FUD Wrote:
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> Good points. ISTR Kneiling rambling frequently (in
> his columns in Trains) about 'sold ton-miles' and
> the cost of generating same being the only truly
> useful statistics. Just 'ton-miles' (equivalent to
> seat-miles) is easily done by running around
> empty, but doesn't necessarily produce revenue.
> Then again, capacity in raw ton- or seat-miles is
> necessary to do the job, and generates the cost.
>
> Wall Street dotes on the operating ratio for
> railroads. Maybe somebody needs to calculate the
> operating ratio for freeways?

The cost per seat mile delivered is the sum of all of the input costs to operate and maintain the rail line and trains, and deliver those seats to the consumer.

The costs per seat mile is a measure of the costs to deliver the service, which is an input, and not at all the same as the resultant measure of the productivity, like the ton miles generated, which is an "output".

Cost per ton mile is analogous to the cost per "butt mile" actually occupying that seat, or in this case of "tons" of something hauled per mile, that covers those input costs to deliver a "car mile" of haulage.

The "butt miles" per seat mile, determines your operating ratio from filling those seat mile costs. The same as "ton miles' are derived by how many tons you've filled to cover those car mile costs.

All dead car mileage generated with empty equipment, increases operating costs (costs per ton mile is a function of total miles loaded and empty) and lowers operating ratios, so I fail to see how running empty cars, not hauling any "tons" of anything, improves ton miles averages and/or operating ratios?

We do have data on the fully allocated cost per seat mile of automobile traffic on all types of roads, and for rail passenger systems under different levels of service and operational conditions. So, we do know what both the marginal and average freeway trip costs ranges are. Freeways, in terms of user benefits, minus user costs, operate in a positive operating ratio, and we use them.

As an example, when the time operating cost ratio (and consumer surplus created) of using the freeway is greater than the seat mile costs we are paying, we use the freeway. When the time costs of congestion are greater than our net benefits, freeways are operating for that individual user, at a negative operating ratio. In my own local experimental "test bed"" this is change in peak and off peak "observed' consumer operating ratios is experienced every weeknight peak, by the hundreds of JPL employee's taking Washington Blvd. through Pasadena home to Arcadia, Sierra Madre, or Monrovia from JPL, instead of using the longer slower and more congested I-210.

Which is why we can calculate the fully allocated marginal cost of a passenger mile investment in a new freeway lane, say like on I-10 to Coachella, to the various alternative rail passenger investment scenarios on the Coachella Valley mile. And the various modeling runs on projected "butt miles" that can be generated, to see which is a "cheaper" investment to spend our scarce taxpayer dollars on.

It's not really all that hard to understand. We all do these calculations "intuitively" based on our actual life experience a couple a dozen times a day when making our individual travel decisions. The sum of the cost inputs to produce "seat miles" are different than the sum (of revenues and/or net benefits produced) of the productivity outputs (in this case the number of "butt" miles also known as passenger miles that are filling those seat miles).

We just seem very often to choose not to do this kind of alternatives analysis very well, or all too often, not to do it at all, as we see with fiascos like with the incompetent planning of CAHSRA's "runaway money train" fiasco.

Better economic analysis is something that would/could/might just help the passenger rail advocates to make a more persuasive case to taxpayers, as nowadays the genies granting wishes and four-leaf clovers are in such short supply.