General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong all have fully privatized rail and bus public transport systems.
 
tysmith95 said:
Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong all have fully privatized rail and bus public transport systems.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Tokyo and Hong Kong's operators own significant portions of land next to the stations - and that's their money maker, not the transit system but all the developments built up on that land that they own.
 
Any example with a real estate or intercity angle is too far different. And bidding out *whole* systems to one operator just gets you hostage to that operator (eg. MBCR, Keolis)

But there are plenty of good examples where a big transport system (school bus, municipal waste, transit) is broken into logical franchise areas (here "franchise" just means contract-to-operate "official" service)

1) Franchises Big Enough to keep economies of scale (like fully using a big bus garage, and having routes that can fill a whole work shift)

2) Franchises Small Enough that if a contractor fails on one small contract that the competitors (or municipality) has enough spare capacity to step in in a hurry

2b) Franchises Numerous Enough that they can sustain multiple competing contractors
 
WormtownNative said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Tokyo and Hong Kong's operators own significant portions of land next to the stations - and that's their money maker, not the transit system but all the developments built up on that land that they own.
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That is how many of the Japanese rail companies developed, yes. The Odakyu Line and the Odakyu Department store are under the same corporate umbrella, for just one example, and it's true of the others too.

I believe that your spin on it was truer in the early days than now. Tokyo is so dense, and the rails system works so well, and carries so many people, that the rail lines are modestly profitable in and of themselves. There are still "synergies" (to use a stale biz-jargon word that I generally hate) between the rail and other aspects of the parent corporations, which makes the modest profit margin easier to accept. But the rail lines themselves, while only thinly profitable, are reliably profitable. And we're talking very high daily turnover of cash: 1% profit on that much cash is a nice chunk of change.

And I suspect having such an incredibly stable income stream on something so big, and with such long-term prospects, gives the parent companies access to capital at incredibly cheap rates, which probably helps their other lines of business even more than the direct synergies (cringe) between transit lines and department stores (and most of them have diversified way, way beyond just department stores). So if some B-school wiz consultant ever went to them and suggested they should dump the rail portion of their business due to its permanently low profitability, they'd fire that consultant for being a dumb shit and refuse to pay his consulting fee.

Also, although Tokyo's rail companies are privatized, I would not put it as "fully" privatized, as tysmith does. There is a tremendous amount of government cooperation on rights of way and regulation, such that I would call them privatized companies with a high aspect of private-public partnering. I'm splitting hairs here, not trying to start a fight. But they are not even remotely "private" the way Honda or Toyota are.

I don't know anything about Hong Kong.
 
Arlington said:
Any example with a real estate or intercity angle is too far different. And bidding out *whole* systems to one operator just gets you hostage to that operator (eg. MBCR, Keolis)
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Agreed, absolutely. Tokyo has the luxury of enough size to be able to have multiple firms to work with. I wonder whether the MBTA is big enough to break into subsets as you suggest. For bus service, I would think yes. That doesn't mean I would agree it's a good idea, just that I think it's feasible.

Commuter rail? I really doubt it. I'd just as soon see the T take commuter rail in house. And subway? With just four lines of subway that seems completely not worth it, we'd all be hostage from day one.
 
It might be feasible to split the northside and southside commuter rail lines, since they are practically separate anyway.
 
Scalziand said:
It might be feasible to split the northside and southside commuter rail lines, since they are practically separate anyway.
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Not as separate as you think from a rolling stock and maintenance standpoint. That is why the Grand Junction remains an important link for commuter rail.
 
JeffDowntown said:
We all KNOW what bus outsourcing in Massachusetts is going to look like. Just look at our commuter rail crony capitalism mess.
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JeffzDowntown -- You can't compare bus and rail with respect to outsourcing or privatization

A bus is basically the same whether it drives around in loca neighborhoods [e.g. Lexpress], hauls school kids or corporate employees; moves arround conventioneers; serves the general public on fixed routes; or even is used for long hauls. The drivers, starters, cleaners, mechanics, all do the same tasks irrespective of the specific bus operations, etc.

Hence the suppliers of bus services are essentially interchangeable -- hence competition and the terms of agreement can be much less complex and for far shorter terms than for the specialized aspects associated with rail
 
whighlander said:
A bus is basically the same whether it drives around in loca neighborhoods [e.g. Lexpress], hauls school kids or corporate employees; moves arround conventioneers; serves the general public on fixed routes; or even is used for long hauls.
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Yet, they have completely different interior designs because they aren't actually interchangeable.
 
There are different strategies. On would be for the T to still own the whole fleet and outsource, garage by garage, ops and/or maintenance. There would be lots of right-size contracts
 
Schoolbus operations are outsourced in many cities - and I believe to different operators.
 
Arlington said:
There are different strategies. On would be for the T to still own the whole fleet and outsource, garage by garage, ops and/or maintenance. There would be lots of right-size contracts
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With all the logistics and additional staff the T would have to hire to manage all of these private contracts & ensure quality control, you'd quickly come to the conclusion that the T should just operate the service(s) itself.
 
datadyne007 said:
With all the logistics and additional staff the T would have to hire to manage all of these private contracts & ensure quality control, you'd quickly come to the conclusion that the T should just operate the service(s) itself.
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Datadyne -- You might come to that conclusion -- but it would not be the correct conclusion

Yes there would need to be some management infrastructure to coordinate and monitor the contracted work -- but there are existing service metrics used by those who hire private bus operating companies which supply services to the the Fidelity's, 128 Business Council, Kendall Square's EZRide, etc, etc.

for example RT-128 Business Council provides the following shuttles serving well over 50 destinations and dozens of daily departures:
ALEWIFE_Route A, B, C, D -- out to various Rt-2 and Rt-128 employers
Alewife Vox on 2 -- to/from the new large apartment complex on Rt-2
Alewife Windsor Village -- to / from the large apartment complex on Lexington St in Waltham
Needham -- from Newton Highlands to various employers in Newton and Needham
Waltham, A, B from Waltham Center to various employers on Rt-128
Rev Bus -- from Lexington Center to Alewife and then back to Hartwell Ave employers
Cimpress- Alewife to Cimpress Wyman street Waltham
CityPoint -- Alewife to 3,4, 5th Ave and Totten Pond Rd in Waltham

These folks who offer the shuttles to their customers, know how to measure the performance of the actual operating companies because their customers [e.g. Genzyme, Astrazeneca, National Grid, Shire, Cimpress, Boston Dynamics, Boston Properties, Atrius Health, Hobbs Brook Park, Harvard Vanguard, Omniguide Surgical, etc.] also understand the importance of how to properly serve their own customers -- its just business after all
 
tysmith95 said:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ory.html?s_campaign=bdc:article:stub#comments

MBTA has the highest rate of light rail derailments in the country.
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Not suggesting that the MBTA is great, but this is misleading. MBTA has the highest NUMBER of light-rail derailments in the country.

The Globe made no attempt to normalize the RATE based on car-miles, which would be far more meaningful, since MBTA is probably the largest, most trafficked light-rail system in the country. It certainly has the most riders. The bigger the system, the more derailments would be expected.
 
tysmith95 said:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ory.html?s_campaign=bdc:article:stub#comments

MBTA has the highest rate of light rail derailments in the country.
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The audit, obtained by the Globe through a public records request and not previously reported, found that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority was not adequately maintaining its tracks or the wheels on a type of Green Line car with a history of derailments.
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[shocked face]
You mean, Bredas with craptacular truck design more derailment-prone than any other trolley make derail at higher rate than average? And all the immaculate work for geometrically perfect track done as part of the original fix to keep them from derailing so often is now approaching 15 years old and not quite so geometrically perfect any more? And that the 30-year-old cars they trainline with were sent off to their midlife rebuild program several years late and have been at peak unreliability bullseyed right on that 2013-15 spike in annual derailments?

Next you'll tell me #2 most derailment-prone LRT system on the list also runs an infamously lemon-scented Breda fleet from the same manufacturing era!
[/shocked face]


Jeez, Nicole...were the editors extra short on red meat for this morning's paper?
 
Meanwhile in Jersey. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/nyregion/new-jersey-transit-crisis.html?_r=0



When faced with a provocative media red-meat question "T problems: Mountain or Molehill?", always consult the latest D.C. Metro or NJ Transit news first before formally assigning a terror threat level.

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