The Antiplanner

The Future of Intercity Passenger Transport

20th November 2009

The Future of Intercity Passenger Transport

posted in Transportation |

Early this week, the OECD’s International Transport Forum held a conference in Madrid on the Future of Interurban Passenger Transport. To a large degree, however, it was more a symposium on planners’ fantasy of intercity passenger transport.

At least, that’s what appears from looking at the subjects of the symposium’s papers. Five of the papers dealt almost exclusively with intercity rail, two (both from North Americans) with intercity highways, two with airlines, and only one with buses.

Yet the reality of intercity passenger transport is very different. Highways are by far the dominant carrier, even in Europe and Japan. Airlines are next, and rail tends to be last. Buses are also ahead of rail in most countries.

The one paper that dealt with buses modestly points out that buses have a higher share of intercity travel than rail in Europe as a whole and in most European countries other than France and Germany. Moreover, rail exceeds bus in Germany and especially France because government regulation prohibits competition with the rail lines — yet even with those restrictions, bus carries a substantial share of intercity traffic in those countries.

One of the rail papers examined the possibility of building a maglev line between Tokyo and Osaka — the route of the only profitable high-speed rail line in the world. The paper’s author admitted that maglev would produce five times the CO2 emissions of the Shinkansen high-speed rail line.

In contrast with the European and Japanese love for little-used high-speed rail, faithful Antiplanner ally Robert Poole, of the Reason Foundation, presented a fascinating paper presenting innovative ideas for highways. Supported by a similar but less well-developed proposal by Canadian economist Robin Lindsey, Poole suggest that we rebuild interstate highways to separate auto and truck traffic. One advantage, Poole points out, is that auto lanes don’t have to be as wide as truck lanes, so more total lanes can fit into the same space if some are dedicated exclusively to cars.

Poole is one of the first if not the first to promote highway privatization, high-occupancy/toll (HOT) lanes, and HOT networks, so it won’t be surprising if his ideas for separate car and truck lanes are taken seriously by some state and national highway departments. Of course, the real success of this idea depends on truckers’ (and auto drivers’) willingness to pay tolls that cover the costs of the roads they use.

The only other paper by an American was from the Brookings Institution’s Clifford Winston, who extolled the virtues of transport deregulation — using the U.S. airline, rail, and trucking industries as examples — and, by extension, privatization. So it appears the Americans and Europeans played to stereotypes, with the former emphasizing markets and user-fee funded transportation facilities and the later mostly focusing on subsidized transport.

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  1. 1 On November 20th, 2009, the highwayman said:

    The Autoplanner: So it appears the Americans and Europeans played to stereotypes, with the former emphasizing markets and user-fee funded transportation facilities and the later mostly focusing on subsidized transport.

    THWM: Well at least the Europeans are being honest about things, unlike Americans.

    posted on November 20th, 2009 at 3:19 am

  2. 2 On November 20th, 2009, ws said:

    There’s some decent ideas into Poole’s proposal. It would be nice if there was a roadway that altered capacity during peak and off-peak times. For instance, an urban roadway that turns into 4 10-lane widths during congested times but has lower speeds (maybe 35 mph) and during non-peak hours turns into 3 12-lane widths during to accommodate 55+ mph. There’s no benefit to drivers if the lanes are constantly 10 feet wide and you can’t go 55 mph at 4 am in the morning to catch your flight.

    The lane striping would be the only issue. I’m not sure how that would go. LEDs? Some sort of reflective material that could move? I know Australia has some interesting toll technologies regarding altering lane capacities and changing routes through automation.

    I would also like to note that Poole’s ideas are a bunch of speculative planning (like assuming the purchase of private ROWs, etc.) Planning for roads = good. Urban planners = bad, I guess?? I also noticed nothing in Poole’s paper about how each mode would pay for the construction and maintenance of such a roadway.

    Would the trucking industry pay extra for higher overpass height, thicker pavement, and special engineering designs for turning radius, superelevations, etc. of trucks, etc? Our entire highway system is a huge subsidy to truckers as it is, consider much of the damage to roads is from trucks and the special design considerations they receive.

    Oh well, I guess that’s Libertarian/free-market contradictions #435 and #436.

    posted on November 20th, 2009 at 12:02 pm

  3. 3 On November 20th, 2009, C. P. Zilliacus said:

    ws wrote:

    > There’s some decent ideas into Poole’s proposal. It would be nice if there was a roadway that altered capacity during
    > peak and off-peak times. For instance, an urban roadway that turns into 4 10-lane widths during congested times but
    > has lower speeds (maybe 35 mph) and during non-peak hours turns into 3 12-lane widths during to accommodate 55+ mph.
    > There’s no benefit to drivers if the lanes are constantly 10 feet wide and you can’t go 55 mph at 4 am in the morning
    > to catch your flight.

    We have that in some places in the U.S. now, notably the segments of I-395 and I-95 in Virginia commonly called
    Shirley Highway, with the reversible HOV lane roadway in the median. There’s a similar HOV roadway on I-564 and I-64
    in the Norfolk, Virginia area.

    > The lane striping would be the only issue. I’m not sure how that would go. LEDs? Some sort of reflective material
    > that could move? I know Australia has some interesting toll technologies regarding altering lane capacities and
    > changing routes through automation.

    A carefully-designed set of gates and signs that open and close depending on which way the roadway is operating.

    > I would also like to note that Poole’s ideas are a bunch of speculative planning (like assuming the purchase
    > of private ROWs, etc.) Planning for roads = good. Urban planners = bad, I guess?? I also noticed nothing in Poole’s
    > paper about how each mode would pay for the construction and maintenance of such a roadway.

    I think it reasonable to assume that if such assets are owned by the private sector, then the tolls must be high enough
    to cover the costs of those things.

    > Would the trucking industry pay extra for higher overpass height, thicker pavement, and special engineering designs
    > for turning radius, superelevations, etc. of trucks, etc? Our entire highway system is a huge subsidy to truckers as
    > it is, consider much of the damage to roads is from trucks and the special design considerations they receive.

    They already do on some toll roads in the East. Notably, the Ohio and Pennsylvania Turnpikes and the N.Y. State Thruway all
    routinely allow trucks with gross vehicle weight over 80,000 pounds. The Ohio Pike and the NYS Thruway allow long
    combination vehicles that are forbidden on “free” Interstates in those states. And yes, truckers that take advantage of
    these provisions have to pay for them.

    > Oh well, I guess that’s Libertarian/free-market contradictions #435 and #436.

    I am not a Libertarian and I do not play one on television.

    posted on November 20th, 2009 at 4:08 pm

  4. 4 On November 21st, 2009, ws said:

    There’s no doubt truckers pay more to use, the question is, are they paying for what they use? “Regular” auto users don’t even cover their own direct costs.

    posted on November 21st, 2009 at 10:16 am

  5. 5 On November 21st, 2009, prk166 said:

    Plans are in place for I394 west of Minneapolis to have it’s HOT lanes beefed up including shifting barriers so that the number of lanes can vary to accommodate traffic.

    posted on November 21st, 2009 at 8:54 pm

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