Maglev approved for Munich

OTK

The munich airport maglev link has just been approved for funding.

How does it compare with Metro north?

Munich Maglev will be:
38km long, 10 minute journey time, €1.85 billion
no intermediate stops, projected 8 million passengers. Fare: €13

Dublin Metro North will be:
17km long, <30 minute journey time to Swords, <20 mins to airport,
€4.8 billion (?), 13 intermediate stops, projected 34 million passengers. Fare: ?

I think our one looks like better value.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7011932.stm

MarkoP11

Metro North in actual physical cost terms about 2.25 billion, its how its being paid for then turns up the 4.861 billion number

antoinolachtnai

It's a different thing though. Heathrow's rail link cost a billion euros, more like 1.5 billion euros in today's money.

The cost per kilometer would seem to indicate that the Munich link is much better value.

I think that if a link that fast could be built to Limerick (say) for around 9 billion euros, with a one hour journey time or less, it might represent good value if we believed we could drive the population growth to justify it.

OTK

antoinolachtnai wrote:

The cost per kilometer would seem to indicate that the Munich link is much better value.

km of track is not a suitable metric for return on investment. Length of track may bear no relation to the utility of the system. Number of trips completed is better.

MarkoP11 wrote:

Metro North in actual physical cost terms about 2.25 billion, its how its being paid for then turns up the 4.861 billion number

Presumably, the Munich maglev will also be built with borrowed money.

Munich already has a substantial urban rail network, so it's going to be harder to get the kind of return on investment you get by building some rail anywhere in Dublin city. Diminishing returns and all that

MarkoP11

It reads like the Germans are trying to show off there vorsprung durch technic by building a toy, its a all German gig

Supercell

That interesting, wonder how it'll cope in Munichs cold and snowy winter, must be a whole bunch of new challenges for them.

murphaph

I'm sure it snows on their test facility, even though it's in northern Germany. Fair play to them anyway. Munich airport is a good trek from the city centre in fairness. I wish them the best of luck with it.

munchkin_utd

OTK wrote:

Presumably, the Munich maglev will also be built with borrowed money.

There is no borrowing for the project per say. Funding is being split between national government, state government and a couple of hundred mill from the airport and similar from the railway.
The national and state governments have funds ringfenced for "high tech" initatives and this is what they are allocating to the Transrapid.

And indeed. Its a showy offy type project! Its hoped that the world will sit up and take notice of the maglev, and buy their own version, when they see it in successful operation in Munich!!

Personally I dont see where they are going to get their custom from seeing as a single ticket is due to cost 20 Euro. The s-bahn costs 8.80 or as little as 4.50 if you already have a weekly ticket for the city zone anyhow. Maybe business travellers on expense wouldnt mind shelling out, but the cost concious germans will probably prefer to pocket the 15 euro saving each way!

markpb

munchkin_utd wrote:

Personally I dont see where they are going to get their custom from seeing as a single ticket is due to cost 20 Euro. The s-bahn costs 8.80 or as little as 4.50 if you already have a weekly ticket for the city zone anyhow. Maybe business travellers on expense wouldnt mind shelling out, but the cost concious germans will probably prefer to pocket the 15 euro saving each way!

The express train from Stockholm airport to the city centre is roughly €38 return and it was full both times I used it. It runs every 10ish minutes during the day too so it's not full because it's infrequent. Quality service in good time will attract a lot of business people.

OTK

munchkin_utd wrote:

There is no borrowing for the project per say. Funding is being split between national government, state government and a couple of hundred mill from the airport and similar from the railway.
The national and state governments have funds ringfenced for "high tech" initatives and this is what they are allocating to the Transrapid.

Has the national government not being running a deficit for decades? They might have 'ringfenced' money but that doesn't mean they didn't borrow it.

Alun

markpb wrote:

The express train from Stockholm airport to the city centre is roughly €38 return and it was full both times I used it. It runs every 10ish minutes during the day too so it's not full because it's infrequent. Quality service in good time will attract a lot of business people.

There's also a frequent bus service (Flygbus) from Arlanda to Stockholm that's half the price but takes twice as long (40 mins as opposed to 20). I've used both and the bus is often full as well, showing that there's a market for both kinds of service .. fast and expensive as well as slow and cheap .. each to their own. Personally I find the Arlanda Express the more comfortable alternative.

Rashers72

Went to the demo set-up in Munich Airport about 22 months ago (pre Xmas). Very impressive. Best of luck to the Germans. A lot of EUR, and I thought their economy was not doing so well etc., but I must have been mistaken!
Look forward to going on it some day.
Also surprised it got the funding after the accident on a similar test track in Germany about a year ago

Victor

Rashers72 wrote:

Also surprised it got the funding after the accident on a similar test track in Germany about a year ago

I got the impression that was a human error / signalling matter, not purely because it was maglev.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_train
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Lathen_maglev_train_accident

antoinolachtnai

The Germans have already built one of these, in Shanghai. It's pretty well tested now.

Chris_533976

I'm glad they're building it Maglev rather than ICE. This is the first major use of Maglev in EU or US so will hopefully be a sign of things to come

E92

munchkin_utd wrote:

Maybe business travellers on expense wouldnt mind shelling out, but the cost concious germans will probably prefer to pocket the 15 euro saving each way!

Indeed they will, from my experiences with them, there is absoluetly NO way that they will spend that kind of money for a train ticket, however much faster it goes. Its all save save save in Germany and make sure we don't spent any of the money we ever earn:D .

murphaph

There's a lot of german tour buses trundling around Europe for a nation of folks who supposedly don't spend their money

E92

murphaph wrote:

There's a lot of german tour buses trundling around Europe for a nation of folks who supposedly don't spend their money

Well naturally I was exaggerating, but the point I wanted to make is that by and large, from my experience the Germans are VERY economical with their money.

They are not like us, where we spend money like there will be no tomorrow.

OTK

murphaph wrote:

There's a lot of german tour buses trundling around Europe for a nation of folks who supposedly don't spend their money

I thought that spending your holidays by sitting on a bus was the essence of being economical. What could be cheaper?

E92

E92 wrote:

Well naturally I was exaggerating, but the point I wanted to make is that by and large, from my experience the Germans are VERY economical with their money.

They are not like us, where we spend money like there will be no tomorrow.

[ OT] but as far as I know, much of the cheap credit over recent years has come from German savings!
Our interest repayments are pumping up their pensions [/OT ]

E92

Deleted User wrote:

[ OT] but as far as I know, much of the cheap credit over recent years has come from German savings!
Our interest repayments are pumping up their pensions [/OT ]

You're 100% spot on there, that is precisely why the Irish are spending so much money!

murphaph

E92 wrote:

Well naturally I was exaggerating, but the point I wanted to make is that by and large, from my experience the Germans are VERY economical with their money.

They are not like us, where we spend money like there will be no tomorrow.

True. They are prudent. We are not. Gross generalisations but pretty accurate I'd say.

murphaph

OTK wrote:

I thought that spending your holidays by sitting on a bus was the essence of being economical. What could be cheaper?

Staying at home. Germans still take more holidays a year than the average european. They're not 'tight' in my experience, just not gobsh!tes with their money, like a lot of us.

E92

murphaph wrote:

True. They are prudent. We are not. Gross generalisations but pretty accurate I'd say.

I think you are getting onto something very important here, because this prudence is seen in every part of my experience of Germany and with the German people.

I think that your statement says a lot about why everything is planned and runs over there with military precision. If a train is due to leave at 19:00 from Cologne to Berlin on 25/9/2015 on Platform 2, then it will leave at that exact time. Not 18:59 or 19:01, but 19:00 exactly. And no prizes for guessing which platform either:eek: .

In the summer, when the kids get holidays, in order to avoid too much congestion on the Motorways, different states finish the school year on different days.

So North Rhine Westphalia(Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Dortmund,Essen area) might finish on the 23rd of June, and the neighbouring state of Lower Saxony will finish school on the 25th of June.

This sort of planning is evident not just on things like this, but they do it all the time in their own personal lives. Here, I might decide like I did last night to go out for a night out at 10:00 last night, because a friend asked me to. I didn't know what I was doing till the very last minute!

If that were Germany, the friend would have asked me about 1-2 weeks ago a) would we go out, b) what time, c) where are going, d) what time will we be back at, e) what day, and both he and I would know exactly where we would be going for a night out and when well in advance.

Whereas here in Ireland, we just tend to go with the flow I think!

So I think that that in a nutshel is why we seem to have a complete inability to plan for the future needs of this country.We don't know what we are doing tomorrow, never mind next year(in Germany, it would be very normal for them to know where they are going on holidays for summer 08 already:eek: ).

I think I got a bit sidetracked there, and went offtopic, so mods I'm sorry about that.

Metrobest

OTK wrote:

The munich airport maglev link has just been approved for funding.

How does it compare with Metro north?

Munich Maglev will be:
38km long, 10 minute journey time, €1.85 billion
no intermediate stops, projected 8 million passengers. Fare: €13

Dublin Metro North will be:
17km long, <30 minute journey time to Swords, <20 mins to airport,
€4.8 billion (?), 13 intermediate stops, projected 34 million passengers. Fare: ?

I think our one looks like better value.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7011932.stm

Looks to me as though the OP is looking to get in another sly dig at metro north. I don´t think you can make any comparison between a suburban commuting metro under a historic city centre and a MagLev to a German airport. Different countries, different projects.

In other European countries people don´t speak about the costs of big projects like we do in Ireland, they don´t question them, they don´t subject them to a rigourous cost benefit analysis, they just take the decision to build them and get on with it. In Ireland we act as though the money for these projects were being physically snatched from our wallets by the government, as if somehow on our ESB bills next month is was going to say "Metro North levy: 6 Eur". 60 million... 600 million .. 6000 million, at the end of the day it´s just a number and it´s an incomprehensible amount of money to most of us, therefore I don´t know why some people think they have the ability to decide on the value for money of these projects, as though they were deciding between pork and chicken in the supermarket.

"4 billion for a metro to Swords? Nah, too expensive. I´ll only pay 2 billion for it."

Barcelona is building extensions to its metro, new lines, tunnels under the city centre for the TGV to Paris and nobody (apart from a few faceless bureaucrats) has the foggiest idea how much it´s all costing. And instead of saying "look how much this project is costing, look at the delays" the media here says "look at the benefits it will bring."

A case in point being the high speed train from Barcelona to Madrid, due to open December 21, or the new design of the New Camp stadium. I have watched in amazement as the media here devote pages praising the projects, generating a sense of excitement about them, instead of the sense of fear and negativity that drips off every page of the Irish newspapers when it comes to projects like metro North, luas, Port Tunnel and Lansdowne Road.

murphaph

I agree in part MB. The media here are always looking to make news out of the costs of projects, even when there is no news.

The NRA are rearely in the news these days because they semm to have gotten their tendering procedure in order and roads cost an appropriate amount.

However I would disagree that we as a nation "shouln't question the costs" as that (coupled with corruption) could lead to FoFF being paid way over the odds for their efforts.

Why don't these same 'newspapers' investigate the real waste that goes on every day in less high profile areas? Why does Fingal Co Co erect 4 poles for 4 individual signs instead of mounting 2 and 2 to a pair of lamp posts that are already extant? Little things like this add up to huge waste. Why do local authorities seem to answer to nobody wrt signs and signage and allowing roads to be dug up just after resurfacing only to be 'relaid' in a manner that a retarded monkey would laugh at, only to break up at the first frost?

Newspapers question the wrong things. Our media is lazy.

spacetweek

OTK wrote:

Munich Maglev will be:
38km long, 10 minute journey time, €1.85 billion
no intermediate stops, projected 8 million passengers. Fare: €13

Dublin Metro North will be:
17km long, <30 minute journey time to Swords, <20 mins to airport,
€4.8 billion (?), 13 intermediate stops, projected 34 million passengers. Fare: ?

I think our one looks like better value.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7011932.stm

Not sure what the point of this comparison is? One's a Maglev, the other an underground light metro. One is above ground with cutting-edge technology and is designed to be an express point-to-point line, while the other is underground, uses technology which is widespread and tries to take in as many places as possible en route.

fly_agaric

Not to rub it in, but everyone posting here will be ashes or wormfood before a maglev (or indeed any other less costly type of high speed rail) line gets built in Ireland!

The Chinese will probably be shipping all their excess people up to their lunar-colony before there is a high speed rail line in Ireland...:D

Who knows, if we are lucky maybe our "metro" will be built by then (if the money doesn't run out first!).

Chris_533976

Thats because we dont need maglev. We dont need high speed rail. The furthest sensible destinations from eachother are Cork and Belfast.

If we had reliable, well managed, intregrated railways that could do 200kmh throughout we'd be fine. But we dont, we have an archaic, dismally managed Inter-city system that is barely suited to the 1970s let alone 2007.

OTK

Metrobest wrote:

Looks to me as though the OP is looking to get in another sly dig at metro north. I don´t think you can make any comparison between a suburban commuting metro under a historic city centre and a MagLev to a German airport. Different countries, different projects.

I wasn't taking a dig at metro north. I think the projects are comparable as they both involve a grade separated rail connection between the city centre and the airport. The prefinance costs are about equivalent. The two cities and their airports are within the same order of magnitude.

On the other hand, Munich's airport is nearly 4 times further away. Munich is already heavily invested with urban rail so there are both diminishing returns and network effects to consider. There is already a rail link to munich airport.

Metrobest wrote:

In other European countries people don´t speak about the costs of big projects like we do in Ireland, they don´t question them, they don´t subject them to a rigourous cost benefit analysis, they just take the decision to build them and get on with it

Which European countries invest multi-billion budgets in rail projects without public debate and cost benefit analysis? Come off it! Transrapid Munich has been the subject of huge public debate, and government scrutiny over many years. Even dictatorships like China carry out extensive CBA on large projects to efficiently invest in those projects with the highest return. It is true that too much analysis means you never do anything.

fly_agaric

Chris_533976 wrote:

Thats because we dont need maglev. We dont need high speed rail. The furthest sensible destinations from eachother are Cork and Belfast.

Em, I think that a lack of necessity is not the only or even the main reason it will never ever happen here.:) We try our damndest not to build the things we actually do need!

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

jlang

I have a photograph somewhere of a train platform in Frankfurt with the board showing the train I was waiting for and its time and a clock. The clock may have been fast, but the train was several minutes late and hadn't arrived by the time I took the photo.

murphaph

How many train movements are made in Germany every day? I don't know but I bet it's a LOT more than are made in Ireland in a YEAR. As a percentage of total journeys I'd say they have a miniscule number of delays, compared to us anyway.

Chris_533976

I think it was quite funny that the 14:00 train to Cobh the other day was listed on their screens as "On Time" at 13:50 and "Boarding" at 13:55, even though there was no train!!

In fairness, the train did leave at 14:02, which isnt too bad I guess. Not for a service that just goes back and forth, it got there on time so thats fine.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

strassenwolf

The mayor of Munich is opposed to this project.

I'm not altogether sure why he's opposed to it. From the little bit I've read, he feels that it will end up being more expensive than currently envisaged. I think there's also an issue about this project amounting to an expansion of the airport, and the city of Munich (as a large shareholder in the airport) has not been adequately consulted on this expansion.

There may be other reasons.

It's a strange one, though. You'd think, if the mayor of the city doesn't want the project to happen, that it wouldn't happen - think Ken Livingstone here.:D

But there it is.

murphaph

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Sorry daveirl, I wasn't disagreeing with you either, just adding a little context. I've been on delayed trains in Germany also, generally as in your experience, just a couple of minutes.

They give travellers months of advance notice of any works that will cause disruption. They put up signs at EVERY station with maps and amended timetables.

It's not that the germans are super human. They just all function in a society that expects a minimum standard that is higher than we as a society accept. This is why they get better services across the board.

parsi

Rather amusingly the German media (both general and specialist press) claim that the rail service has gone to the dogs since DB moved out from being a pure Gov service.

One thing that has always amazed me is the Wagenstandanzeiger which shows you where such-and-such a carriage will be on such-and-such a train. It's a simple idea but it shows great planning and great adherence to plans. Of course there's also the large printed list of arrivals and departures in each station which details the platforms and by the hokey 999 times out of 1000 the train will be there (my last trip to Berlin had a few platform changes).

Compare that to my last trip from Limerick where the train for the junction was happily siting at a different platform to the one on the electronic indicator and no-one seemed too pushed.

daveirl

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bk

OTK wrote:

The munich airport maglev link has just been approved for funding.

How does it compare with Metro north?

Munich Maglev will be:
38km long, 10 minute journey time, €1.85 billion
no intermediate stops, projected 8 million passengers. Fare: €13

It is funny you mention this, first of all most say that €1.85 billion is PR bs, that in reality it is going to cost about €6 billion. Also the tickets are expected to cost €25+ and the fact that there are only two stops is considered a major disadvantage.

It seems most people in Munich are completely against this and when you listen to their arguments, it becomes clear why.

Currently Munich Airport is already served by two S-Bahn lines. It takes 45 minutes and €8 to get to the airport.

However during the World Cup they ran Express S-Bahn's to the Airport and they only took 22 minutes and had 4 stops including the three busiest inner city stations.

So an alternative plan has been put forward to build a constant Express S-Bahn service to the Airport. It would cost about €1 billion Euros (for a third track, signalling, etc.), have a 22 minute journey time, cost €8 per ticket and would have four stops.

The four stops is an important point, the proposed Maglev will operate only to one of the quieter outside stations and that most people would need to transfer to/from and continue their Journey on S-Bahn anyway. On the other hand the Express S-Bahn would stop at the three busiest inner city stations. Many argue that with the transfer time of Maglev, that for most people the total journey time would actually be longer on Maglev then on an Express S-Bahn.

So for Maglev,
- 10 - 15 minute journey time (plus big interchange time)
- €6 billion cost
- €25+ ticket

versus
- 22 minute journey time with much more convenient stations
- €1 billion cost
- €8 ticket

No wonder people in Munich are completely against it. It is quiet clear that the Maglev is a completely unnecessary white elephant.

BTW if you are wondering why they are pushing it, it is because the German government want to build it as an example of an operating Maglev to help sell it abroad, this is also why they are trying to hide the real cost.

OTK wrote:

Dublin Metro North will be:
17km long, <30 minute journey time to Swords, <20 mins to airport,
€4.8 billion (?), 13 intermediate stops, projected 34 million passengers. Fare: ?

I think our one looks like better value.

Yes, it is clear that Metro North is vastly better value for money and goes to show you have to be careful when comparing with projects in other countries, we often don't hear the true story at all.

antoinolachtnai

bk wrote: »

It is funny you mention this, first of all most say that €1.85 billion is PR bs, that in reality it is going to cost about €6 billion. Also the tickets are expected to cost €25+ and the fact that there are only two stops is considered a major disadvantage.

To be fair, the price per journey on Metro will certainly be over 15 euros. You can't really look at the fare in isolation from the state subsidy.

munchkin_utd

The financing of the Transrapid isn't as secure as we previously thought.
The much celebrated announcement of the funding was made in the dieing days of the ruling term of Edmund Stiober, who was the chief honcho in the Bavarian government for 12 or 14 years previous.

The new "Minister president" or maybe first minister in english, is not so hot on bankrolling the whole project and has said that the amount given by the Bavarian state will not be a single cent above what has been agreed.
The long and the short seems to be that the national government and state government are looking for something along the lines of a fixed price contract with the risk borne by industry rather than the taxpayer.

Its not irrelevant either that the cost of 1.8 billion is from an old study from 2002. And thats before steel and other materials started rising in price. Its 1.8 billion that is secured for the project so whether anyone in industry is happy, or able, to do it for that price now in 2007 is a good question.
(never mind that theres 360 million euro alone missing from the 2002 estimate just for the 3rd service tunnel that is now wanted by the politicians).

This weekend there is a monster demo against the transrapid orgnized by some citizens group, who reckon that the couple of billion euro would be better spent on the schools/ kindergardens and improving public transport links in general rather than on the transrapid.

Their site in german is here:
http://www.contratransrapid.de/cms/website.php?id=/de/index.htm

or google-ified translation from german into english here:
http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contratransrapid.de%2Fcms%2Fwebsite.php%3Fid%3D%2Fde%2Findex.htm&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8

bk

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

To be fair, the price per journey on Metro will certainly be over 15 euros. You can't really look at the fare in isolation from the state subsidy.

Where did you get that from?

I'd expect the prices to be in line with LUAS or Bus from Swords, probably about €4 max.

Otherwise no one in Swords is going to use it and the reason for building it completely collapses.

antoinolachtnai

I am talking about the cost per journey, not the fare. Was in the paper from a study one of the political parties had done, but you can work it out yourself.

5 billion X .05 percent interest = 250 million euros per year. This is the cost of financing the initial build. This never decreases, because the system never makes a profit to pay off the capital.

allowance for maintenance = 5 percent of the cost per year (in the early years, maintenance will be lower, but it will increase as time goes on) = 250 million euros per year. (You can call this depreciation if you like, but this is public sector accounting, and it's not quite the same thing. You can argue with the exact amount too, but it isn't going to make that much difference to the final sums.)

That's a total of EUR 500m/year that will have to come from current expenditure to pay for the project, and there are forecast to be 34m passengers per year. 500m/34m = around 15 euros. Add to that the cost of actually operating the service which is likely to be around 2 or 3 euros/passenger and you have 17 or 18 euros.

The fare will quite likely be around 3 or 4 euros as you say. The rest will be paid for out of general taxation.

Antoin.

bk

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I am talking about the cost per journey, not the fare. Was in the paper from a study one of the political parties had done, but you can work it out yourself.

But then your not comparing like with like, the actual fare for the Maglev is expected to be about €25 (think of a service more similar to the Heathrow Express, rather then a Metro). The cost per journey of Maglev is expected to be vastly more then €25 per trip.

The cost per trip is almost always far higher then the fare for most major public transport projects. Capital costs are almost always paid out of taxes, operating costs out of the fare.

This is true for the Luas, buses, most rail projects, etc. Nothing unusual there.

Also your estimate of €250 million a year for maintenance costs, seems to be very large, I'd expect it to be much lower and for the Metro fare to actually cover both the maintenance and operating costs:

34m x €4 = €136 million a year for maintenance and operating costs, that seems very reasonable, IMO. They might even make a profit.

That would make the capital cost per trip about €7.35 (250 m / 34m) for 20 years, which isn't so bad.

And here is the thing, the Metro doesn't suddenly disappear after 20 years!!, it will still probably be in use 100 years from now (just look at London Underground), so after 20 years the capital cost per trip is gone, the fare has gone up due to inflation and probably far more then 34m people per year are using it due to increase in population (Swords expected to go from 34000 residents to 100,000 in 15 years), so the maintenance and operating costs will be easily covered.

Over a 100 years it looks like fantastic value for money.

antoinolachtnai

First of all, they will definitely not make a profit. They might make a surplus. That is a very different thing. A profit is what ryanair makes. A surplus is what the Luas makes.

The Metro will certainly still be there, but it will need constant refit and maintenance.

In the first years, for sure, there won't be much maintenance because everything is brand new. But maintaining an underground railway is an expensive proposition on an ongoing basis. All the work is highly specialized and has to be done at night, in complete darkness, in a confined space, with all the safety issues that entails. It's a whole different world from the Luas. Metronet was spending 2.5 million a day on maintaining and bringing around three-quarters of the London Underground up to scratch, and it turned out not to be enough.

After thirty years a substantial refit is going to be required, including rail renewal, new carriages and all the rest of it. Obviously, this is easier to do than building a system from scratch, but actually not all that much. London could probably build a new system from scratch for the same money as the maintenance/upgrade, but that just isn't feasible.

The 34 million passengers is really the system running at full tilt as I understand it. That's nearly 100,000 trips a day, which assumes 12,000 people per hour at peak times, which is good going. That's a packed train every three minutes assuming a tram holds 300 people. You'd need to invest more in the system to increase the capacity beyond that, not only in the rolling stock and maintenance, but also in the platforms and station facilities (for example, you will need a couple of very long escalators in the peak direction to guarantee being able to get the 300 people off the platform before the next train comes along).

I don't think eur136m will pay to run and maintain that system, certainly not beyond the first few years. Only time will tell though.

The figures are also contingent on the project not going over-budget. As I understand it, the project is already over-budget, because of the necessity to put the Ballymun section underground.

The convention is not to take inflation into account when you calculate these things, because you assume that everything (costs and revenue) are going to inflate at the same rate.

The capital cost is never 'gone'. The government has to carry it forever, since this project never pays back any of its debt. (This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because the government benefits in other ways aside from direct cashflow, but it is definitely the case if you want to look at the train as a standalone business.)

As I understand it, the value for money projections on this project are actually not that big. Pricing in a hike in the project cost or a reduction in demand could make the project unviable.

Certainly, you have to do some long-term thinking to make these projects make sense and that's definitely the way to do it. There's obviously no use in looking at just a 20 year horizon, or just looking at the direct cashflows in isolation.

If you're looking at the long-term though, why not link to Luas at Ranelagh as part of the plan and get some real capacity into the system?

The capital cost of the Heathrow Express is not completely out of line with the Munich maglev (about 450m pounds sterling in 1996 money). It is privately funded and makes a profit (the old-fashioned kind, not the Luas kind).

bk

antoinolachtnai wrote:

First of all, they will definitely not make a profit. They might make a surplus. That is a very different thing. A profit is what ryanair makes. A surplus is what the Luas makes.

Fair enough.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

It's a whole different world from the Luas. Metronet was spending 2.5 million a day on maintaining and bringing around three-quarters of the London Underground up to scratch, and it turned out not to be enough.

Ok so, lets do the maths.

2.5 million per day is 912 million per year.
London underground is 408km long, 2/3rds of that is 272km.
So that is 3.36 million per km per year on a system that is over 100 years old and very heavily used.

Metro North is 17km long, so going by that figure it would cost 57.12 million per year to maintain and refurbish (and remember Metro north will be much newer then London underground).

That seems to be a much more reasonable figure (but still high IMO) then your estimate of 250 million per year, 250 million would mean that it would cost 5 times the amount per km to maintain and refurbish a shiny new Metro versus the 100 year old London underground system. That makes no sense at all.

57 million is well below my estimate of €136 million takings per year, so it would seem that they would easily be able to pay for both maintenance and operating costs out of the fare and probably even make a healthy surplus.

So we are left with a capital cost of €7 per trip, for the first 20 years and zero after that, sounds very reasonable to me, I'm wondering what all the fuss was about?

antoinolachtnai wrote:

The 34 million passengers is really the system running at full tilt as I understand it. That's nearly 100,000 trips a day, which assumes 12,000 people per hour at peak times, which is good going. That's a packed train every three minutes assuming a tram holds 300 people. You'd need to invest more in the system to increase the capacity beyond that, not only in the rolling stock and maintenance, but also in the platforms and station facilities (for example, you will need a couple of very long escalators in the peak direction to guarantee being able to get the 300 people off the platform before the next train comes along).

Again I'm afraid your wrong, 34 million is just the initial normal running capacity, it will have a much higher maximum capacity.

The red luas line carries over 40,000 people per day (14.6m people per year) as it is.

A 40m luas tram has a capacity of 358, with a tram every 4 minutes.

Metro North is being designed to take 90m long trams (about 805 people capacity) with a frequency of 2 minutes at peak (possibly even going to 90 seconds) that is 24,000 passengers per hour per direction.

I estimate it's maximum capacity to be about 70 million.
(its actual maximum capacity is something like 350 million, if you ran it at full capacity 24 hours a day, but obviously that isn't likely or necessary and not how these things are usually measured.)

Now it won't likely have that capacity to start with as it isn't needed, initially it will probably run shorter trams at less frequency, but it is certainly being designed with much greater capacity possible for the future.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

I don't think eur136m will pay to run and maintain that system, certainly not beyond the first few years. Only time will tell though.

Well based on your figures for London underground, it is clear that it will be more then enough to run and maintain the system.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

The figures are also contingent on the project not going over-budget. As I understand it, the project is already over-budget, because of the necessity to put the Ballymun section underground.

Your right, Ballymun going underground, plus an extra stop at Parnell Square will cost more, but your figure of €5 billion is already the inflated figure being trumpeted by the newspapers and which we have now done the maths on and have worked out is a reasonable capital cost of €7 per trip for 20 years.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

If you're looking at the long-term though, why not link to Luas at Ranelagh as part of the plan and get some real capacity into the system?

Personally I'm 100% for continuing Metro North south to Tallaght. I believe it will happen anyway in the long term and that it will be far cheaper to do it now with the tunnelling machine in the ground, then to bring it up and then put it back down in a few years when every sees how amazing Metro North is and screams for one on the south side.

Just like with the two luas lines not being joined up with are currently only doing half the job with Metro North.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

The capital cost of the Heathrow Express is not completely out of line with the Munich maglev (about 450m pounds sterling in 1996 money). It is privately funded and makes a profit (the old-fashioned kind, not the Luas kind).

But the Munich Maglev is being funded by the German tax payer and that is why the people of Munich are so mad. A far cheaper alternative is available (S-Bahn express), they even say that an ice train to the airport would cost half the cost of Maglev and only be 2 or 3 minutes slower!!!!

Maglev is nothing but an ego stroking white elephant and is looking like it is now going to get canned.

antoinolachtnai

Where are you saying the capital cost has gone away after 20 years? Where does it go away to? There are no capital repayments being made, or interest payments for that matter, so the amount is growing rather than reducing. You are confident that a modest fare can cover the maintenance costs. I disagree with you. Most metro systems need external help to do upgrades from what I can see. Maybe you can show that I am wrong.

Maybe my estimate for maintenance is high for the initial years, but:

- the prices I mentioned were in sterling (so the figure is more like 80 million per year in euros per year)

- that turned out not to be enough money

- a larger proportion of LU is overground than will be the case for the Dublin Metro. A large proportion of our route has to go under sensitive architectural areas as well. This long underground stretch is probably the nub of the issue with the cost of Metro. Of course, if we need to do it, we need to do it.

I am concerned about the safety of operating such large trains at such high frequency without escalators. I don't see how the system could be rapidly evacauted, and it would add time to the journey. Still, maybe this is an unfounded fear on my part.

- a

bk

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Maybe my estimate for maintenance is high for the initial years, but:

- the prices I mentioned were in sterling (so the figure is more like 80 million per year in euros per year)

- that turned out not to be enough money

- a larger proportion of LU is overground than will be the case for the Dublin Metro. A large proportion of our route has to go under sensitive architectural areas as well. This long underground stretch is probably the nub of the issue with the cost of Metro. Of course, if we need to do it, we need to do it.

€80 million would still easily fit in the €136 million fare takings.

You say above that most of LU is underground (therefore more expensive to maintain) while much of Metro North is above ground and therefore should be much cheaper to maintain, in line with any normal stretch of rail line.

So looking at it that way, I'd actually expect the cost to maintain Metro North to be even less then the above quoted €80 million.

You also seem to be ignoring that LU is a 140 year old, very heavily used, heavy rail metro system and that the current maintenance costs include a massive refurbishment and overhaul project to increase capacity.

Sure in 100 years we will also need to do the same, but the ongoing maintenance costs for the next 50 years will likely be far less then that and even if it is, then as my maths has shown, it can still easily be covered by the fares.

Victor

bk wrote: »

Again I'm afraid your wrong, 34 million is just the initial normal running capacity, it will have a much higher maximum capacity.

The red luas line carries over 40,000 people per day (14.6m people per year) as it is.

A 40m luas tram has a capacity of 358, with a tram every 4 minutes.

Metro North is being designed to take 90m long trams (about 805 people capacity) with a frequency of 2 minutes at peak (possibly even going to 90 seconds) that is 24,000 passengers per hour per direction.

I estimate it's maximum capacity to be about 70 million.
(its actual maximum capacity is something like 350 million, if you ran it at full capacity 24 hours a day, but obviously that isn't likely or necessary and not how these things are usually measured.)

Irish Rail have a calculation of

Peak usage x 900 = annual usage
24000 x 2 x 900 = 43,200,000 - close enough to the 34 million.

The Red line has strong off-peak passenger numbers that may not be repeated (proportionately) on Metro North.

Maglev is nothing but an ego stroking white elephant and is looking like it is now going to get canned.

You mean like one of those monorail projects?