9 ms·

Faster trains make longer distances competitive with air travel. Assuming a similar price per mile, the cutoff is T * deltaV where T is the extra time to travel

Faster trains make longer distances competitive with air travel. Assuming a similar price per mile, the cutoff is T * deltaV where T is the extra time to travel to and from the airport and get through security and deltaV is the difference in speed. Assuming 3 hours and 250mph (500 - 250) the cutover is 750 miles. Reality is less simple as price varies as well. In Europe the cutover (in time and price) seems about 200 miles [1] although the CO2 emissions are up to 30x higher by air. Of course speeds are lower, maybe 150mph which would suggest a 450mi cutoff. [1] https://m.dw.com/en/trains-vs-planes-whats-the-real-cost-of-travel/a-45209552 https://m.dw.com/en/trains-vs-planes-whats-the-real-cost-of-...

innocenat 7y ago
With the under construction Hokkaido shinkansen extension to Sapporo, a 360kph train along Tohoku shinkansen has estimated travel time of 4 hours from Tokyo to Sapporo, making it competitive with air travel.(Approx. 1100km by rail track)
- asutekku 7y ago
  Tokyo to sapporo with a plane is still only only one and half hour. Granted you still are required to spend some time at the airport.
  - SECProto 7y ago
    Tokyo Station to Haneda is 25 minutes transit, Chitose Airport to Sapporo Station is a 45 minute train ride, and you would want at least 20-30 mins before boarding to get through security (even in Japan). Add in a few minutes walking/waiting for trains and it takes that 1.5 hour plane ride up to 3.5 hours minimum.
  - innocenat 7y ago
    The market is less of people in southwestern Tokyo and Yokohama (closer to Haneda), and more of people in northern Tokyo and Saitama -- those that board at Ueno or Omiya station.
tyingq 7y ago
I'd gladly trade the extra time for the increased comfort. And, there's likely less parking/check-in/boarding time with trains.
- wjossey 7y ago
  Ditto. Even with America’s subpar train travel, I still love to take trains when I can. I’ve done Chicago to New Orleans. New Orleans to New York. SF to LA. Each time I wrap up loving my experience. Train travel, especially in the USA where it’s slow, can be more about the experience than the time to destination.
- cheerlessbog 7y ago
  Yes I didn't account for the quality of experience. The TGV is delightful to ride: quiet and smooth. I'd prefer almost any train to air just for the ability to move around. I still have flashbacks to a flight where I was crammed in the corner behind a huge guy.
jessriedel 7y ago
> CO2 emissions are up to 30x higher by air OK, but let's not overstate things. These numbers suggest it's typically a factor of 10 or less for normal (low-speed) trains. https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm Given the scaling of air resistance with speed, I expect that for high-speed trains the ratio is significantly less, maybe ~5. (Better number welcome.) Once you factor in the larger upfront energy costs of rail infrastructure, trains still do better in terms of carbon output, but only after a lot of usage. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-high-speed-rail/492/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-hig...
- mikeash 7y ago
  That depends entirely on how your electricity is generated, right? For example, French trains presumably do a lot better than merely 10x.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    Depends on how many passengers are on the train. Here in Ontario, the provincial trains along the busiest corridor in the province (probably the country) are, anecdotally, about 5% full per average unit distance travelled, even at peak times in the busiest legs of the corridor, you're likely to see about a fifth of the seats empty. I doubt the GO train's passenger load factor is as good as AmTrak, for example.
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    Agreed, though my impression is that most of the highest speed trains are in Japan, which nationally runs roughly 80% on fossil fuels. And per Carbon Engineering, it also depends on how your hydrocarbon fuel is generated too :)
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      Whack thing about Japan and fossil fuels is it's totally untapped geothermal.
thatfrenchguy 7y ago
200 miles ? Lyon from Paris is 467km (290 miles) and Marseille is 482 miles from Paris and you'd have to be an idiot to take an airplane (or more likely, have a connection) from those cities. That article looks at transnational train tickets, those tickets are notoriously more expensive than domestic ones.
- cheerlessbog 7y ago
  Airport overhead varies too. CDG is particularly painful to travel to and traverse based on my experience. SAN is basically downtown.
  - xenospn 7y ago
    Getting from the gate to your rental car absolutely SUCKS in any country that's not the US. Easily adds another 1-2 hours to your overhead.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  you'd have to be an idiot to take an airplane (or more likely, have a connection) from those cities. And yet thousands of people do every month. There is a lot about transportation that the HN crowd doesn't understand.
  - user5994461 7y ago
    Which is nothing in comparison to the thousands of people doing it every HOUR by train.
  - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
    And they probably all have a connection to somewhere else :-). Paris - Lyon for example is only Air France flights for people with a connection.
- tim333 7y ago
  I just booked a plane 220 miles from London to Paris. Ticket was £38 vs £135 for the train.
dripton 7y ago
Slow security is not inherent to air travel; it's something that was tacked on by politicians. It could easily be added to trains. (Or removed from planes, though I'm not holding my breath.) Distance to the airport vs. train station depends on where you live. I'm actually closer to an airport than a train station, though I believe that for most people in cities it's the other way around. You also need to throw cars in there. In the US, I fear the choice is usually car vs. plane not train vs. plane, as passenger rail just doesn't go enough places. Making trains faster would be great for places that already have trains (say, DC to Boston, which is currently doable by train but a bit slow), but wouldn't help with all the places not currently served. Now, if we were to actually ban or hugely tax planes for environmental reasons, that might spur the creation of more passenger rail. I don't see that happening in the US until South Florida goes underwater though.
- cheerlessbog 7y ago
  > Slow security is not inherent to air travel; it's something that was tacked on by politicians. Air travel requires security because it's uniquely vulnerable to bombs and hijack. That is why high speed trains require little or no security checks.
  - caprese 7y ago
    High speed trains go through city centers and are vulnerable to bombs
    - sbuttgereit 7y ago
      Yes, but it's hard to use a train the way the 9/11 attacks used planes. They were able to take the planes and magnify the damage, casualties, and spectacle and they had a high degree of freedom in picking targets. Much harder to pull that off with a train; you'd make the news, but not stun the world.
      - ja30278 7y ago
        I have never understood why, post 9/11, planes were not modified to remove the cabin to cockpit door, and make the cockpit door a separate entrance. This would more or less completely remove the possibility of a second 9/11 attack, and would render airplanes no more attractive a target than any other group of several hundred people.
kalleboo 7y ago
> Assuming 3 hours and 250mph (500 - 250) the cutover is 750 miles FWIW, in Japan for domestic flights, air travel is quite streamlined compared to the US or Europe (since they have to compete with bullet trains!) No ID check, no check-in (use QR code on phone). Some airports have automatic baggage check machines. Boarding doesn't start until 15 minutes before departure (tickets are sold from vending machines until 20 min before departure) Security is light (liquids are allowed, they have a sniffer device) Airports can be located centrally (e.g. Fukuoka airport is a 10 minute subway ride from the center, in Tokyo it's more like 30 min) Living here in Japan, my cutover to fly is around 600 km. Part of that is due to geography (trains have to take a detour due to an ocean), but the #1 reason is that flying is cheaper.
- xenospn 7y ago
  True. I was pleasantly surprised when I took a domestic flight in Japan and didn't have to interact with anyone until showing up at the gate and boarding.
  - PascLeRasc 7y ago
    Narita airport is by far the best I've ever been to. The organization and processing was so intuitive that despite knowing ~zero Japanese I was able to navigate without looking anything up.
- henvic 7y ago
  That's great to hear. In contrast, I was in Russia last year and it was hard to buy a train ticket and they had this airport-style security checkpoint even for buying tickets (and the security theatre at the airports were even worse).
sandworm101 7y ago
>>> Faster trains make longer distances competitive with air travel. There is more to this competition than raw speed. There is also capacity and environmental footprint (carbon per passenger). Aircraft have different logistical advantages. An airport runway can handle far more people than a rail line. Airports can land a plane every minute. A rail line would never dare have two high speed trains that close to each other. So, as a link between two points, a pair of airports can move more people than a train in most circumstances. That is a type of 'faster'. Trains would normally win on carbon footprint, but bullet trains don't run on solar power. Their carbon footprint isn't zero. And one must consider total journeys. If the train infrastructure is widespread, great, but it often isn't. Dropping a new airport somewhere is far cheaper (in every regard) than plowing a new rail line through the countryside. It may work in Japan, but I doubt trains will be connecting Vancouver to Calgary anytime this century.
- akira2501 7y ago
  > Airports can land a plane every minute. During peak times this is true, but the ramp is still a huge bottleneck for overall capacity at most airports. Listen to the ground control frequency at a busy airport like JFK for a good example of this.
- richk449 7y ago
  > Airports can land a plane every minute. A rail line would never dare have two high speed trains that close to each other. Why the difference? If I naively guessed, I would think that trains were easier to control and more predictable, so the docking rate should theoretically be higher than for a plane. Is the real limitation not the docking, but the high speed travel up to he docking? Trains all follow the same track, but planes can travel in parallel until 5e final approach?
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    Because if a plane has a problem, those behind it can maneuver around in three dimensions. Trains move in one dimension. If a train has an accident (ie comes to an unexpected stop) the trains behind it must be far enough away that they can also stop. They cannot maneuver around the blockage. Allowing for detection and communication times, at 400+kph that safety margin will be much more than a minute.

innocenat 7y ago

With the under construction Hokkaido shinkansen extension to Sapporo, a 360kph train along Tohoku shinkansen has estimated travel time of 4 hours from Tokyo to Sapporo, making it competitive with air travel.(Approx. 1100km by rail track)

asutekku 7y ago
Tokyo to sapporo with a plane is still only only one and half hour. Granted you still are required to spend some time at the airport.
- SECProto 7y ago
  Tokyo Station to Haneda is 25 minutes transit, Chitose Airport to Sapporo Station is a 45 minute train ride, and you would want at least 20-30 mins before boarding to get through security (even in Japan). Add in a few minutes walking/waiting for trains and it takes that 1.5 hour plane ride up to 3.5 hours minimum.
- innocenat 7y ago
  The market is less of people in southwestern Tokyo and Yokohama (closer to Haneda), and more of people in northern Tokyo and Saitama -- those that board at Ueno or Omiya station.

tyingq 7y ago

I'd gladly trade the extra time for the increased comfort. And, there's likely less parking/check-in/boarding time with trains.

wjossey 7y ago
Ditto. Even with America’s subpar train travel, I still love to take trains when I can. I’ve done Chicago to New Orleans. New Orleans to New York. SF to LA. Each time I wrap up loving my experience. Train travel, especially in the USA where it’s slow, can be more about the experience than the time to destination.
cheerlessbog 7y ago
Yes I didn't account for the quality of experience. The TGV is delightful to ride: quiet and smooth. I'd prefer almost any train to air just for the ability to move around. I still have flashbacks to a flight where I was crammed in the corner behind a huge guy.

jessriedel 7y ago

> CO2 emissions are up to 30x higher by air OK, but let's not overstate things. These numbers suggest it's typically a factor of 10 or less for normal (low-speed) trains. https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm https://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm Given the scaling of air resistance with speed, I expect that for high-speed trains the ratio is significantly less, maybe ~5. (Better number welcome.) Once you factor in the larger upfront energy costs of rail infrastructure, trains still do better in terms of carbon output, but only after a lot of usage. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-high-speed-rail/492/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-hig...

mikeash 7y ago
That depends entirely on how your electricity is generated, right? For example, French trains presumably do a lot better than merely 10x.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  Depends on how many passengers are on the train. Here in Ontario, the provincial trains along the busiest corridor in the province (probably the country) are, anecdotally, about 5% full per average unit distance travelled, even at peak times in the busiest legs of the corridor, you're likely to see about a fifth of the seats empty. I doubt the GO train's passenger load factor is as good as AmTrak, for example.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  Agreed, though my impression is that most of the highest speed trains are in Japan, which nationally runs roughly 80% on fossil fuels. And per Carbon Engineering, it also depends on how your hydrocarbon fuel is generated too :)
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    Whack thing about Japan and fossil fuels is it's totally untapped geothermal.

thatfrenchguy 7y ago

200 miles ? Lyon from Paris is 467km (290 miles) and Marseille is 482 miles from Paris and you'd have to be an idiot to take an airplane (or more likely, have a connection) from those cities. That article looks at transnational train tickets, those tickets are notoriously more expensive than domestic ones.

cheerlessbog 7y ago
Airport overhead varies too. CDG is particularly painful to travel to and traverse based on my experience. SAN is basically downtown.
- xenospn 7y ago
  Getting from the gate to your rental car absolutely SUCKS in any country that's not the US. Easily adds another 1-2 hours to your overhead.
reaperducer 7y ago
you'd have to be an idiot to take an airplane (or more likely, have a connection) from those cities. And yet thousands of people do every month. There is a lot about transportation that the HN crowd doesn't understand.
- user5994461 7y ago
  Which is nothing in comparison to the thousands of people doing it every HOUR by train.
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago
  And they probably all have a connection to somewhere else :-). Paris - Lyon for example is only Air France flights for people with a connection.
tim333 7y ago
I just booked a plane 220 miles from London to Paris. Ticket was £38 vs £135 for the train.

dripton 7y ago

Slow security is not inherent to air travel; it's something that was tacked on by politicians. It could easily be added to trains. (Or removed from planes, though I'm not holding my breath.) Distance to the airport vs. train station depends on where you live. I'm actually closer to an airport than a train station, though I believe that for most people in cities it's the other way around. You also need to throw cars in there. In the US, I fear the choice is usually car vs. plane not train vs. plane, as passenger rail just doesn't go enough places. Making trains faster would be great for places that already have trains (say, DC to Boston, which is currently doable by train but a bit slow), but wouldn't help with all the places not currently served. Now, if we were to actually ban or hugely tax planes for environmental reasons, that might spur the creation of more passenger rail. I don't see that happening in the US until South Florida goes underwater though.

cheerlessbog 7y ago
> Slow security is not inherent to air travel; it's something that was tacked on by politicians. Air travel requires security because it's uniquely vulnerable to bombs and hijack. That is why high speed trains require little or no security checks.
- caprese 7y ago
  High speed trains go through city centers and are vulnerable to bombs
  - sbuttgereit 7y ago
    Yes, but it's hard to use a train the way the 9/11 attacks used planes. They were able to take the planes and magnify the damage, casualties, and spectacle and they had a high degree of freedom in picking targets. Much harder to pull that off with a train; you'd make the news, but not stun the world.
    - ja30278 7y ago
      I have never understood why, post 9/11, planes were not modified to remove the cabin to cockpit door, and make the cockpit door a separate entrance. This would more or less completely remove the possibility of a second 9/11 attack, and would render airplanes no more attractive a target than any other group of several hundred people.

kalleboo 7y ago

> Assuming 3 hours and 250mph (500 - 250) the cutover is 750 miles FWIW, in Japan for domestic flights, air travel is quite streamlined compared to the US or Europe (since they have to compete with bullet trains!) No ID check, no check-in (use QR code on phone). Some airports have automatic baggage check machines. Boarding doesn't start until 15 minutes before departure (tickets are sold from vending machines until 20 min before departure) Security is light (liquids are allowed, they have a sniffer device) Airports can be located centrally (e.g. Fukuoka airport is a 10 minute subway ride from the center, in Tokyo it's more like 30 min) Living here in Japan, my cutover to fly is around 600 km. Part of that is due to geography (trains have to take a detour due to an ocean), but the #1 reason is that flying is cheaper.

xenospn 7y ago
True. I was pleasantly surprised when I took a domestic flight in Japan and didn't have to interact with anyone until showing up at the gate and boarding.
- PascLeRasc 7y ago
  Narita airport is by far the best I've ever been to. The organization and processing was so intuitive that despite knowing ~zero Japanese I was able to navigate without looking anything up.
henvic 7y ago
That's great to hear. In contrast, I was in Russia last year and it was hard to buy a train ticket and they had this airport-style security checkpoint even for buying tickets (and the security theatre at the airports were even worse).

sandworm101 7y ago

>>> Faster trains make longer distances competitive with air travel. There is more to this competition than raw speed. There is also capacity and environmental footprint (carbon per passenger). Aircraft have different logistical advantages. An airport runway can handle far more people than a rail line. Airports can land a plane every minute. A rail line would never dare have two high speed trains that close to each other. So, as a link between two points, a pair of airports can move more people than a train in most circumstances. That is a type of 'faster'. Trains would normally win on carbon footprint, but bullet trains don't run on solar power. Their carbon footprint isn't zero. And one must consider total journeys. If the train infrastructure is widespread, great, but it often isn't. Dropping a new airport somewhere is far cheaper (in every regard) than plowing a new rail line through the countryside. It may work in Japan, but I doubt trains will be connecting Vancouver to Calgary anytime this century.

akira2501 7y ago
> Airports can land a plane every minute. During peak times this is true, but the ramp is still a huge bottleneck for overall capacity at most airports. Listen to the ground control frequency at a busy airport like JFK for a good example of this.
richk449 7y ago
> Airports can land a plane every minute. A rail line would never dare have two high speed trains that close to each other. Why the difference? If I naively guessed, I would think that trains were easier to control and more predictable, so the docking rate should theoretically be higher than for a plane. Is the real limitation not the docking, but the high speed travel up to he docking? Trains all follow the same track, but planes can travel in parallel until 5e final approach?
- sandworm101 7y ago
  Because if a plane has a problem, those behind it can maneuver around in three dimensions. Trains move in one dimension. If a train has an accident (ie comes to an unexpected stop) the trains behind it must be far enough away that they can also stop. They cannot maneuver around the blockage. Allowing for detection and communication times, at 400+kph that safety margin will be much more than a minute.