The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is buying new vehicles to replace 130 light-rail cars. Normally, my suggestion when rail systems wear out is to replace them with buses, but in this case it’s worth a close look.
One of SEPTA’s 40-year-old light-rail cars. Photo by jpmueller99.
The 130 cars are expected to cost $800 million, or a little over $6.1 million apiece. That’s a lot more than a bus, which typically costs under $500,000 if Diesel-powered and under $1 million if electric. But buses have an expected lifespan of only about 15 years, while SEPTA’s light-rail cars are 40 years old. The railcars are also a little larger than buses, having 50 seats compared with an average of 40 seats on SEPTA buses. Still, the railcars cost more than $3,000 per seat-year, while even million-dollar buses cost only $1,666 per seat-year.
The railcars also cost more to operate. In 2019, SEPTA spent $24 a vehicle-revenue mile running the trolley cars, but less than $16 per mile running its buses. Since the average passenger loads of SEPTA’s trolleys were only 18 in both 2019 and 2020, buses could easily carry trolley riders without increasing frequencies.
One advantage rail lines have is they often operate in their own right-of-way and thus aren’t impeded by traffic. Like other light-rail lines, SEPTA’s have some dedicated right-of-way but also operate in streets. Average 2019 speeds were 8.7 miles per hour, compared with 10 mph for SEPTA’s regular buses and 9.2 mph for SEPTA’s trolley buses, so having their own right-of-way doesn’t make the case for keeping the rail.
Maintaining rail lines is expensive. The National Transit Database keeps track of “capital replacement,” that is, maintenance and repairs of transit systems including replacing track and buying new buses or railcars. These costs vary from year to year but the database can be used to calculate the average, inflation-adjusted cost over the 29 years from 1992 through 2020. During that time, SEPTA has spent 4.4 times as much on buses as on light rail. SEPTA buses carry about 7 times as many passenger-miles as the light rail, so bus capital replacement costs per passenger-mile are much lower than rail costs.
By just about every measure, then, it would make more sense to replace SEPTA’s light-rail cars and routes with buses. The light-rail system uses some tunnels, but these could be easily modified for buses, especially if they were electric buses.
By the way, are Philadelphia’s trolley’s streetcars or light rail? The Federal Transit Administration classifies them as streetcars and SEPTA calls then trolleys, but I have a 1980 brochure from when they were introduced in which SEPTA calls them light rail. There are several factors that separate streetcars from light rail, but for me the most important one is couplers: light-rail cars can be coupled into two- to four-car trains while streetcars have no couplers. SEPTA’s railcars have couplers, but they are rarely used in service. Based on their slower speeds, streetcars might still be more appropriate. Either way, it would be less expensive to replace them with buses than to keep the rail lines.
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Wear and tear on steel rails is rail transits biggest concern.. can be mitigated. Replace rail cars with trolley buses along the same lines and powered by the same power delivery……
Contrary to a train or a tram, a trolleybus does not need a rail infrastructure. This not only results in huge cost and time savings, it also saves a large amount of energy in construction. Granted trolleybuses cant go everywhere but with no need for rail and city grid streets they can accomodate a vast multitude of sites and locations. Quito, Ecuador has a trolleybus system, During peak hours, there is a bus every 50 to 90 seconds (because of the high frequency, there are no schedules). El Trole as it’s called transports 262,000 passengers each day. By choosing the cheaper trolleybus over tram or metro, Quito could develop a much larger network in a shorter time. The capital investment of the 19 kilometre line was less than 60 million dollar – hardly sufficient to build 4 kilometres of tram line, or about 1 kilometre of metro line. Lower investment costs also mean lower ticket fares, and thus more passengers.
Philadelphia actually has two separate light rail systems: the “city” system, which mostly uses the Market Street tunnel downtown, and the former “Red Arrow” lines in the western suburbs. Both use a similar car although there are some design variations. The Red Arrow lines often run two-car trains; I’m not sure if the city cars have couplers or not, but I’ve always seen them run as single cars.
Seem like I posted too quickly. The Red Arrow lines have a considerable amount of separate right-of-way, while the city lines mostly run in the street. Supposedly those might get some reserved lanes for the new vehicles. I have no idea if buses could operate in the Market Street tunnel. There are some tight curves with not much clearance available.
Philly could order trolley buses like Dayton did a few years ago. Million a pop but they’re battery equipped. That would enable routes to be adjusted to have some non-overhead catenary service.
This could enable service that stops at 90th & eastwick to serve the airport. Or trolley service that terminates at 63rd + Malvern could instead serve the Overbrook rails station and the big medical center a couple blocks away.
SEPTA could have more, better service for less.
When you consider the light rail vehicles can operate as many miles as you want each day, while electric buses can only go about 125 miles between charges, you would need more electric buses than light rail vehicles even assuming that they can handle the same loads. The Antiplanner knows that average load does not equal the peak load, which determines the capacity required, because he doesn’t want to say anything that could support rail. Not sure how much capital money would need to be spent to modify the light rail depot to handle electric buses, I’m going to have to guess it would be $$$$$.
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When you consider the light rail vehicles can operate as many miles as you want each day, while electric buses can only go about 125 miles between charges,
” ~transitboy
Trolley buses w/ batteries – a solution used in Dayton – more or less eliminates this.
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Not sure how much capital money would need to be spent to modify the light rail depot to handle electric buses, I’m going to have to guess it would be $$$$$.
” ~transit boy
Oh my, spending $10k to modify a station to handle buses. How oh ever how will agencies spending $3,000,000,000 be able to scrounge up $10,000 to do that.
BTW, if one wants to delve into peak capacity, we need to talk about the baby boomers retiring.
Trolleybuses haven’t been very prevalent in the United States in the last five decades. For all of that time, there have been only five systems in the country; only the ones in Seattle and San Francisco have large networks. The double overhead wires required can get to be quite complex, and the buses can’t pass each other in regular service. There were a few proposals for new systems in the 1990s (e.g., Los Angeles) but none of them were built. Many of the other surviving systems in the world are in the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations. Even there, Moscow recently converted its lines to regular buses. New York is going to diesel-electric hybrids as it replaces its fleet.