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That's a lovely story, but it's also why JR is bleeding red ink. Here's a typical story about one line that was serving an average of 19 (nineteen) passengers

That's a lovely story, but it's also why JR is bleeding red ink. Here's a typical story about one line that was serving an average of 19 (nineteen) passengers per day and made a loss of about US$3m/year for decades until it was finally axed in 2014 thanks to a providential landslide. https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/minispike-the-end-of-the-line/ https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/minispike-the-en...

rob74 5y ago
Such extreme examples aside, but generally the expectation that rail transport has to be profitable is harmful. On one hand, people expect roads to be well-built and well-maintained so they can run their cars on them for free (with some exceptions), but when rail transport is subsidised with tax money to offer an environmentally friendly and competitive alternative to cars, they complain about it.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Expecting public infrastructure to be profitable is like expecting your bathroom to be profitable. It's there to provide an essential service. Which you have to pay for. Not only is it not a business - and not there to make money for shareholders - running it as if it were a business is ruinously expensive and distracting and hampers the service it's supposed to provide.
- beerandt 5y ago
  If rail isn't profitable due to lack of demand, it likely also isn't environmentally friendly. The rail efficiency sold to the public is based on projections that (generally) also made them profitable. Rail efficiency decreases drastically as usage declines, as so much of the embedded energy and emissions is in the fixed cost of building out ROW and track, and ongoing MOW. You need to operate at a high percentage of capacity in passengers per train, and high percentage of capacity in trains per track. Efficient rail systems are relatively a highly constrained problem, due to said fixed cost of track, but also due to lack of flexibility to adapt to changes, both in routes (need to move/add track) and capacity (track at full capacity doesn't meet demand, but two tracks exceeds demand at cost of being inefficient). (Operating one track that doesn't fully meet demand increases prices and becomes an expensive but profitable point of stability.) Which is why eg high-speed rail proposals in the US typically rely primarily on improving existing slow routes, and are limited to midrange distances. Too short and too long both push it to being more costly at reduced efficiency.
tecleandor 5y ago
But it made certain sense, as it's remarked: "...it was targeted for the axe at the privatization of Japanese National Railways in 1987, just 15 years after completion, but escaped because the road that runs more or less parallel with it and is the only route into Iwaizumi from the south is not wide enough in many places for two cars to pass and is treacherous in winter." Also, per that article, the number of passengers is quite higher than that, and "per kilometer". Not that is huge, but... "...the least trafficked line in the whole nation, with average daily ridership per kilometer of 46 people in fiscal 2009" Anyway, I'm with @rob74 on this, profit shouldn't be the only concern in public transport.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with not demanding public, national train transport to be profitable. One issue I see is that the entire country pays for these feeder lines, I don't think that is the right call. Maybe a better approach would be that these local cities pay JR for the cost of providing this service. If the local cities see the advantage, it'll get funded and if not then the whole country doesn't have to pay for something that the locals don't really want anyway.
  - tecleandor 5y ago
    I mean, the target shouldn't be profit but providing a service. But throwing money down the drain should be kind of avoided, in general. Probably some cost share would be great. In said case, they might have calculated the cost of upgrading the road through this mountains versus maintaining the train. I guess..
  - helen___keller 5y ago
    it kind of depends right? when you think about funding structures, there's a myriad of approaches based on risk and potential outcome. You can try to estimate ridership, but usually only in the near future as there are major macro affects at play. every party has a different stake. transit infrastructure can lower housing costs by connecting low cost exurbs to the urban region, which in the us makes locals less interested (probably not so for japan). it can also grow national tax base by providing a competitive central business district and attract international investment, which is something that should appeal to the national government. so it is not as simple as "if locals want it, locals should pay for it", ideally there should be aligned incentives across the board like any business, investment in transit requires leadership and vision. blindly funding every station proposed is clearly a bad idea. so too is an overly conservative investment regime that takes 0 risk
lobochrome 5y ago
There is a tendency to undervalue the importance of feeder lines to the main arteries. Individually yes they might be unprofitable - but they provide value to a railway system. This process has happens in Germany over the last 30 years following privatization attempts. Only slowly are people realizing the detriments. Almost like in a circulatory system - cutting of the tiny vessels isn’t a recipe for success even if the main system can function for a while without them.
- p_l 5y ago
  It's also a lesson from Beeching axe, that you can't expect to replace feeder lines with individual cars, and that without feeder lines, the profitable mainline stops being profitable.
user-the-name 5y ago
Mass transit is meant to be a public service, not a source of profit.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  The tax base in the Japanese countryside is rapidly collapsing and the public money used to prop up railways at the end of the day comes out of the same pot of taxpayer money that's used to fund schools, hospitals, etc. Personally, I'm a huge railfan, but it's still absurd to spend $3m/year to serve commuters that would easily fit in a single minibus.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    I assume the Japanese have heard of MMT?
    - kwhitefoot 5y ago
      The Japanese might have done but I hadn't so i looked it up. Here is a summary in case anyone else was in my position: " Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic framework that says monetarily sovereign countries like the U.S., U.K., Japan, and Canada, which spend, tax, and borrow in a fiat currency that they fully control, are not operationally constrained by revenues when it comes to federal government spending. Put simply, such governments do not rely on taxes or borrowing for spending since they can print as much as they need and are the monopoly issuers of the currency. Since their budgets aren’t like a regular household’s, their policies should not be shaped by fears of rising national debt. MMT challenges conventional beliefs about how the government interacts with the economy, the nature of money, the use of taxes, and the significance of budget deficits. These beliefs, critics say, are a hangover from the gold standard era and are no longer accurate, useful, or necessary. MMT is used in policy debates to argue for such progressive legislation as universal healthcare and other public programs for which governments claim to not have enough money to fund. " By Deborah D'Souza, https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588060 https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588...
  - 5y ago
Aeolun 5y ago
I dunno, I think it’s fine for some train lines to be unprofitable when there are so many that are massively so. In fact, I think there are many things like that in Japan (mailing things comes to mind), where the cost is so low it’s reasonable for anyone. Or where I can go to an out of the way town serviced by one gasoline powered train a day. You can say that it’s all loss making, and you would be right. Japans public debt increases every year, seemingly without limit. But this has zero effect on people’s lives, whereas closing the only train line that services their home…

rob74 5y ago

Such extreme examples aside, but generally the expectation that rail transport has to be profitable is harmful. On one hand, people expect roads to be well-built and well-maintained so they can run their cars on them for free (with some exceptions), but when rail transport is subsidised with tax money to offer an environmentally friendly and competitive alternative to cars, they complain about it.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Expecting public infrastructure to be profitable is like expecting your bathroom to be profitable. It's there to provide an essential service. Which you have to pay for. Not only is it not a business - and not there to make money for shareholders - running it as if it were a business is ruinously expensive and distracting and hampers the service it's supposed to provide.
beerandt 5y ago
If rail isn't profitable due to lack of demand, it likely also isn't environmentally friendly. The rail efficiency sold to the public is based on projections that (generally) also made them profitable. Rail efficiency decreases drastically as usage declines, as so much of the embedded energy and emissions is in the fixed cost of building out ROW and track, and ongoing MOW. You need to operate at a high percentage of capacity in passengers per train, and high percentage of capacity in trains per track. Efficient rail systems are relatively a highly constrained problem, due to said fixed cost of track, but also due to lack of flexibility to adapt to changes, both in routes (need to move/add track) and capacity (track at full capacity doesn't meet demand, but two tracks exceeds demand at cost of being inefficient). (Operating one track that doesn't fully meet demand increases prices and becomes an expensive but profitable point of stability.) Which is why eg high-speed rail proposals in the US typically rely primarily on improving existing slow routes, and are limited to midrange distances. Too short and too long both push it to being more costly at reduced efficiency.

tecleandor 5y ago

But it made certain sense, as it's remarked: "...it was targeted for the axe at the privatization of Japanese National Railways in 1987, just 15 years after completion, but escaped because the road that runs more or less parallel with it and is the only route into Iwaizumi from the south is not wide enough in many places for two cars to pass and is treacherous in winter." Also, per that article, the number of passengers is quite higher than that, and "per kilometer". Not that is huge, but... "...the least trafficked line in the whole nation, with average daily ridership per kilometer of 46 people in fiscal 2009" Anyway, I'm with @rob74 on this, profit shouldn't be the only concern in public transport.

cinntaile 5y ago
I'm not sure I agree with not demanding public, national train transport to be profitable. One issue I see is that the entire country pays for these feeder lines, I don't think that is the right call. Maybe a better approach would be that these local cities pay JR for the cost of providing this service. If the local cities see the advantage, it'll get funded and if not then the whole country doesn't have to pay for something that the locals don't really want anyway.
- tecleandor 5y ago
  I mean, the target shouldn't be profit but providing a service. But throwing money down the drain should be kind of avoided, in general. Probably some cost share would be great. In said case, they might have calculated the cost of upgrading the road through this mountains versus maintaining the train. I guess..
- helen___keller 5y ago
  it kind of depends right? when you think about funding structures, there's a myriad of approaches based on risk and potential outcome. You can try to estimate ridership, but usually only in the near future as there are major macro affects at play. every party has a different stake. transit infrastructure can lower housing costs by connecting low cost exurbs to the urban region, which in the us makes locals less interested (probably not so for japan). it can also grow national tax base by providing a competitive central business district and attract international investment, which is something that should appeal to the national government. so it is not as simple as "if locals want it, locals should pay for it", ideally there should be aligned incentives across the board like any business, investment in transit requires leadership and vision. blindly funding every station proposed is clearly a bad idea. so too is an overly conservative investment regime that takes 0 risk

lobochrome 5y ago

There is a tendency to undervalue the importance of feeder lines to the main arteries. Individually yes they might be unprofitable - but they provide value to a railway system. This process has happens in Germany over the last 30 years following privatization attempts. Only slowly are people realizing the detriments. Almost like in a circulatory system - cutting of the tiny vessels isn’t a recipe for success even if the main system can function for a while without them.

p_l 5y ago
It's also a lesson from Beeching axe, that you can't expect to replace feeder lines with individual cars, and that without feeder lines, the profitable mainline stops being profitable.

user-the-name 5y ago

Mass transit is meant to be a public service, not a source of profit.

dustintrex 5y ago
The tax base in the Japanese countryside is rapidly collapsing and the public money used to prop up railways at the end of the day comes out of the same pot of taxpayer money that's used to fund schools, hospitals, etc. Personally, I'm a huge railfan, but it's still absurd to spend $3m/year to serve commuters that would easily fit in a single minibus.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  I assume the Japanese have heard of MMT?
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    The Japanese might have done but I hadn't so i looked it up. Here is a summary in case anyone else was in my position: " Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic framework that says monetarily sovereign countries like the U.S., U.K., Japan, and Canada, which spend, tax, and borrow in a fiat currency that they fully control, are not operationally constrained by revenues when it comes to federal government spending. Put simply, such governments do not rely on taxes or borrowing for spending since they can print as much as they need and are the monopoly issuers of the currency. Since their budgets aren’t like a regular household’s, their policies should not be shaped by fears of rising national debt. MMT challenges conventional beliefs about how the government interacts with the economy, the nature of money, the use of taxes, and the significance of budget deficits. These beliefs, critics say, are a hangover from the gold standard era and are no longer accurate, useful, or necessary. MMT is used in policy debates to argue for such progressive legislation as universal healthcare and other public programs for which governments claim to not have enough money to fund. " By Deborah D'Souza, https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588060 https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588...
- 5y ago

Aeolun 5y ago

I dunno, I think it’s fine for some train lines to be unprofitable when there are so many that are massively so. In fact, I think there are many things like that in Japan (mailing things comes to mind), where the cost is so low it’s reasonable for anyone. Or where I can go to an out of the way town serviced by one gasoline powered train a day. You can say that it’s all loss making, and you would be right. Japans public debt increases every year, seemingly without limit. But this has zero effect on people’s lives, whereas closing the only train line that services their home…