Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only complaint I have is that it's already so popular that trains are absolutely packed!
Nobody uses it anymore because the trains are so full.
Well there were a lot of nobodies including me using it last night.
London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
61–70 of 80 posts
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#62This was a great read. As an American who is currently living in France, I'm always blown away by how easy it is for me to get just about anywhere via train.
America is way less dense than France and Europe at large. Only in BoWash such an high density network would make sense
I don't think this argument really holds up in a world where China built twenty-eight thousand miles of HSR in two decades, a lot of it connecting disparate urban areas much like what the US has:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lin...
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, I live on it and 2 minutes is underselling it. On the central trunk frequency in rush hour is a departure every 90s, which means there's almost constantly a train at the station.
This reminds of the way the S-Bahn system works through central Berlin. Several different lines all converge on the same route through the heart of the city, providing "adequate" service intervals to their actual endpoints, but as a side effect, 90 sec departures in the city itself. It's like a magic trick!
That's not how the RERs work. The only shared track between any RER lines is the short tunnel for the B and D lines between Chatelet - Les Halles and Gare Du Nord. There have been many plans about doubling it, but it would be extremely expensive because it's under one of the densest and oldest parts of the city, and cross multiple metro lines, and connecting to two of the largest transit hubs in Europe and the world outside of East Asia.
Every other line has dedicated tracks. There can and often are branches, but usually they're 2-3 at most per "side" of the central trunk, with the exception of the unwieldly spaghetti that used to be the RER C between the simplification of it, which reduced it to three branches per side as well.
* RER A in question has two branches to the east, and three to the west.
* B has 2.5 to the south and 2 to the north
* D has 2-3 to the south and one to the north
* E has two to the east, and for now one to the west (I think there will be 1.5 in the end when it's all finished)
So not at all comparable to the S-Bahns that more often than not get all forced into a single tunnel resulting in atrocious frequency on the branches. As an example, frenquency on the branches in rush hour on the A is 5 minutes at most on the least frequented branches. At the worst of times, late at night on the least frequented branches of the least frequented lines you're looking into 20-30 minutes frequency, which isn't great, but isn't terrible either for a station in the middle of nowhere far away on the C, D or E.
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#64Toronto has some of the pieces in place to make this happen with the GO Train network, particularly the Lakeshore lines that stretch from Oshawa (60km east) to Hamilton (70km west). Unfortunately a lot of it hinges on electrification, which has been mired in administrative back and forth for decades and even the most ambitious plans still only call for 15 minute service:
https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/go-expans...
Fare integration is another important piece— being able to jump on the GO to get out to a far-flung subway station like Main or Dundas West and continue your trip from there is a really nice prospect, but having pay separately for it kind of kills the vibe.
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
If you’re going to take that view, then you need to be comparing the BART system to the entire London Metro system (The Tube, overground, Lizzie line, and suburban rail). There are many services that run parallel to the Lizzie line in central London. But they don’t share track, because that’s a terrible way to operate a metro service. If you take that approach, then BART looks like a toy compared to its equivalent in…
If you're making that comparison then you need to count the frequency of Shenfield services separately from Abbey Wood services.
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#66Earlier 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 met has express services that skip stations
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
I think you have a different definition of "different lines".
BART is like a tree. The branches join together into one trunk. It's shared tracks into the same stations. So measuring the frequency of all the lines makes sense, as long as you only want to move between stations on the trunk.
London is not like that (if I understand correctly). Elizabeth and Thameslink don't share tracks between common stations.
So London has much higher aggregate than BART. But the statement about BART's train frequency on the trunk is not a nonsense statement.
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a pretty solid overview in the late, lamented JRTR. https://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr63/pdf/14-21_web.pdf (PDF) The article also notes that the Parisian RER was inspired by Tokyo, and throws casual shade by noting that public transport in Paris at 3 billion trips per year is just a small fraction of Tokyo's 15 billion trips.
> The article also notes that the Parisian RER was inspired by Tokyo, and throws casual shade by noting that public transport in Paris at 3 billion trips per year is just a small fraction of Tokyo's 15 billion trips. The Paris metro area is 11 million, while Tokyo's is 38 million. So the difference isn't as huge as it initially seems, and I'd bet Paris will start catching up with the Grand Paris Express (4 new automa…
When you say "surpass Tokyo", it really depends what you mean by Tokyo's metro. A lot of the stats literally talk about the central Tokyo subway network, which consists of 13 lines [1]; when in reality that's just one amongst a huge number of other operators that comprise the Greater Tokyo rail system, arguably consisting of 121 lines, excluding trams [2]. Given that this article is about regional transit, I think that's a fair comparison.
Taking that into account, as far as number of rail lines are concerned, Paris would probably need to at least quintuple its rail lines before it gets even close.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo#Rai...
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds of the way the S-Bahn system works through central Berlin. Several different lines all converge on the same route through the heart of the city, providing "adequate" service intervals to their actual endpoints, but as a side effect, 90 sec departures in the city itself. It's like a magic trick!
That's not how the RERs work. The only shared track between any RER lines is the short tunnel for the B and D lines between Chatelet - Les Halles and Gare Du Nord. There have been many plans about doubling it, but it would be extremely expensive because it's under one of the densest and oldest parts of the city, and cross multiple metro lines, and connecting to two of the largest transit hubs in Europe and the world…
> 5 minutes at most on the least frequented branches
I suppose I should say at this point that I live in the USA. And not only in the USA, but in New Mexico :)
> late at night on the least frequented branches of the least frequented lines you're looking into 20-30 minutes frequency
Ditto. This doesn't sound that different from what I remember growing up on the Central Line coming in from the NE of London. Doesn't sound that bad, though more is generally better, I suppose.
Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think you have a different definition of "different lines". BART is like a tree. The branches join together into one trunk. It's shared tracks into the same stations. So measuring the frequency of all the lines makes sense, as long as you only want to move between stations on the trunk. London is not like that (if I understand correctly). Elizabeth and Thameslink don't share tracks between common stations. So Londo…
Some of London's Underground lines do share track along some of their length, like BART, but overall this is an exception rather than a rule, e.g. some of the District and Circle overlap, and indeed the Metropolitan also shares with the Circle.
And I agree that for the purpose of a trip within this core, you'd only care about that 5 minute wait, which is pretty reasonable, much as often passengers won't care if this is a District Line train or a Circle, since the stop they're going to is served by both.