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Express buses v. rail

16th February 1973
Page 39
Page 39, 16th February 1973 — Express buses v. rail
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

CM's February 2 report was surely a little rash in describing an article in the Journal of Transport Economics and Policy as proof that an express bus service is more efficient than an urban railway system. Your report (I have not yet seen the original article) compares the performance of London's Victoria Line — a conventional underground railway with high safety standards, frequent stops and adequate capacity for short-term peaks — with a service of buses which run at high speeds and at dangerously close headvvays but without signalling protection or the inconvenience of carrying passengers (the buses never stop to pick them up).

The capacity of a single bus lane is limited by the capacity of a loading station; if we make the optimistic assumption that four buses can load simultaneously for 20 seconds, allow a cumulative starting delay and time for acceleration of the departing vehicles and braking of the next set of four buses, it can be calculated that theoretically four buses could pass every 45 seconds, or 320 per hour. In practice it is unlikely that a level of more than 300 buses per lane hour could be maintained. By comparison, a nine-car electric train can be operated at 90sec headways under full signalling protection giving a rolling stock • capacity of 360 cars per hour.

On the relative economics of the two modes it is dangerous to generalize on costs using data taken from one undertaking. It is only to be expected that the fixed costs of a railway system are much greater than on a bus undertaking. What is surprising (if not alarming) is that the direct running costs per car-km are so much greater for the Victoria Line railway, considering that a train driver can move over a thousand people, where 12 bus drivers would be needed to do the same job. Every transport man knows that, at a given traffic density, rail transport becomes the most efficient; the greater the density, the greater the advantage. It seems that the author of the article, by taking some derived global figures from London Transport and extrapolating them out of context, has overlooked the effect of traffic density upon relative economics. He has certainly exposed' some peculiarities in London Transport statistics, but I cannot believe that these prove anything about the relative merits of train and bus outside the capital.

PETER J. WALKER, Croydon.

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Locations: London

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