Flights dropped by 50% after high speed rail introduced.

[touchring]

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90...2/7257898.html

High-speed trains reshape nation's transport landscape



09:12, January 12, 2011


The rapidly expanding high-speed rail network will increase the pressure on the country's roads in the coming holiday travel peak period and has already forced airlines to quit some short-distance routes, officials said on Tuesday.

Some 5,149 km of high-speed track were put into service last year, making the network stretch to 8,358 km, the world's longest, the Ministry of Railways said.

But the opening of more fast train services has led to fewer regular trains being available for budget-conscious passengers in the upcoming Spring Festival holiday period, Ministry of Transport spokesman He Jianzhong said on Tuesday.

The railway ministry has added luxury services to bullet trains on several routes, hoping to provide more diversified service.

For example, a luxury sleeper service was added between Shanghai and Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, with tickets costing up to 2,330 yuan ($352).

But many travelers cannot afford the tickets, causing a waste of transport capacity.

According to a report in the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post on Tuesday, hundreds of soft berths on bullet trains between Chengdu and Shanghai will be vacant, although cheaper tickets have sold out.

He Jianzhong said this year the situation had pushed many passengers, who used to ride home by slow trains because of the cheap tickets, onto long-distance buses.

This extra traffic will add pressure to the road transport system during the travel peak season, He said.

The Ministry of Transport estimated that a record high of 2.6 billion bus passenger trips will be made during the peak time between Jan 19 and Feb 27, an increase of 11.6 percent on the same period last year.

The transport sector plans to increase capacity to handle the extra traffic. A total of 840,000 buses, including 70,000 added this year, will hit the road during the travel peak, making 2.4 million road trips a day, he said.

While giving away some passengers to road transport, the high-speed railways, at the same time, have attracted more affluent travelers from the airlines.

Wang Changshun, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told a conference on Tuesday that the fast trains have forced some airlines to cancel short-distance flights along high-speed rail lines.

For example, the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway, where every few minutes trains zip between the two cities via Changsha, capital of Central China's Hunan province, has carried 20.6 million passengers in the year since its opening in December 2009.

During that period the number of flights between Changsha and Guangzhou has been cut from an average of 11.5 flights a day to three flights a day, he said.

Hainan and Shenzhen airlines decided to withdraw from the market, leaving only China Southern Airlines carrying the three daily flights, Wang said.

The ticket price for those flights also dropped by 15 percent to attract travelers, but still the number of passengers flying between Changsha and Guangzhou dropped by 48 percent to 390,000 during 2010, he said.

"The opening of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed line next year will be another blow to the air transport industry," Wang said, without forecasting how serious the impact will be.

Airlines have been urged to cut costs, reduce delays and seek cooperation opportunities with high-speed railways.

[don]

Re: Flights dropped by 50% after high speed rail introduced.

It's easy to see the appeal of high speed rail - zipping along at hi-tech's best in a glossy near-future. My question is, why is this repeatedly floated as an infrastructure program here in the US, while the existing rail net is both ignored and continues to have its funding cut? Is the principal appeal of hi-speed rail mainly as a Buck Roger's sheeple diversion, or does the enormous funding it demands is simply bringing FIRE into the equation? With sustained jokes like ethanol around, who knows.

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: Flights dropped by 50% after high speed rail introduced.

It's easy to see the appeal of high speed rail - zipping along at hi-tech's best in a glossy near-future. My question is, why is this repeatedly floated as an infrastructure program here in the US, while the existing rail net is both ignored and continues to have its funding cut? Is the principal appeal of hi-speed rail mainly as a Buck Roger's sheeple diversion, or does the enormous funding it demands is simply bringing FIRE into the equation? With sustained jokes like ethanol around, who knows.

Rail service is complex in the US. Without national policies that prohibit the most egregious suburban developments, it is always going to be too expensive to building rail service to most places. There are also public union problems, like we have with the NYC subway. The fair is $2.25, monthly passes are $104, yet service is constantly cut, most stations are unchanged from when they were constructed in the 1920s except now the station vendor booths have been ripped out.

I would venture to say that if the City and the MTA offered to sell the Second Avenue subway to Goldman Sachs, they would take it. This is a project that has been in the works since the 1950s, meanwhile the only subway line close by is crowded almost any time between 7 am and 10 pm.

I'm barely able to write a coherent argument at the moment, but government ineptitude is much more of the problem when it comes to trains.

Freight service works great, and the US still has a freight line network that is the envy of the world. Meanwhile, I'm still contemplating saving my $1,200 a year I spend on the subway and just riding a motorcycle to work. The subway service just sucks and the morons running things are just too incompetent.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Flights dropped by 50% after high speed rail introduced.

I... My question is, why is ..the existing rail net is both ignored and continues to have its funding cut? ...

1.America has poured so much money into roads, high speed highways and automobiles that nothing else can compete for moderate trips in the US. With a low direct out-of-pocket cost (after already owning a car, and everyone does) driving door-to-door in the comfort of your own car cannot be beat for any trip under 300 miles. Private autos are highly competitive for trips of 1,000 miles or more. Even though it’s looking more and more like a crazy system, it’s already bought and paid for, a sunk cost.

2.Metcalf’s Law / network value makes passenger rail essentially useless outside the dense northeast commuter corridor. Columbus, Ohio is the 16th largest city in the U.S and the state capital, but the nearest passenger train station is a few hundred miles away. There is no passenger service to the capital of Kentucky either, nor Phoenx, nor Las Vegas.

3.Given the reality of points 1 and 2, Congress continually reduces funding for passenger rail anywhere but the dense commuter corridors, and who can blame them?

Perhaps after peak cheap oil changes everything, a high cost to purchase new autos (due to manufacturing energy) and high fuel prices and the declining affordability of maintaining the huge network of perfect roads will change things.