Public transport; inherently inefficient???? No, just
NO. What you have described is not inefficientcy but a lack of flexibility. Public transport is inherently
inflexible; it is private motorised transport that is inherently
inefficient.
Very few railways (in the UK at least) are truely economically viable (as in financially profitable). For me, the question with Carmarthen-Aberystwyth is whether it would induce sufficient modal shift from private cars to result in an overall reduction in greenhouse gas emmisions. I am not sure whether it would or not, and for that reason am not sure whether I should support the scheme or oppose it.
It would be interesting to know what the running costs of an hourly 2-car train (assume class 158s) between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen would be; and similarly what the running costs of a bus service are. I wonder if the following bus services (frequencies in buses per hour (bph)) could be provided for less than the cost of the train service:
- 1bph TrawsCymru Aberystwyth-Aberaeron-Lampeter-Pencarreg-Alltwalis-Carmarthen (NOTE: Pencader would not be served by this service)
- 1bph Aberystwyth-Llanfarian-Llanilar-Tregaron, with 0.5bph continuing to Lampeter (and Aberaeron / New Quay) as part of the following service
- 0.5bph (New Quay)-Aberaeron-Cribyn-Llanwnnen-Lampeter-Tregaron
- 0.5bph (New Quay)-Aberaeron-Lampeter-Llanwnnen-Pencader-Alltwalis-Carmarthen
- 0.5bph Llandysul-Pencader-Alltwalis-Carmarthen
- 0.5bph Pencader - Llanfihangel-ar-arth - Llanwnnen - Lampeter
The above would combine to give:
- 2bph between Aberaeron and Lampeter
- 1.5bph between Lampeter and Carmarthen
- 1bph between Pencader and Carmarthen
- 1bph between Pencader and Lampeter
That argument applies more to bus services than to rail. A bus journey, outside a big congested city with bus lanes, will almost always take longer than by car. The same is not true of trains. Aberystwyth-Shrewsbury takes around 2 hours, both by rail and by car; other routes are faster than driving and, yes, some are slower.
IF the plans for a new Carmarthen-Aberystwyth line would result in a journey time slower than driving then I absolutely agree with those who say that it would be a waste of money to build the line. Beat the car journey time or don't bother with a railway, simple as that.
If a rail link cannot compete on journey time, then you might as well run buses. If pepole are made to understand the environmental benifits of travelling by bus and the buses are cheap enough, run frequently enough and are not excessively slow then we might be able to reduce greenhouse gas emmisions without the expense of building a railway.