4 ms·

What isn’t explained in the article is how this was made possible. While carefully adjusting departure times is certainly part of it, there were also a range of

by mfsch 4y ago

What isn’t explained in the article is how this was made possible. While carefully adjusting departure times is certainly part of it, there were also a range of construction projects that shaved minutes off the travel times between major hubs to bring them just below multiples of 30 minutes (and 15 minutes in some cases). This makes it much easier to coordinate arrivals and departures and minimize transfer times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_2000

jokteur 4y ago
Author here: great suggestion, I will add this at the end of the article for supplementary readings
londons_explore 4y ago
I hope that every infrastructure project tries to make a measure of the total economic gain of said project. Getting people around quicker is part of that (many models use a cost-per-hour for citizen time on the train). More efficient connections are part of travel time, and a simulation of a large number of potential journeys on some proposed infrastructure would show that. That means that when government is considering how to allocate $X of budget, they should naturally end up choosing projects that help align the schedules, even if nobody explicitly tried to do such an alignment, simply by choosing the projects that are best value for money.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  They do this for transit projects in Toronto. They calculate the total infrastructure + operational cost of the project over 60 years then compare it with the estimated economical benefits of having this project. They still ended up approving many negative projects, even while there were other cheaper/better located transit projects with more benefits. The political cost of cancelling those projects was higher (ex: Mayor has campaigned on getting it approved and there was no way he would get back on that) It's still interesting to see it and calculate it, as a matter of transparency, but its still not a guarantee of success. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/costs-for-scarborough-subway-and-eglinton-west-lrt-exceed-economic-benefits-by-billions-metrolinx-1.4833247 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/costs-for-scarborough-subway-and-...
  - Ma8ee 4y ago
    When you do this kind of estimates, in particular when the time scale is many decades, the outcome depends on way to many assumptions and other projections to even a little reliable. I still think it is useful exercises, but it is certainly legitimate to use it as only one of many variables in the decision making process.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I spent a large amount of time years ago reading the LOSSAN reports [95] and it would have been interesting to see things noted as "for certain will help" and "most likely will help" etc. Many of the improvements were things like "double track this single-track section between two double-tracked ones" which would almost certainly help; others were things like bridge replacements which wouldn't necessarily help but would prevent maintenance issues in the future, to things like station improvements which would only really help travel times if travel volumes got above a certain amount. For example, this project: https://www.octa.net/LOSSAN-Rail-Corridor-Agency/Central-Coast-Layover-Facility/ https://www.octa.net/LOSSAN-Rail-Corridor-Agency/Central-Coa... doesn't really change average transit times, but would allow two or three trains to "start" each day at the farthest north. Of course US passenger rail is in such a state that there's almost always very obvious low-hanging fruit. [95]: https://www.octa.net/LOSSAN-Rail-Corridor-Agency/Overview/ https://www.octa.net/LOSSAN-Rail-Corridor-Agency/Overview/
  - ur-whale 4y ago
    > They do this for transit projects in Toronto. They may do this, but whether the number they derive has any kind of meaning or value is another thing altogether.
- ur-whale 4y ago
  > I hope that every infrastructure project tries to make a measure of the total economic gain of said project. This is basically impossible to do short of shutting the system down for year to measure the loss (unthinkable). And even then, you'd have a measurement that doesn't mean anything because it couldn't measure the opportunity costs of the path not taken when the chocie was made initially. As a matter of fact, I'll go one step further: I don't even think the question makes sense. Economies are chaotic systems, and even if it is sometimes rather clear after the fact that a specific choice leads to overall positive outcomes (such as choosing to implement a high-quality public transportation system in Switzerland), actually measuring the "gain" is basically impossible. Worse: it's an ill-defined question.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    this is already done; this is what modelling and simulation is for. at least in the US pretty much all projects require some kind of alternatives analysis, and at least one of those alternatives must be "do nothing at all." whether the model's assumptions are correct, and whether politicians actually allocate funds based on projected efficacy, are another matter entirely.

by mfsch 4y ago

jokteur 4y ago

Author here: great suggestion, I will add this at the end of the article for supplementary readings

londons_explore 4y ago

I hope that every infrastructure project tries to make a measure of the total economic gain of said project. Getting people around quicker is part of that (many models use a cost-per-hour for citizen time on the train). More efficient connections are part of travel time, and a simulation of a large number of potential journeys on some proposed infrastructure would show that. That means that when government is considering how to allocate $X of budget, they should naturally end up choosing projects that help align the schedules, even if nobody explicitly tried to do such an alignment, simply by choosing the projects that are best value for money.

jeromegv 4y ago
They do this for transit projects in Toronto. They calculate the total infrastructure + operational cost of the project over 60 years then compare it with the estimated economical benefits of having this project. They still ended up approving many negative projects, even while there were other cheaper/better located transit projects with more benefits. The political cost of cancelling those projects was higher (ex: Mayor has campaigned on getting it approved and there was no way he would get back on that) It's still interesting to see it and calculate it, as a matter of transparency, but its still not a guarantee of success. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/costs-for-scarborough-subway-and-eglinton-west-lrt-exceed-economic-benefits-by-billions-metrolinx-1.4833247 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/costs-for-scarborough-subway-and-...
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  When you do this kind of estimates, in particular when the time scale is many decades, the outcome depends on way to many assumptions and other projections to even a little reliable. I still think it is useful exercises, but it is certainly legitimate to use it as only one of many variables in the decision making process.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I spent a large amount of time years ago reading the LOSSAN reports [95] and it would have been interesting to see things noted as "for certain will help" and "most likely will help" etc. Many of the improvements were things like "double track this single-track section between two double-tracked ones" which would almost certainly help; others were things like bridge replacements which wouldn't necessarily help but would prevent maintenance issues in the future, to things like station improvements which would only really help travel times if travel volumes got above a certain amount. For example, this project: https://www.octa.net/LOSSAN-Rail-Corridor-Agency/Central-Coast-Layover-Facility/ https://www.octa.net/LOSSAN-Rail-Corridor-Agency/Central-Coa... doesn't really change average transit times, but would allow two or three trains to "start" each day at the farthest north. Of course US passenger rail is in such a state that there's almost always very obvious low-hanging fruit. [95]: https://www.octa.net/LOSSAN-Rail-Corridor-Agency/Overview/ https://www.octa.net/LOSSAN-Rail-Corridor-Agency/Overview/
- ur-whale 4y ago
  > They do this for transit projects in Toronto. They may do this, but whether the number they derive has any kind of meaning or value is another thing altogether.
ur-whale 4y ago
> I hope that every infrastructure project tries to make a measure of the total economic gain of said project. This is basically impossible to do short of shutting the system down for year to measure the loss (unthinkable). And even then, you'd have a measurement that doesn't mean anything because it couldn't measure the opportunity costs of the path not taken when the chocie was made initially. As a matter of fact, I'll go one step further: I don't even think the question makes sense. Economies are chaotic systems, and even if it is sometimes rather clear after the fact that a specific choice leads to overall positive outcomes (such as choosing to implement a high-quality public transportation system in Switzerland), actually measuring the "gain" is basically impossible. Worse: it's an ill-defined question.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  this is already done; this is what modelling and simulation is for. at least in the US pretty much all projects require some kind of alternatives analysis, and at least one of those alternatives must be "do nothing at all." whether the model's assumptions are correct, and whether politicians actually allocate funds based on projected efficacy, are another matter entirely.