micheal_can
Senior Member
Should the goal even be profitability? Or should the goal be a real option for citizens to get to where they are going as fast as reasonable? Remember, the 401 does not make a profit.
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Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)
- Thread starter innsertnamehere
- Start date
picard102
Senior Member
Make it free.
urbanclient
Active Member
I didn't say HSR profitability should be an overriding goal, just that it's possible. Obviously something like our healthcare system should not be aiming for financial profitability from the perspective of the government.
In fact, emphasizing profitability could make tickets more expensive. I've made posts expressing my distaste for the current revenue management (pricing system) for Via. Japanese and Chinese HSR tickets are distance based, they don't go up in price in response to demand or closer to the departure date. And yet they can achieve operating profits on some lines.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I wouldn't go that far... however, if the goal was to break Canada from the car being king, removing all fares on all public transit would do that.
Pricing for ALTO should be slightly higher than Via and slightly lower than a flight.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Pricing will always be a challenge especially from those that are upset that they are "paying for it" in taxes and such.
picard102
Senior Member
VIA's fares are too high for the service it provides currently IMO, if anything Alto should be where VIA is, and VIA needs to slash prices.
urbanclient
Active Member
It's often repeated by some people here, but it's not so clear cut as free transit--->more ridership--->break free from cars.
micheal_can
Senior Member
This is not whether Via's fares are too high or not. This is more of what it should look like when it opens. Besides, what do you care, you just stated it is faster to fly.
micheal_can
Senior Member
If today the TTC became free, it would create more problems than it would solve. Lets start that every transit vehicle that is not a crush load would be at crush load. We have systems built around fares. We would need a massive investment before fares became zero. I am not advocating for or against it, just showing how it could solve some issues. For instance, ALTO could solve the major traffic jams on the 401 East of Toronto. It would not get rid of them, but it would reduce them.
picard102
Senior Member
Because this is about getting people out of cars, not planes.
McGillicuddy
Active Member
Why not both?
nfitz
Superstar
It's all going to circumstances. If it's just me, and my destination is in the Métropole, I'll invariably take the train (or fly sometimes). If I've got 4 people, the pricing will push me to drive.
But if my destination is in the Laurentians, the last-mile issues push me to driving.
urbanclient
Active Member
You are wrong.
Falsely equating American attitudes with Canadian ones on transit, to the point of assuming business people don't take GO trains or transit is ok, but equating a Spanish HSR corridor with Canadian Alto is not ok?
To both of you and your points:
Madrid and Barcelona have very similar car ownership rates to Toronto.
June 2009, Mr. Toby Lennox (Vice-President, Corporate Affairs and Communications, Greater Toronto Airports Authority): "With competition from high-speed rail service, we would expect the demand for these short-haul domestic flights to soften." https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/40-2/TRAN/meeting-23/evidence
Feb 2024, Dr. Yonah Freemark (Lead, Practice Area on Fair Housing, Land Use and Transportation, Urban Institute, As an Individual): “High-speed rail service would make most air travel from Toronto and Montreal to Ottawa superfluous.”
https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/TRAN/meeting-99/evidence#Int-12567043
UIC gives a rough rule-of-thumb: at a 3 hour HSR travel time, the total road-rail-air market would split around 40% car, 45% train, 15% plane.
A review of HSR-airline competition found air travel fell by about 45% after the opening of the Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR and 34% after Beijing-Shanghai HSR; other studies found HSR roughly reduced air travel demand by 27% to 50%, with the strongest effects on short and medium haul routes.
Anecdotally, flying coach in China is ostensibly faster and potentially cheaper, economy class also gets meals during even very short haul flights unlike Canada, so why would people choose HSR? (Many reasons)
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Ward8
Active Member
I'll be interesting to see the approach. HSR can take atvandage of demand elasticity when setting prices. They can undercut their competition and run more frequency. I couldn't pretend to articulate the demand elasticity formula, but there is an induced demand effect from both the price and frequency perspectives. At least in europe, which was the study I read.
This is interesting. The study I was reading only showed the split between Rail and Air. It places sub 600km trips at 75% or better in that context. I think Paris-Lyon was 95%. Cool to see numbers with Auto included.
MisterF
Senior Member
Nice attempt at moving the goalposts, but my post was about high speed trains taking modal share from flights, not cars. Families of four taking a car didn't change my post at all.
In any case, your question applies just as much to highly successful HSR systems in Italy and Japan and France. Of course some families drive, and some don't. There are already lots of families with kids on Via Rail. And there will be many more on Alto.