Yesterday I remarked on Mr. Obama’s proposal to fund some high-speed rail corridors. I suggested that these generally wouldn’t do much to solve the problems of highway congestion. Today, a look at rail service that will reduce congestion on the highways and save lives.
If you want to reduce highway congestion by investing in rail, freight service is where the big payoff comes. How? By getting the goddamn trucks off the highway. A “big-rig” tractor-trailer can carry something like a 40-ton payload. A single rail car can carry 100 tons. Every truck on the road requires at least one driver, sometimes two. A 200-car freight train, carrying the equivalent payload of 500 trucks, can be operated by a crew of two or three.
Trucks are destroying our highways faster than we can repair them. Sometimes you’ll see a truck with a bumper sticker that says something like “This vehicle pays over $8000 a year in highway taxes.” That is not near enough for the damage they do. Our interstate highways would last decades if it weren’t for trucks. As it is, they’re pretty well busted to shit after 5 years of truck traffic. Part of the problem is that weight limits are weakly enforced. Most weigh stations are closed more than they are open, and truckers quickly network information on which weigh stations are operating. So, rarely, they get caught overweight. If they are caught, they pay a fine but, in the long run, the extra revenue from running overweight more than covers the fines. To hell with the highways.
Truck drivers generally are rude. They’ll pull into the left lane to pass another truck if it’s going only 3/10 of a mile an hour slower. Fuck the cars they block. They’re not about to have another truck slow THEM down. As a result, they increase congestion by reducing the speed of traffic.
Trucks accelerate slowly and require more braking distance. In heavy traffic this increases congestion.
Trucks are killers. In two-vehicle accidents involving a truck and a passenger car somewhere between 77% and 98% of the fatalities are occupants of the passenger vehicle. (Which fatality rate you choose depends on whether you get your numbers from the trucking industry or the auto industry). I don’t think truckers want to crash more than anyone else but, if they do, their bodily risks are a lot lower than those of people in cars.
Some truck-related accident data:
Over 5000 people are killed annually in crashes involving large trucks, representing 12 percent of all traffic fatalities. An additional 116,000 people are injured in these crashes. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)).
Nearly one-quarter of the occupant deaths in passenger vehicles involved in multi-vehicle collisions are the result of crashes involving large trucks. (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety).
Large trucks make up just 4 percent of all registered vehicles and 7 percent of all vehicle miles traveled, but are involved in 11 percent of all crash fatalities. (NHTSA).
Reducing the number of trucks on our highways would save lives, save money on repair costs, and reduce congestion. And reducing the number of trucks isn’t that difficult. The solution is already here. We’re just not using it enough: Put the freight on the railroads instead of on the highways.
Container Well Railroad Cars - Every One Takes Two Trucks off the Highway
The transportation industry (ocean shipping, rail, and trucking) already has solved the problem world wide with intermodal containers. Load the container with freight, put the container on a truck, move it a short distance to the rail head, transfer it, move it to a container port and load it on a ship. Offload onto a rail line at the port of destination, haul the container by rail as close as reasonable to its destination, load it onto a truck and deliver it.
1 Train = 500 Trucks
We’re already doing this in the US, quite successfully. I live near a rail line where 80 or so of these intermodal trains pass every day. That’s the equivalent of 3 or 4 thousand trucks that are NOT on the highway thanks to the railroads.
But we still have trucks driving thousands of miles on the highways instead of putting their loads on the railroads. Why? As always, follow the money. As long as trucks can use our highways without bearing their share of the costs of the highways, long-haul trucks will continue to operate. Answer: raise the taxes on interstate trucking to a point where shippers will find the railroads a better deal.
If it absolutely, positively has to get there overnight, you put it on an airplane and pay a large fortune. If it has to get there in a few days, instead of a week, put it on a long-haul truck and pay a small fortune. If a week is OK, put it on a railroad and ship it cheap.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 7:57 PM and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Train Service We Need
Yesterday I remarked on Mr. Obama’s proposal to fund some high-speed rail corridors. I suggested that these generally wouldn’t do much to solve the problems of highway congestion. Today, a look at rail service that will reduce congestion on the highways and save lives.
If you want to reduce highway congestion by investing in rail, freight service is where the big payoff comes. How? By getting the goddamn trucks off the highway. A “big-rig” tractor-trailer can carry something like a 40-ton payload. A single rail car can carry 100 tons. Every truck on the road requires at least one driver, sometimes two. A 200-car freight train, carrying the equivalent payload of 500 trucks, can be operated by a crew of two or three.
Truck drivers generally are rude. They’ll pull into the left lane to pass another truck if it’s going only 3/10 of a mile an hour slower. Fuck the cars they block. They’re not about to have another truck slow THEM down. As a result, they increase congestion by reducing the speed of traffic.
Trucks accelerate slowly and require more braking distance. In heavy traffic this increases congestion.
Trucks are killers. In two-vehicle accidents involving a truck and a passenger car somewhere between 77% and 98% of the fatalities are occupants of the passenger vehicle. (Which fatality rate you choose depends on whether you get your numbers from the trucking industry or the auto industry). I don’t think truckers want to crash more than anyone else but, if they do, their bodily risks are a lot lower than those of people in cars.
Some truck-related accident data:
Reducing the number of trucks on our highways would save lives, save money on repair costs, and reduce congestion. And reducing the number of trucks isn’t that difficult. The solution is already here. We’re just not using it enough: Put the freight on the railroads instead of on the highways.
Container Well Railroad Cars - Every One Takes Two Trucks off the Highway
The transportation industry (ocean shipping, rail, and trucking) already has solved the problem world wide with intermodal containers. Load the container with freight, put the container on a truck, move it a short distance to the rail head, transfer it, move it to a container port and load it on a ship. Offload onto a rail line at the port of destination, haul the container by rail as close as reasonable to its destination, load it onto a truck and deliver it.
1 Train = 500 Trucks
We’re already doing this in the US, quite successfully. I live near a rail line where 80 or so of these intermodal trains pass every day. That’s the equivalent of 3 or 4 thousand trucks that are NOT on the highway thanks to the railroads.
But we still have trucks driving thousands of miles on the highways instead of putting their loads on the railroads. Why? As always, follow the money. As long as trucks can use our highways without bearing their share of the costs of the highways, long-haul trucks will continue to operate. Answer: raise the taxes on interstate trucking to a point where shippers will find the railroads a better deal.
If it absolutely, positively has to get there overnight, you put it on an airplane and pay a large fortune. If it has to get there in a few days, instead of a week, put it on a long-haul truck and pay a small fortune. If a week is OK, put it on a railroad and ship it cheap.
We all save money.
Like this:
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 7:57 PM and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.