How does the traincar compare?

1) Autopiloted (essentially to the passenger).
2) Not available on demand.
3) Must travel to get to use it
4) No insurance or cost of ownership (unless built into fare price)
5) (Can be) fast (though most US are not)
6) Don’t have to park (although a train station and train yard is often the size of a large parking garage).

So, suppose that in the near future cars could have some the advantages of trains. To me, the only advantages of the train car are

1) Autopilot
2) (Potential) speed

So if we develop an autopilot car (or one that could be rail guided on Interstates) that can run at higher speeds (say 155 mph like the Metroliner), then there would be no advantages to trains, in fact, because cars are “on demand” trains would lose.

Obviously we can make a 155 mph car (Indie 500). And my reading of the science is that guided autos or full autopilot using GPS, etc, is due in the next 10 years.

Therefore, trains will shortly lose all advantages.

The service level agreement (SLA) concept has come up in discussions I’ve had about New York City public transportation. It’s good, but if you can’t be sure when you will arrive, you might opt for a taxi. Easily available real-time information about the whereabouts of buses and trains would help some travelers make better choices about when to set out on a journey, whether they can utilize public transit, and quite possibly boost the ridership at certain times, improving the economics and the ecologics as well.

Thanks for writing.

A sparse train does more than move the passengers from point A to point B. It fulfills an implicit contract, an expectation, a “Service Level Agreement”, if you will. Without the confidence that the train schedule will meet their needs, they’ll take the car every time, not just when their schedule happens to fall in under-utilized period.

Transit agencies make this mistake all the time — they cut service because of low ridership, which in turn drives ridership down further. And then people come along and say “See, public transit doesn’t work.”

Also, there are environmental costs besides tailpipe emissions. The environmental cost of the HUGE amount of area paved over for cars is staggering. It contributes to water pollution, to childhood accidental deaths, and decreases the livability of our cities.

There are only two connections between the east side and west side of my town. The cars have a total of six full-width lanes to travel between the two sides. The more usefully-placed of the two connections offers pedestrians a narrow walkway next to traffic and subject to polluted air from freeway below and traffic adjacent. This walkway is narrow enough that two pedestrians cannot comfortably walk side-by-side, and pass with difficulty. Any sort of wheeled pedestrian traffic — for example, wheelchairs or baby carriages involve someone stepping into the street. And yes, occasionally you have two wheelchairs meet — and someone has to go back downhill and start over.

Bicycles have their own narrow lanes — but cars cross those lanes at multiple points to enter and exit the freeway, making them rather hazardous.

This is just ONE example out of MANY around here. Caltrans recently rebuilt another bridge, adding car lanes, redoing the walkways — but not widening them.

Unfortunately, these environmental/infrastructure costs need to be considered as sunk costs for automobiles, in the short run.

But the thing about sunk costs is — they are sunk costs. Canceling a lightly-used train does not recoup a penny of those costs. Putting a rail passenger back into a car does not recoup a penny. There is no present action that affects costs already sunk.

However, these costs need to be considered, in a forward-looking manner (including projected energy costs, technology improvements, etc.) when making future infrastructure plans.