Environmental Aspects

I've been putting off writing about the environmental aspects of rail versus busway. I've been putting it off because its complicated. It's complicated both in terms of the facts, and in terms of how those facts may influence our choices.

I can't offer all the answers, but can pose some questions...

Establishing the Facts

At first glance, you might assume that rail is 100% green. On reflection, you might remember that approximately 25% (pdf) of our electricity comes from fossil fuels -- so rail is "75% green".

75% of what? Does rail use more energy than buses, or less? It's widely known that steel wheels on rails have less friction than bus tires on concrete, but we also have to consider:

1. Trains are really heavy. Surely moving all that steel around impacts on energy use. Here's an example, to illustrate how heavy trains are: an English Electric "DM" unit, as used on the Johnsonville line, seats 60 and weighs 43.5 tonnes. That's about 725kg per seat. The bus I rode to work this morning seats 45 and weights 8.3 tonnes. That's about 184kg per seat.
   


2. Trains don't "scale down" well. E.g. The smallest train you can get on the Johnsonville line is a 60-seat "DM" unit pulling (or pushing) a 70-seat "D" class trailer. That's 130 seats, weighing almost 80 tonnes. (The weight is approximate, because I don't have an exact weight for the trailer.) Off-peak there might be only 8 people on the train, for example. That's 10 tonnes of vehicle per passenger. Put those same 8 people on bus, and there's only 1 tonne of vehicle per passenger.
   
   (By the way, why run near-empty trains and near-empty buses off-peak? Why not combine them, to haul more full seats and fewer empty ones.)
   


3. On the Johnsonville line, trains always have to make a return trip. There's nowhere to park trains in Johnsonville. (Contrast that with Paraparumu for instance, where there is room to "stable" trains overnight.) Trains usually have to make the return trip empty (the only common exception is reverse trips that take school students). Contrast that with buses - they can be parked overnight at the Newlands depot, so they don't have to drive back to Wellington for the night. (Are Newland's buses parked in the city during the day? I'd suggest they should be, if we're serious about fuel costs and greenhouse emissions. I know I've seen a few parked in town.)

I asked an engineer how to arrive at a definitive answer about this. He explained that you need (i) fuel consumption and ridership figures from the bus company, (ii) electricity consumption and ridership figures from the rail company, and (iii) enough time to crunch the numbers. Unfortunately, I have none of the above :-(

So, for now, I can't give a definitive analysis, but I do suggest that the greater weight of trains may undermine their "greeness" to some degree.

Choices

Let's say we did crunch the numbers, and we arrived at definitive answers about the greenhouse emissions produced by each solution. Does that result absolutely dictate our choice? Or is it just one factor, one the many which influence the overall choice between rail and busway?

For instance, we should consider not only greenhouse gases, but also "environment" in the widest sense of the word. Will building a busway encourage urban sprawl? Or is urban sprawl dictated solely by council policies? As long as the council allows new subdivisions, people will settle in them - whether there's a busway or not. At least if there is a busway, we stand a better chance of pursuading workers to leave their cars at home.

Off-Peak Operation

There are some interesting possibilities for operating the busway off-peak -- particularly in the periods of lowest demand, such as weekends and after 7:30pm on weekdays.

Rather than have express buses (which serve suburbs but don't stop on the busway) and rail-replacement buses (which serve all busway stations), why not combine the two? Buses would stop at all stations and continue to Johnsonville West, Churton Park etc.

While this would result in longer journey times for J'Ville West etc, it would give better service frequency to most areas. And, it could be more cost effective than the existing arrangement of separate rail and bus services.

Imagine something like this, every off-peak hour:

• One route 53 (J'Ville West), stopping at all busway stations
• One route 59 (Middleton Rd), stopping at all busway stations
• Two route 54s (Churton Park), stopping at all busway stations

That allows a 15-minute off-peak frequency to all the existing rail stations. In other words, instead of off-peak trains running once or twice per hour, you'd have buses running every 15 minutes instead. That's arguably better then the current peak rail frequency! (Which is mostly 13 minutes, sometimes 26, and therefore harder to understand that a once-every-15-minutes bus service).

As for passengers beyond the end of the busway, it's a big improvement for route 53 passengers, since they currently have no off-peak service at all! For route 54 passengers, this option would result in a slightly slower journey.  54's currently run half-hourly off-peak, except for after 8pm, when there's only one per hour.  So it's not a big change for route 54 passengers. As for route 59 passengers, they too have no off-peak service at present (but they might need one).

By the way, in this example I'm assuming Newlands buses (55, 56 and 57) will use the motorway off-peak. In reality, those destined for the Northern part of the greater Newlands area might use the busway too, and then leave J'Ville via Helston road. Like the other off-peak busway buses, these could also serve all busway stations.

Personally, I believe a good off-peak service encourages higher on-peak use. Taking the bus to work becomes more attractive if you know you'll be able to get home even if you have to work (or party) late.

Michael Cullen's View

The Minister of Finance has recently commented on the busway verus rail debate. His comments are reported in today's Dominion Post. I can't find the story on line, but this press release from Peter Dunne refers to the same comments.

I'm not sure why Peter Dunne is making a big deal about the cost differences, when even TransMetro's biased flyer showed rail more expensive than busway (as per Greater Wellington's figures). Mr Dunne's "$5m" to upgrade the rail is bizzare, given than each rail unit costs about $3m.

About Me

There’s a great series of comments over on Tom’s WellUrban blog. I don’t know quite where to being in answering them all, but for starters, I’ll reply to some questions about me:

Simon asked: John, I am curious as to the motivations behind you pro-bus stance. I ask, not as a slant against any bias you may hold - everyone no matter how objective they attempt to be has their biases. However in all the continued debate around the Northern transport study your name keep surfacing [and a good thing too, we are well short of people who care enough to speak out!] .

Do you have any connection to the bus and coach industry? I know you attempt to introduce facts in your arguments however you seem very reluctant to look at or address both points of view -or indeed a wider context.

First, let me offer a partial apology for offering a one-sided point of view. I have a lot of other pressures on my time at the moment (for personal reasons which I won’t go into here). So, I have to be selective; I simply don’t have time to cover everything. As I’ve said before, I started blogging because only one side of the story was being told (rail). So naturally, my limited time is focused on the side that nobody else was telling (bus).

I have no connections to the bus and coach industry. In fact, if you look at my Blogger profile, or type my name into Google, you’ll see I’m a computer geek at a software company. Neither me nor my employer have anything to do with the transport industry.

I don’t like your suggestion that I have a pro-bus bias. Accuse me of having a pro-public-transport bias, and you’d be right. I want public transport solutions that work well. In the case of the Northern Suburbs, we can have two parallel systems – a rail system that works well and a bus one that works badly – or we can combine them and get one solution that works well for everybody. On that basis, I support the combined solution, which is the busway.

In contexts where I believe rail is the best public transport option, such as the Western Corridor, I support it. (Here are some extracts from my written submission on the Western Corridor Plan.)

Finally, let me point out that on some occasions I’ve been a vocal critic of Newlands bus service. For instance, in 2000 their changes to route 54 added greatly to journey times for many residents. I debated this point with Newlands representatives at a Community Association meeting; conducted a mail drop to affected residents; and contacted the Regional Council about the matter. I’m pleased to see that they now plan to reverse the change. (See the route 54 comments in the latest Scenarios documents).

As I’ve said before, I’m just a guy who’s sick of sitting in traffic. If I have any other bias, it’s the firm belief that long journey times are bad for our society. Slow transport costs me hours each week with my daughter, and I know it does the same to hundreds of other working parents in the Northern Suburbs.

In the many hours I’ve spent sitting on buses, as they crawled down Nauranga Gorge, I’ve often wished for something like the busway – something which would give fast, reliable public transport to everyone in the Northern Suburbs. When people choose public transport, which is best for society and the environment, we should reward them with a quick, reliable service. We should not let public transport be sabotaged by those who choose not to use it, driving their cars and holding up buses on the Gorge. Instead, we should take the buses out of the Gorge.

(The resulting bus service will be quick and reliable. It might even be attractive to some of those car drivers!)

New Page from Bus and Coach Association

The Bus and Coach Association have posted their views here. It includes their detailed submission, as sent to the Council, plus several other items.