is that the trains, both long-distance and Midwest Corridor, have been pretty full and need to be given a break regarding energy consumption that is related to train weight.
The Chicago - Saint Louis trains are turned; but the Hiawathas have the "cabbage" car ballasted to 263,000 lbs without the engine. This adds the equivalent of two more coaches in train resistance and consumes more fuel.
A 10-car, 2-locomotive superliner train with 300 passengers works out to roughly 7,700 lbs per passenger, about three times the weight of a compact auto. Then too, it's travelling with the motel and restaurant while an auto, bus, and plane travel between fixed facilities. I am not advocating meal stops or over-nighting. On-board facilities make up for running slower on a 19th Century alignment than flying and, in many cases, driving on 20th Century expressways.
If the "average" corridor train averages 20 passengers per car, the weight for a 4-car train works out to around 10,000 lbs per passenger! This is four times the weight of a compact. Rush hour Hiawatha #330 with 270 passengers and "cabbage" car weighs 4,100 lbs per passenger. Another coach was added and the train still may be full. If Amtrak achieves forty-six passenger-miles per gal, a full train such as the Hiawatha would achieve over 150 pm/gal and beat a Prius three times over.
I still think pricing is the key; and Amtrak is focused on revenue per passenger more than train revenue. Could the average ridership double if train tickets were half the price? Policymakers should consider achieving over 90 pm/gal and taking as many cars as possible off congested roads.
For Metra, a more typical 8-car rush hour train with 1,050 passengers works out to just 1,400 lbs per passenger, almost half the weight of an auto. There is no direct relationship between weight, so a rush hour Metra should be quite a bit better, but not four times more fuel efficient than the average Amtrak. A 6-car mid-day train dead-heading cars with only 300 passengers comes to 6,400 lbs per passenger. In all fairness, the extra cars often represent equipment repositioning for a heavier load in the opposite direction and the contingency for unexpected passengers.
Of course the train in nearly full the times you are on it. Andecdotal reports of load factor have a known observation bias. The times that the train is nearly empty are the times you are not on it because no one else is riding it either.
Some people look at a train with 50 percent load factor and see a train half full. Others look and see a train half empty. I look at such a train and see a transportation service that is flexible enough to accomodate peak demand.
Part of the reason flying is so uncomfortable is that not only are the seats packed close together, it seems everytime one is on one of those things, it is nearly full, with people who take on too much carry-on luggage and hog the arm rest and the whole experience of being crowded together with strangers. Aviation achieves the fuel economy that they do because the run such high load factors, using the trick of selling a seat in the same cabin for widely different prices depending on that passenger's willingness to pay. Ever notice that when you book airline seats it is like haggling at the souk? Oh, I could get you out Tuesday at 1 PM, but that flight is $600, but if you were willing to take the Tuesday 6:45 AM flight, the fare would be only $450.
The airlines get away with this because a cheap seat is more important to people than the convenience of not having to get up at 4 AM to make the 6:45 AM flight. We put up with a lot from the airlines because for a lot of the distances we are trying to cross, the airplane is much faster than any surface alternative, even with taking the airplane on the airline's preferred time and the TSA lines and so on.
The train I numbers I crunched for the Hiawatha were for the ridership numbers that are touted by the advocacy community that this train is in great demand. A fifth car was recently added, the result of some hard lobbying by our WisDOT to get Amtrak to scare up another Horizon car, because ridership was such that the train was at capacity -- at peak times. They don't switch cars out of the consist at off-peak times.
If the Hiawatha gets 3 times the fuel mileage of a (driver-only) Prius for (the train at) peak load, so what? It is not operated that way, unless it is the position of the advocacy community that Amtrak should be playing the same game as the airlines to make sure that the train is packed. HarveyK is perhaps advocating this, but is the rest of the community on board? Is achieving high load factors, perhaps at the expense of increased inconvenience in the style of the airlines, an agreed-upon goal of the advocacy community? Are we OK with turning passengers away from Amtrak to achieve load factor, because that is what airlines do with respect to airplane travel?
There are a number of things that can be done to move Amtrak fuel efficiency from parity with fuel-efficient makes of cars to a substantial improvement in fuel efficiency. Load factor is obvious. Increasing the seating density and cutting back on lounge, sleeper, baggage car, dining car is another. Streamlined lighweight trains offer another avenue as do DMUs. I can see each of these measures facing opposition in the advocacy community -- Amtrak is not providing enough seats, I was turned away when I wanted to travel, Amfleet equipment is "Cramfleet", the lounge, sleeper, baggage, and onboard dining service is the whole reason for taking trains, lightweight trains ride roughly, DMUs put the crews and perhaps passengers in peril in grade-crossing collisions.
Is parity with fuel efficient cars good-enough to advance the cause of increased Amtrak funding? Should higher levels of train fuel efficiency be a goal of passenger advocacy or are we happy with things just the way they are? If higher train fuel efficiency is a goal, what tradeofs are we willing to make with respect to the inconvenience resulting from higher load factor, seats closer together in coach, capital money for new corridor trains at the expense of making do with the existing LD equipment, curtailment of energy-inefficient Amtrak route segments?
Whether anecdotal experience creates an impression or illusion, it raises doubts about the veracity of presentations to the contrary.
My emphasis was on filling the existing seats, not adding a couple more rows to improve fuel efficiency without adding another car. That alternative didn't come to mind. Given tight equipment supply, maybe it's better to have seats to sell than turn people away and get better mileage to boot.
Is my veracity being questioned here? It is simple math. Pick whatever number you believe represents the passenger boardings on the Hiawatha. I rounded the number to 500,000 -- it has been lower in prior years, ridership has been up lately. People pretty much ride this thing end-to-end, so riders divided by seats equals load factor. There are 7 trains a day in each direction except for Sunday when there are 6. 98 trains/week times 52 weeks in a year is 4992 one-way train trips/year. 500,000 divided by 4992 is 100.16, which I rounded to 100. On average, throughout the year, about 100 passengers ride the Hiawatha train.
You have a different set of numbers, different conclusions on the energy efficiency of these trains, tell me what they are.
To give you an analogy of where being a believer in something gets you, consider Feynman's critique of the Space Shuttle. He wanted someone to tell him their best engineering estimate of the rate at which they could expect to have an accident with one of those things. He talk to sources who estimated the accident rate to be 1 in 25 launches; he talked to some NASA engineers who believed it to be 1 in 100. Those numbers are not picked out of the air -- there are many more non-Shuttle rocket launches, and those figures are optimistic for those other rockets. He talked to the Shuttle managers, who believed the accident rate to be 1 in a bajillion, and they would not even allow themselves to be pinned down on roughly how much a bajillion was.
The actual accident rate has been somewhere in the range between the 1 in 25 and the 1 in 100 -- nowhere near the 1 in a bajillion.
Same thing here. When I crunched the numbers to come up with an engineering best-guess as to the fuel economy of the Hiawtha, it comes out to around 50 passenger MPG. This doesn't sit with people, because if I had asked people what it was, I would probably be told it was multiples higher than that. Maybe I am way off on the load factor and shouldn't believe the numbers I get from WisARP through WisDOT on ridership, and the train gets closer to 100 MPG. It doesn't really matter because the thing would need to get in excess of 200 PMPG to make a serious impact on transportation energy consumption.
Your veracity is not being question; it's the numbers that conflict with my unscientific experience that nevertheless raises doubts. Furthermore, this related to the discussion regarding long-distance trains, specifically the Builder and Southwest.
I saw recent Hiawatha monthly ridership and, indeed, the averager number of passengers per train is about 100. I've seen enough Hiawathas go by to know that 100 passengers on average can't be far off the mark. Trains 330 & 339 may carry three times the average; but that becomes an even harsher criticism of the service.
A monthly ticket between Chicago and Milwaukee costs $321, the equivalent of $7.30 for 44 trips a month. I wonder how many people would ride the Hiawathas if the one-way fare was reduced from $21 to $12? Or to $14?
On the load factor question, I am not by any means taking the position, "Oh, the load factor is low, no one is riding Amtrak." The load factor is just one variable in the operation of a transportation system.
For example, a given highway may be jammed up at rush hour, but there may be only two cars on the road at 3 AM. We don't say, "Oh, this highway is underutilized because no one is taking it at 3 AM." Also, when people form an opinion as to the capacity of the highway, they naturally base it on the jammed-up rush hour experience rather than the 3 AM experience. One difference is that a highway just sits there and doesn't require fuel to put into motion; to provide a similar capacity to be available when people decide to use it, you need to put train cars in motion.
As to the idea of lowering the fare to increase utilization of the train, the Hiawatha train is already at capacity, at least at peak times as evidenced by the initiative to add a train car to the consist. To increase the load factor, one would have to play the airline game of offering lower fares for off peak runs, raising the fare and perhaps turning people away for peak times. Aviation is intrinsically an energy-intensive mode, and the airlines have achieved "reasonable" passenger MPGs by cramming in seats and aggressively filling those seats.
Railroading is intrinsically much less energy-intensive, allowing railroad operations to offer more space, operate at lower load factors for the convenience of passengers, and provide amenities on the long-distance runs. The passenger train has a much larger weight budget of pounds per seat or pounds per passenger to achieve roughly comparable fuel economy as aviation. The concept I have trouble getting any consensus on is that passenger trains start out with a much larger weight budget, but that larger budget can be quickly spent on all of those things that people regard as intrinsic to trains, and you end up with Amtrak being roughly comparable in energy efficiency to other modes rather than having enough of an advantage that would justify ramping up Amtrak funding on the basis of energy concerns.
Dear Samantha
I beg to differ that fuel consumption for building and maintaining hiways is a one off event. Anyone who has driven on the Interstate hiway system can atest to the massive perpetual maintenance and expansion projects that are needed to keep the freeways functional. In addition you must consider snow removal, salting, and sanding of all roads durring the winter months.
Plus you must factor in the massive amount of freeway infrastructure that is "functionally obsolete" that is in dire need of replacement (remember that big bridge colapse in the Twin Cities?).
On a final note Samantha I want to make a comment on something you wrote about in another post, that of so called "Intelligent Highway Systems" or IHS for short. As I recall you stated that the future of American transportation will rely on cars that can drive themselves using sophisticated onboard auto pilot computers linked with guidway computers imbeded in the streets.
Even on its own terms this scheme is ridiculous! Never mind the cost of installing all of this computer hardware in our Interstate System and the vast motor fleet and then the debuging and maintenance that this system will need. One has to wonder: What is to stop people from driving unequiped vehicles on these automated systems; after all many people operate vehicles without proper licenses and insurance but that doesn't stop them from getting out on the road.
As James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency wrote "Proposals such as IHS demonstrate how overinvestment in technological complexity can continue far beyond the appearance of obvious diminishing returns." (p. 266)
Scott,
You asked whether persons in cars without guidance equipment would violate the Intelligent Highway System by entering the roadway. Actually, this might be controlled at entrance ramps with open tolling technology and barriers.
The more fundamental question is whether IHS poses de facto economic discrimination. The highway industry has perpetuated the myth that public roads are for everyone, overlooking the facts that segments of the population cannot drive and others not as competent as may be desired must be accommodated, and justifies general pulic support in taxation. A person who can barely afford a junker, licensing, and insurance cannot afford the considerable cost of the telemetry, guidance, and speed control systems required for IHS driving. IHS will be particularly burdensome for people inversely proportional to incomes.
I second your comments regarding highway costs and energy consumption not ending with the initial construction. However, you missed the costs of policing, emergency road services, sweeping and trash removal, and mowing and gardening.
SRen
I said, "The amount of energy used in building a highway or railway line, when depreciation over the life of the project is considered, is probably marginal compared to the energy used in operations." I did not say anything about maintenance.
It is true that energy is used to maintain a highway, or any infrastructure for that matter, including a railway line. I have not researched the per passenger mile maintenance costs for the airlines (planes, airports, air navigation systems) and the railways nor the vehicle miles traveled for the highways. Whether there is a significant difference in the unit cost, which would include energy, is problematic.
A high speed railway line, such as Amtrak's NEC, is maintenance intensive. I would be surprised if the maintenance cost per passenger mile on the NEC is significantly lower than the per passenger mile charge for the airlines or vehicle mile traveled for the highways. This would include the capitalized energy, which again would be a one off for the maintenance project, unless it is continuous maintenance such as snow removal. In any case, it is probably a minor percentage of the energy consumed by the operating vehicles over the initial or extended life of the asset.
I believe that I said electronic guidance systems for selected highways are a possibility. GM has tested the concept. Of course, it is not ready for prime time, and it may never be, but to say it is a ridiculous notion puts one in the same league as those who said that powered flight was ridiculous. And that would have been most people prior to 1903. Wouldn't they be surprised to learn that today people can fly from Austin to Melbourne, Australia, for example, with more than 400 other people, in a little over 17 hours, with only one stop, at more than 35,000 feet, while having a glass of wine and enjoying a movie at their seat? Or sleeping in a fully reclining bed if they can afford business or first class! Airplanes have come a long way since the Wright brothers did their thing. It is unlikely that anyone in 1903 could have seen how aviation would develop to the extent that it has today.
In 1966 the firm that I worked for on Wall Street bought its first IBM mainframe computer. It replaced 825 NCR operators. Today my laptop computer, which cost a tiny fraction of the cost of that mainframe, has more horsepower than it had. No one would have believed it in 1966.
If one believes that the technology development curve has peaked, then the notion that electronic guided highways are a possibility must seem unreasonable. But I believe that we are not at the end of the technological developments but still close to the beginning. So I am going with the dreamers. Just like the ones who ignored the argument that powered flight and computers were not possible or feasible.
The overall load factor of 100 passenger per train for the Hiawathas may be acceptable to Amtrak because states are underwriting the cost; but what about the public's interest? Shouldn't Wisconsin and Illinois promote public goals such as mobility, safety, fuel conservation and emission reduction, and highway congestion mitigation with rail travel? Weren't these underlying justifications for maintaining and improving rail passenger service between Chicago and Milwaukee?
The load factor is a performance measure that can be used to identify problems and opportunities. It measures how well goals are achieved. I have proposed a pricing strategy, not for the purpose of improving a measure; but for achieving goals represented by the measure.
Fuel conservation and traffic mitigation can be achieved in a small way, given the present scale of operation, by diverting travel from highway to rail. If lowering off-peak one-way fares would double ridership, filling more of the seats already available in the fixed consists running between Milwaukee and Chicago, fuel efficiency would rise to a respectable 92 passenger-miles per gallon. Furthermore, daily ridership, much of it diverted from auto use, would increase from 1,400 trips to 2,800 trips.
Since multiple occupancy vehicles would be unlikey to switch, 100 vehicles would be removed from I-94 in the hour the train ran. This represents only a small 1.67% of capacity, a little less than two cars a minute, for a 3-lane roadway.
Reduced monthly and 10-ride tickets have been offered for a long time. The monthly ticket price of $321 would seem to be instrumental in attracting over 300 passengers on #330 and #339 and represents $7.30 a ride for 44 trips. This is quite a bargain compared to the one-way fare of $21 that seems to me to stifle use. This is not congestion pricing; and the ridership amounting to 43% of the total impacts revenue.
Given the willingness to encourage commuter use, why not similarly encourage off-peak utilization? If a monthly ticket discount of 2/3 garners a threefold increase in riders, could a 1/3 discount of a regular ticket double ridership for occasional riders? This would be revenue-neutral and costs would not increase. Reducing one-way fares may attract a few more occasional riders on the peak trains that cannot exploit less-expensive commuter tickets; but the major impact would be on the other trains.
One question is whether peak commuters would absorb an increase, "congestion pricing," while reducing one-ways by a third. For example, $8.50/trip would come to $374/month ($0.099/mile, a 16.5% increase), $117.75/10-ride ($0.137/mile) and $13.85 ($0.161/mile) one way.
By comparison, the Valparaiso commuter service was averaging 150 passengers per train before Amtrak reduced service in 1987.
Autobus Prime wrote:Anecdotally, you and I know that people don't like city buses.
I'm not trying to beat you up, I'm sure you meant it innocently, but please be careful when you talk about what other people know. I don't know that people don't like buses. I'd tend to agree if you said that I know that people don't like public transit, since most people don't use public transit there must be some of them who based their decision on a dislike. Again my theme here is that the bus is not the enemy, or at least the bus is the enemy of our enemy.
I've got 2 anecdotes that go both ways:
1. SEPTA had a survey which said that the route 15 riders overwhelmingly wanted buses instead of a return to streetcars. It turns out that the survey choices were between air conditioned buses and unrefurbished PCC's with no air conditioning.
2. SEPTA was replacing late night subway service, 30 minute headway, with night owl bus over the same route with 15 minute headway. Several comments in the newspaper were from people who felt that waiting on the subway platform was safer than waiting on the street corner. I found that sentiment surprising since the anecdotes I was used to were from people who were fearful of the crime in subway stations.
When I was a kid, and talked about how I liked to go for trolley rides, all my friends would tease me. The memory from grade school was they'd always say "trolleys are slow".
fredswain wrote:I wouldn't look at "potential" anything as a basis for comparison. How much a bus or train CAN carry is irrelevant.
Train run fuel consumption may be helpful in evaluating operations and implementing fuel conservation practices. Run data also may provide a benchmark for measuring operations, yet questions such as whether to shut down engines can be found the other way around by calculating the hours spent at idle or standby fuel consumption rates.
Some railroads get locomotive information including throttle setting and braking by satellite telemetry. I don't know if the event recorder data can be downloaded routinely or even as a sampling; or if this is necessary routinely except to monitor operating practices.
In the long run, it all boils down to the system and the sum of its parts.
Apparently I overestimated the understanding that all members of this forum should have about the up coming converging crisises our nation is about to face. I am refering to the imminent coming of world peak oil production, the imminent issue of diminishing natural resourses, and the growing national debt.
Samantha you missed my point entirely, I agree that if we throw enough money and energy into the development of an Intelligent Highway System such a thing could be built. The point I was trying to make was the fact that the implimentation of such a system would be so expensive and the logistics to make it work would be so immense that the whole idea is impractical. All of this and I have not even brought up the fact that world engergy and natural resource supplies are about to peak. I think it is interesting that you made a comparison between the the pre Wright brothers era "conventional wisdom" about powered flight and my views on the Intelligent Highway. Lots of people understood Bernoulli's principle of lift before the first flight at Kitty Hawk, what got the Wright brothers into the history books was that they were the first ones to apply a suitably powerful gasoline engine to the engineering challenge. After the Wright brothers flew, the new "conventional wisdom" was that anything was technologically possible given enough time, money, and research. Durring the era of plentiful oil and other natural resource supplies, this assumption held up quite well. However I am sad to report that the era of "anything is possible" is almost over.
China and India are both trying to industrialize their economies just as world natural resource supplies are about to peak. With in the next 10 years, it won't matter how much you dig, drill, blast, etc. etc., world demand for many critical resources will exceed supply. We are already seeing the consequences of this situation as the sky high prices of petroleum and copper clearly show.
The resources we need to make an Intelligent Highway System possible are rapidly diminishing. It is crazy to put our limited tax payer dollars into a super advanced system that will be completely useless to most people in the near future. Even if the nation attempts to convert the entire vehicular fleet to electric propulsion we are going to run into problems when we try to find enough copper to make the electric motors for all of these machines.
The BIGGER point I am trying to make is that this nation is sleepwalking into a transportation crissis of a size not seen since the gas rationing era of World War II. The time to prepare for this inevitable crissis is to start building up mass transit networks NOW!
This is why I brought up seating capacity as a means of determining potential fuel efficency, when I said this I was thinking of the near future when the nation will need the most fuel efficient forms of transportation to move as many people as possible. If we have another transportation crisis like what we experienced durring WW II we will need to act now to make as much passenger rail capacity as possible to keep people moving. All of this bickering that has been occurring on this form is just wasting time, and time is running out.
I do not dismiss the importance of seating capacity; but seating comprises a whole range of issues from boarding to comfort appropriate for the travel market as well as fuel economy.
If you have 70-passenger coaches and ridership for a given run averages 150 passengers; how many cars are you going to assign to the train? If 100-seat cars are contemplated to improve the theoretical fuel efficiency, how will that work in the above example? At what point does fuel efficiency override service and business is turned away? With Amtrak, average loads vary for each run; and variances in loads occur for each trip. Theoretical fuel efficiency is moot. Of course, a couple trains operate at near-capacity and approach the optimum; but the service is judged for what is achieved on the whole - currently around 46 pm/gal for the Hiawathas.
I share your concerns for the issues.
New technology is almost always beyond the reach of the market place at the time it is discovered. They key to making it affordable is acceptance and mass production, which almost always lower dramatically the cost.
The first computers were so expensive and labor intensive that only the U.S. Army and a few research centers could afford them. But the cost came down and, ultimately, they became available for the masses.
I have been a pilot and student of aviation for decades. I never read anything to suggest that the early aeronautical engineers envisioned anything like the Boeing 747. Or that airplanes would supplant trains as the preferred mode of travel, especially over long distances.
The comparison between pre-Wright understanding of flight and Intelligent Highway Systems was illustrative. It is about a vision of the possible. Many if not most of the great inventions came from people who defied the conventional wisdom. They did not root themselves in old technologies; they envisioned a new way. So it could be with Intelligent Highway Systems in select locations.
Some experts say that we are near the peak of oil production. Others say we are 40 to 60 years away. No one knows for sure.
During the Stone Age there were probably men and women who believed that the world was running out of stones. Fortunately, people with greater foresight discovered better alternatives. And they made the switch to them before the supply of stones was exhausted. The era of cheap oil is over, and we will switch to other fuels long before the world runs out of oil. Hopefully, we will do it in a rational and thoughtful manner.
The U.S. needs to invest in public transit, including rail, where it makes sense, which for the most part is in large cities and relatively short, high density corridors. But for most parts of the U.S., better alternatives exist or will be developed.
In Texas less than two per cent of the population uses public transit. And it is likely to stay that way for a long time to come. How do I know? I don't for sure. But two of my neighbors, good old truck loving boys, just bought Smart Cars. They are not going to take a bus or a train to work.
Dear Samantha,
You do realize that durring prehistoric times there were not enough people living on the planet to threaten the exhaustion of any natural resources; right? I am asking you this because you keep missing my point about what the global shortage of energy and natural resource supplies is going to have on our civilization.
As I mentioned in my last post, current "Convention Wisdom" states that given enough time, reseach, and money we will be able to overcome any problem with technology. As I said before, this belief worked well when material and energy supplies were so cheap and plentiful no one had to give these basic issues a second thought.
Unfortunately the human race is moving into a new era in wich shortages for everything is going to be the norm. It is unfortunate that people such as yourself are wedded to the 100 year old conventional wisdom that states that technology will save us from all problems.
Technological advancement requires raw materials and energy. The computer industry as we know it today would not exist without oil bassed plastics and cheap fuel to ship products from locations with supper cheap labor to US markets.
The idea that our world's energy needs will be solved with some new technological advancement is a dangerous assumption to make. Current renwable energy sources will only provide a fraction of the energy our civilization needs and even the most enthusiastic supporters of renewables admit that new technology will not be able to replace fossil fuels. Clearly the human race is going to have to go back to doing things on a smaller scale.
Part of this paradigm shift will be the realization that single occupant vehicles and the vast infrastructure needed to suport them is unsustainable. People will rely on public transportation not because they want too but because they will have too.
That being said, I am happy to hear that your neighbors purchased SMART cars, they will come in handy when they need to get to the nearest train station or light rail depot.
I got your point. You missed mine.
You might be be correct. Or you could bewrong. No one knows for sure what tomorrow will bring. I am betting your prognosis is wrong. So are a lot of other people.
Clearly, you don't live in Texas. If you did you would know that public transit, especially rail based systems, will not work here, except in a few locales, given the layout of our cities. Dallas has the best public transit system in Texas. After an investment of billions of dollars in the light rail and the commuter rail systems, a blazing two per cent of the population uses it.
Good old boys and gals like myself will give up our pick-ups. But most of us will opt for Smart Cars or something like it as opposed to using public transit. I say most of us. I have used public transit for 39 of the 41 years that I worked for Corporate America. And I still use it whenever I can.
SRen wrote:Current renwable energy sources will only provide a fraction of the energy our civilization needs and even the most enthusiastic supporters of renewables admit that new technology will not be able to replace fossil fuels.
Current renwable energy sources will only provide a fraction of the energy our civilization needs and even the most enthusiastic supporters of renewables admit that new technology will not be able to replace fossil fuels.
The electric energy needs of a typical suburban house can be met with a few hundred square feet of commercially available PV cells. PV cells are not an economical replacement for fossil fuels with current prices, but that is very likely to change within the next 10 years. The energy needed for a 40 mile commute can be generated by a couple hundred square feet of present day PV cells in the lower latitudes of the US, and battery technology is available for such a car.
For long distance travel with renewable energy sources - the Olympian Hiawatha covered a third of its journey powered largely by hydro power.
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