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The secrets of the Shinkansen

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Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#131

Post by Tiktaalik »

Tor3 wrote: post #73
jabl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China also has nationalized rail systems. The major reason for the failure in the US is that the rail lines are not publicly owned. The article we're discussing explains that Japan has the best passenger rail system in the world, and which happens to be privatized, along with privately owned track. So which one is it? Go figure.

I believe the Japanese private rail companies also own the lines where their traffic is. This would explain a lot. There are other countries (including my native one) where the trains are run by one company and the lines are owned by another. This does.not.work. For what seems like obvious reasons. There's no economic gain for the owner of the infrastructure to spend money, quite the opposite in fact.

Many of these lines were built by the public, then privatized.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#132

Post by floatrock »

jabl wrote: post #59
Conan_Kudo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China also has nationalized rail systems. The major reason for the failure in the US is that the rail lines are not publicly owned. The reason the rail systems never got upgraded and Amtrak couldn't deploy high speed rail everywhere (despite it being a national priority in the 70s, 80s, and 90s) is that outside of the northeast corridor, Amtrak doesn't own the lines and couldn't get the owners to allow Amtrak to upgr…

> China also has nationalized rail systems. The major reason for the failure in the US is that the rail lines are not publicly owned. The article we're discussing explains that Japan has the best passenger rail system in the world, and which happens to be privatized, along with privately owned track. So which one is it? Go figure.

Calling Japan Rail privatized is a "ehhh, kinda, in some places, if you squint" kinda thing.

Technically, yes, the JR's are private companies.

But track construction is generally done by a government construction company financed with Japanese sovereign debt. The completed tracks are then long-term leased to the JR's at favorable rates.

Is it really a private company if the key capital outlay is done by the government and given to you with a sweetheart deal? ehhhhhh.... you can call the operator company private, but you're being dishonest if you call the system privatized.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#133

Post by kelnos »

CalRobert wrote: post #55
DeathArrow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Netherlands trying to deter from car use by laws and taxes and at the same time funneling public money into railroads and bike infrastructure? >The US could have all of this and more in their populated areas. Probably people in US have other priorities and that means there are other public policies.

I dunno, centre right national governments in recent years have been pretty car friendly. Driving can be cheaper for family outings. For two adults and two teens to go from Utrecht to Amsterdam and back (26 minutes each way) is €48 (with discount if you buy a flex pass monthly) or €80 without a discount. Suddenly driving is pretty competitive

That ignores the ongoing costs of car ownership: parking/storage, maintenance, and the purchase price itself. Driving costs a lot more than just fuel and tolls.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#134

Post by kevmo314 »

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #34
kevmo314 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this an Android thing? My US iOS works fine with digital Suica.

Apple doesn't make regional variants of the phone, so all models have the technology built-in, even if it's disabled by default. Android phones outside of Japan lack Suica support.

Ahh interesting. I wonder why they (non-Apple) did that?

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#135

Post by vidarh »

archi42 wrote: post #108
vidarh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we visited Tokyo last year, what stopped us from even trying was the online information we came across was unclear and suggested we could only get the physical cards at the airport and at some tourist office, and we forgot to look for it at the airport... I don't know if that is correct or not, but compare Oyster in London which is advertised at practically every corner store, so even if you get into town not kn…

We got IC cards (ICOCA) in Osaka for 500 Yen each, and used them for 2 weeks travelling across Japan this March. Worked like a charm, only thing that's annoying for us tourists is how it is a stored value card and needs to be topped up. I think we still had like 500 Yen on our cards when we departed, even though we bought a lot of stuff with it on the last few days. While we got ours at the Osaka airport (KIX), I am…

> "Welcome to SUICA" tourist card (available at fewer locations) with the normal one?

Quite likely.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#136

Post by vidarh »

razorbeamz wrote: post #56
vidarh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we visited Tokyo last year, what stopped us from even trying was the online information we came across was unclear and suggested we could only get the physical cards at the airport and at some tourist office, and we forgot to look for it at the airport... I don't know if that is correct or not, but compare Oyster in London which is advertised at practically every corner store, so even if you get into town not kn…

The card mentioned in the guides you read is the "Welcome Suica" that's only for tourists. You can get a normal Suica just about anywhere.

I wish we'd known that ahead of time... It looks like the only difference is the deposit and expiry? Which seems like it makes the tourist-only version pretty much pointless.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#137

Post by hirako2000 »

williamdclt wrote: post #43
hirako2000 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did France. There is a common factor at play with Russia. Has little to do with the country's shape. It's like saying certain rats solve the maze because the path is simpler. Except that the failing rats happen to have a different incentive.

> So did France. There is a common factor at play with Russia. Has little to do with the country's shape. You'll have to make yourself clearer, I have no idea what you're implying

I implied that when a nation decides that transport infrastructure is a strategic investment, a decades long initiative, funded by the Public sector, it yields better results.

The private sector unfortunately is too short sighted, and will optimize for profit. Doesn't seem to work well for nationwide infrastructure..that being railroads, but also the internet.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#138

Post by johnwalkr »

throw0101d wrote: post #112
pezezin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, is not the population density fairly high? There's not as much land to spread in low-density car centric suburbs like there is in (say) the US. LOL no. Outside of the big neighborhoods of the big cities, Japan is endless urban sprawl. I know because I live in a small Japanese city of 40k people and it's just detached houses, small 2-story apartment buildings, a big box stores. Public transportation is almost…

> LOL no. Outside of the big neighborhoods of the big cities, Japan is endless urban sprawl. And how many people live in those areas? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan#Urban_di... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_weighted_density Half the population lives in Tokyo (40M), Osaka (19M), and Nagoya (10M); one-third in the Greater Tokyo Area. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg5XHN_25HQ&t=7m…

Tokyo is relatively dense but it's nothing like what you expect from movies or from visiting there for a few days. The majority of people live in buildings 3 storeys or less (above 3 storeys there are a lot more requirements). There's a ton of detached houses even. The overall density of the 23 wards is slightly less than Paris.

When visiting you tend to visit some of the busiest areas and also spend a lot of time on the train. It's tiring and it seems so busy. But since almost every neighbourhood has all amenities and there is no single CBD, when you live there, you realise how much of Tokyo is an endless sea of small apartment buildings with small islands of restaurants and businesses around train stations, plus a handful of larger islands.

The article talks about the railways developing areas around Tokyo. This is actually very interesting and the way it sprawled[1] outwards towards places like Yokohama. Railways made commuter towns with amenities and commuter lines to those towns at the same time, and rented and sold real estate in those towns. Over time the areas in between the terminus of each of these lines (usually Shibuya or Shinjuku) and each town filled in until what you see today.

[1] I think the debate about whether or not Tokyo is/has urban sprawl depends on your definition. If you take it to mean expanding with lower density on the outskirts, it definitely "sprawled", although today it's more filled in. If you take it to mean unplanned low-density, car-centric expansion, it didn't "sprawl" that much. I've seen the terms car-centric sprawl and train-centric sprawl used to discuss the differences.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#139

Post by littlestymaar »

pipe01 wrote: post #114
littlestymaar wrote: post #69

> the most striking institutional feature of Japanese rail is that it is privately owned by a throng of competing companies. Knowing the author I knew it was going to be his main argument before even opening the blog post. And it's obviously wrong, these companies don't compete with one another, they all have a local monopoly. (The article itself acknowledges that and even acknowledges the organizational benefits of…

There are many places in Japan where multiple companies compete over the same area

I don't know Japan but the author has a whole paragraph about how it's not the case, and how a big part of Japan success comes from the fact that this is not the case, so the author must be wrong one way or the other:

> Unlike other countries, Japan simply returned to the traditional private railway model of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: tracks, trains, stations, and yards were owned by vertically integrated regional conglomerates.

> There are substantial advantages to vertical integration. Railways are a closed system that has to be planned as a single unit. Changing the timetable at station A can affect the timetable at station Z; buying new trains that can travel faster might require changes to the infrastructure so they can reach their top speed, which in turn requires rewriting the timetables. This becomes especially complicated if different services share tracks. To prevent delays from propagating from one service to another, the timetable needs to be carefully designed to make best use of the available infrastructure.

> […]

> By maintaining and restoring the institutions that built the first railway systems in the nineteenth century, the Japanese have created the mightiest railway system of the twenty-first.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#140

Post by CalRobert »

kelnos wrote: post #133
CalRobert wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, centre right national governments in recent years have been pretty car friendly. Driving can be cheaper for family outings. For two adults and two teens to go from Utrecht to Amsterdam and back (26 minutes each way) is €48 (with discount if you buy a flex pass monthly) or €80 without a discount. Suddenly driving is pretty competitive

That ignores the ongoing costs of car ownership: parking/storage, maintenance, and the purchase price itself. Driving costs a lot more than just fuel and tolls.

Oh I know, and that's part of why this family doesn't own a car, but 1) a lot of people are not great at calculating those costs and 2) some of the costs are sunk costs.

Even so, the sticker shock of some trips on Dutch trains is unsettling. Utrecht to Rotterdam is €27.60 round trip (if using undiscounted fare). It's ~112 km (again, round trip). So for the same family you're looking at over €100 to go on a pretty minor journey.

I just want the Dutch government to fund trains more and roads less. It's kinda bizarre how there's no motorway tolls here, at least that I've encountered.

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