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London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

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Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#41

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote: post #21

[flagged]

I've only been to Paris a handful of times and while the system is efficient, a lot of the stations and trains on the metro did have a big problem with human waste. If you see a nearly empty carriage on an otherwise busy train, someone might have done a shit on the floor - learn from my mistake and board another carriage.

London's not without its problems - chiefly for me the ear damaging noise and heat on the Central and Vicky lines - and the awful state of some of the rolling stock and track due to funding decisions made by the central government leading to delays and cancellations. This is extremely bad on the Central line right now, which hopefully changes following the recent election. The liz line, overground & DLR however are pretty great, and other services like Thameslink are pretty good with the exception of poor timetabling on some branches.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#43

Post by teractiveodular »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #37
zefr0g wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took it for a few years too, I think the frequency can be as much as every 90 seconds.

Not sure about RER, but if my memory is good, during RATP strikes in 2019, the automated line 1 was running every 60 seconds or so. Paris has such a good public transport system, and now also cycling infrastructure, that something like 50% of young adults (<30y) don't even have a driving license !

AFAIK the world record for this is held by Moscow, where some lines run every 80 seconds in regular schedules operation. That's departure to departure, and it's virtually impossible to go below that, because the speed of humans boarding becomes the limiting factor. Some automated lines claim 75 seconds as a theoretical limit, but AFAIK nobody actually does this.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#44

Post by ta1243 »

jmalicki wrote: post #35
tialaramex wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is this "Under 5 minutes at peak" ? I see about 6tph scheduled on BART's busiest line at rush hour. The Elizabeth Line's core runs 24tph which is what I'd consider an actual metro service - No reason to schedule my arrival, normal operating fluctuations dominate attempts to get there in a timely fashion so just rock up and board the next train.

"headway through the core area" The core area of West Oakland, SF, and Daly City has service from all lines, so it's the sum of tph of all lines. Of course, that does not help you at all for commuting outside the core area - which is where the length comes into play. The GP wasn't wrong, just disingenuous.

On different lines?

By that definition there's about 300 trains per hour in the core of London across each underground line, elizabeth and thameslink. That's in each direction.

That's one train departing from the core of London every 6 seconds, before you even consider surface rail.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#45

Post by TheAlchemist »

teractiveodular wrote: post #43
TheAlchemist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about RER, but if my memory is good, during RATP strikes in 2019, the automated line 1 was running every 60 seconds or so. Paris has such a good public transport system, and now also cycling infrastructure, that something like 50% of young adults (<30y) don't even have a driving license !

AFAIK the world record for this is held by Moscow, where some lines run every 80 seconds in regular schedules operation. That's departure to departure, and it's virtually impossible to go below that, because the speed of humans boarding becomes the limiting factor. Some automated lines claim 75 seconds as a theoretical limit, but AFAIK nobody actually does this.

Intersting, I've just googled a bit, and Ligne 1 in Paris was running every 90 seconds in peak hours, most other lines are around 100-110.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#46

Post by sofixa »

tialaramex wrote: post #28
sofixa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this describe the Metropolitan line in London, which is the first one? And that's not how the Parisian RER works - they have very few stops in the city of Paris itself, to prioritise long distance travel and make it faster (somewhat as a reaction to how unsuited the Paris metro, which has a ridiculously dense stop network, is for long distances).

The TFL service, the actual Metropolitan Line, only goes from London to Amersham. It used to go to Aylesbury, which is at least a moderate sized town, but it hasn't since electrification last century. Amersham is a 13th century market town. It's not tiny, but it's certainly not a city. Now, there are mainline services running on the same physical rails which do move passengers between London and other cities, but tho…

> The Elizabeth Line is closer to the model explained here, running a fast long distance service, a metro service and then back to fast long distance

It only has 5 stops with generous distance between them in London/Zone 1, which is equivalent to Parisian RERs. Not really what I would call metro service.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#47

Post by gryn »

phh wrote: post #3

> Trains arrive as often as every three minutes during peak hours along the central spines of both the Elizabeth Line and the RER Line A. I've taken the RER A everyday for few years (both and after automation), and that frequency combined with its size still puts me in awe. My usual connection with RER A, I arrive at the middle of the train platform, and my next connection is at the end of the train. Statistically I…

the further away you are in your commute in the RER A the worse it is. the segments handled by SNCF (beyond nanterre) are a real pain where they left me stranded when they broke down and they do that more often than you would like. bus, uber, etc no longer work at that moment because well all the passengers flock to them and they don't have the capacity. I happened so often that ended moving to the center of paris just to avoid it.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#48

Post by GeoAtreides »

tialaramex wrote: post #28
sofixa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this describe the Metropolitan line in London, which is the first one? And that's not how the Parisian RER works - they have very few stops in the city of Paris itself, to prioritise long distance travel and make it faster (somewhat as a reaction to how unsuited the Paris metro, which has a ridiculously dense stop network, is for long distances).

The TFL service, the actual Metropolitan Line, only goes from London to Amersham. It used to go to Aylesbury, which is at least a moderate sized town, but it hasn't since electrification last century. Amersham is a 13th century market town. It's not tiny, but it's certainly not a city. Now, there are mainline services running on the same physical rails which do move passengers between London and other cities, but tho…

Interesting how both sibling comments (by sofixa and twic) complain about opposite things: that Elizabeth is not a metro service (i.e. it's fast) and the other that it's not fast, it stops at all stations (i.e. it's a metro).

It's interesting because both are true: outside of central london is a metro service, in central london is a fast service. The parent op explains it pretty well in the last paragraph:

> running a fast long distance service, a metro service and then back to fast long distance.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#49

Post by Kuinox »

gryn wrote: post #47
phh wrote: post #3

> Trains arrive as often as every three minutes during peak hours along the central spines of both the Elizabeth Line and the RER Line A. I've taken the RER A everyday for few years (both and after automation), and that frequency combined with its size still puts me in awe. My usual connection with RER A, I arrive at the middle of the train platform, and my next connection is at the end of the train. Statistically I…

the further away you are in your commute in the RER A the worse it is. the segments handled by SNCF (beyond nanterre) are a real pain where they left me stranded when they broke down and they do that more often than you would like. bus, uber, etc no longer work at that moment because well all the passengers flock to them and they don't have the capacity. I happened so often that ended moving to the center of paris ju…

It's due to a lack of maintenance in the 90s. Here a video in french that show why there is so much maintenance work to do right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWNc4QgHrQ0

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#50

Post by PopAlongKid »

mjg59 wrote: post #27

It feels odd to talk about the US without bringing up BART, which has comparable characteristics to the Elizabeth Line (the yellow line is over 60 miles long, for instance, and headway through the core area is under 5 minutes at peak).

BART is primarily a suburban commuter train. Borne out by the fact that ever since the pandemic when downtown San Francisco offices reached record vacancy rates, BART ridership is way down, because of much fewer commuters.
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