01-05-2020, 08:49 PM
(01-05-2020, 08:18 PM)drum118 Wrote: 5 minute service sound great, but it comes at a cost and inconvenience.
First of all, you need cars and spares to meet that 5 minute schedule and that is both an operation cost as well capital cost. Need at least 15% spare ratio plus the X cars on line. It cost money to put drivers in the seat of those cars as well to maintain them on a daily base. Cost of power to run the cars and etc.
If you have 5 minute service, then each crossing will see a train about every 2.5 minutes that will interfere the the flow of traffic and pedestrians. Who do you think will bitch the loudest and have a better say against the 5 minute service?
The lowest I have seen with 2/3 car trains (200-300') has been 10 minutes both in NA and Europe when crossing intersections other than Toronto that use single cars.
Most places in the US would love to see 7 minute service when they mostly see 15-20 minute service today for 66' cars, let alone 100'
The discussion was in the context of rising ridership, justifying more vehicles. So the question is whether to run 2-car consists every 10 minutes or single cars every 5; and the only significant difference in system operating cost there is in the drivers; there is no capital cost difference.
Given the number of people that would be carried by such a service, I think one brief interruption every 2.5 minutes on average is easily justifiable. Remember, it’s perfectly routine for a typical major road to have its traffic flow interrupted every couple of minutes: it’s called a traffic light. A certain amount of fine-tuning of crossings would be needed to minimize the time during which road traffic would need to stop but ultimately it wouldn’t really be that different from having a cross street with a traffic light at the location of the crossing.