Interesting post on gas prices and bikes

John_Kane wrote:
John Pitts wrote:

On 18 Aug 2005 13:24:02 -0700, John_Kane wrote:

To some extent higher fuel costs may, in North America, simply displace
a lot of that truck traffic to rail (or even water in some cases)
assuming the railways have the unused capacity. Some probably do and
others given relatively small capital investment probably could produce
more capacity quite quickly. I believe right now rail is quite
competative in many long haul freight situations.


I can't see it making much difference. You still need fuel to run your
locomotives, and trucks will still transport goods to and from the rail
terminal.


Well, from the Australasian Railway Association, not exactly a totally
disintereted party Still these figures for freight sound roughly
reasonable for N.A conditions as well and it was the first reasonably
reputable site I could find that discussed rail freight.

"Urban rail is twice as energy efficient as buses and 2.5 times more
energy efficient than cars. Rail freight uses only one third of the
fuel required by road transport per tonne of freight hauled and
produces less than one third of the greenhouse gas emissions."

Local (metropolitain area-wide) delivery is probably the province of
the truck in most cases but long haul is almost certainly more energy
efficient by rail. Here's an example of the long haul idea.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/London...79100-sun.html
Here we're talking essentially cross-continent hauling in many cases.

One of the issues in the Trucking industry, is that young people are not
interested in driving, mostly because it involves a lot of long
distance, being away from home for days or weeks at a time, all for very
little pay. The costs of truck loans, maintenance, insurance and fuel
can easily exceed the $1/Mile mark.

Railways on the other had, can have 100 truck loads of freight per
labour unit, they are big enough to tell the oil companies what they
will pay for fuel, rather then being held for ransom, and they don't pay
as much fuel tax either. If the oil companies want too much, then it
justifies alternate power sources, of which there are plenty, Natural
Gas, Propane, Hydrogen using steam turbines, the same three using
internal combustion engines, and electric.

One of the benefits to the railways in North America, is that they own
and maintain the tracks, so if they want faster trains, they can upgrade
track lines for more speed.

Mind you for very short distance (say under 10km?) delivery of a lot of
items one could even see a return to bicycle-trailer delivery. It
already exists in some areas at a very small level. The man who
delivers one of the free papers in my neighbourhood uses a bike and
trailer, Thfere is an audio-visual company in London UK that uses
8-freight bikes for many of its deliveries

The problem with this is distance, and volume, I work for a courier
company, and each delivery truck deals with over 100 pieces in pickups
aand 100 pieces in deliveries every day, more at Christmas. So bikes
and trailers would significantly increase the number of drivers needed,
but would reduce fuel costs.... Whether it would reduce those costs
enough, I don't really know......

W

*claps*

The Wogster wrote:
John_Kane wrote:
John Pitts wrote:

On 18 Aug 2005 13:24:02 -0700, John_Kane wrote:

To some extent higher fuel costs may, in North America, simply displace
a lot of that truck traffic to rail (or even water in some cases)
assuming the railways have the unused capacity. Some probably do and
others given relatively small capital investment probably could produce
more capacity quite quickly. I believe right now rail is quite
competative in many long haul freight situations.


I can't see it making much difference. You still need fuel to run your
locomotives, and trucks will still transport goods to and from the rail
terminal.


Well, from the Australasian Railway Association, not exactly a totally
disintereted party Still these figures for freight sound roughly
reasonable for N.A conditions as well and it was the first reasonably
reputable site I could find that discussed rail freight.

"Urban rail is twice as energy efficient as buses and 2.5 times more
energy efficient than cars. Rail freight uses only one third of the
fuel required by road transport per tonne of freight hauled and
produces less than one third of the greenhouse gas emissions."

Local (metropolitain area-wide) delivery is probably the province of
the truck in most cases but long haul is almost certainly more energy
efficient by rail. Here's an example of the long haul idea.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/London...79100-sun.html
Here we're talking essentially cross-continent hauling in many cases.

One of the issues in the Trucking industry, is that young people are not
interested in driving, mostly because it involves a lot of long
distance, being away from home for days or weeks at a time, all for very
little pay. The costs of truck loans, maintenance, insurance and fuel
can easily exceed the $1/Mile mark.

Railways on the other had, can have 100 truck loads of freight per
labour unit, they are big enough to tell the oil companies what they
will pay for fuel, rather then being held for ransom, and they don't pay
as much fuel tax either.

They don't? I didn't realise that they had a reduced fuel tax. BTW are
you talking US or Canada here?

If the oil companies want too much, then it
justifies alternate power sources, of which there are plenty, Natural
Gas, Propane, Hydrogen using steam turbines, the same three using
internal combustion engines, and electric.

One of the benefits to the railways in North America, is that they own
and maintain the tracks, so if they want faster trains, they can upgrade
track lines for more speed.

Well yes and no I think They still have to meet some gov't standards
for speed I believe. However in many cases I suspect freights don't ht
the speed limit anyway.


Mind you for very short distance (say under 10km?) delivery of a lot of
items one could even see a return to bicycle-trailer delivery. It
already exists in some areas at a very small level. The man who
delivers one of the free papers in my neighbourhood uses a bike and
trailer, Thfere is an audio-visual company in London UK that uses
8-freight bikes for many of its deliveries

The problem with this is distance, and volume, I work for a courier
company, and each delivery truck deals with over 100 pieces in pickups
aand 100 pieces in deliveries every day, more at Christmas. So bikes
and trailers would significantly increase the number of drivers needed,
but would reduce fuel costs.... Whether it would reduce those costs
enough, I don't really know......

For a courier company, I'd guess that a major factor would be the
density of the pickups/deliveries. It might pay off in something like
downtown Toronto or Montreal etc. where not only lower fuel costs but
increased mobility/ease of parking might off-set labour costs (and come
to think of it possibly capital/ leasing/insurance costs as well).

Witness bicycle couriers as a niche market group. One could probably
expand this to larger/heavier deliveries in some cases. Come to think
of it, I'm pretty sure I saw a courier with a box about the size of a
computer monitor on the rack in Ottawa or Hull a few years ago.

In the suburbs or more rural areas it seems very unlikely unless fuel
becomes basically unobtainable and even then horses might be a better
freight alternative for large shipments.

Still I wonder if one put say three men on a tandem-type cart: Capacity
might be quite high.

John_Kane wrote:
The Wogster wrote:

John_Kane wrote:

John Pitts wrote:


On 18 Aug 2005 13:24:02 -0700, John_Kane wrote:


To some extent higher fuel costs may, in North America, simply displace
a lot of that truck traffic to rail (or even water in some cases)
assuming the railways have the unused capacity. Some probably do and
others given relatively small capital investment probably could produce
more capacity quite quickly. I believe right now rail is quite
competative in many long haul freight situations.


I can't see it making much difference. You still need fuel to run your
locomotives, and trucks will still transport goods to and from the rail
terminal.


Well, from the Australasian Railway Association, not exactly a totally
disintereted party Still these figures for freight sound roughly
reasonable for N.A conditions as well and it was the first reasonably
reputable site I could find that discussed rail freight.

"Urban rail is twice as energy efficient as buses and 2.5 times more
energy efficient than cars. Rail freight uses only one third of the
fuel required by road transport per tonne of freight hauled and
produces less than one third of the greenhouse gas emissions."

Local (metropolitain area-wide) delivery is probably the province of
the truck in most cases but long haul is almost certainly more energy
efficient by rail. Here's an example of the long haul idea.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/London...79100-sun.html
Here we're talking essentially cross-continent hauling in many cases.

One of the issues in the Trucking industry, is that young people are not
interested in driving, mostly because it involves a lot of long
distance, being away from home for days or weeks at a time, all for very
little pay. The costs of truck loans, maintenance, insurance and fuel
can easily exceed the $1/Mile mark.

Railways on the other had, can have 100 truck loads of freight per
labour unit, they are big enough to tell the oil companies what they
will pay for fuel, rather then being held for ransom, and they don't pay
as much fuel tax either.


They don't? I didn't realise that they had a reduced fuel tax. BTW are
you talking US or Canada here?

Canada, it's one of the issues that trucking companies have, locomotives
also don't need to meet the same pollution standards, since they are
federally regulated. You will never see a locomotive needing to meet
particulate standards that trucks do.


If the oil companies want too much, then it
justifies alternate power sources, of which there are plenty, Natural
Gas, Propane, Hydrogen using steam turbines, the same three using
internal combustion engines, and electric.

One of the benefits to the railways in North America, is that they own
and maintain the tracks, so if they want faster trains, they can upgrade
track lines for more speed.


Well yes and no I think They still have to meet some gov't standards
for speed I believe. However in many cases I suspect freights don't ht
the speed limit anyway.


The speed limit on the CN main line, between Toronto and Oshawa (at
least) is 90MPH for LRC and 60MPH for everything else. The speed limit
across some of Saskatchewan and Manitoba is less then 30MPH. However if
it would make them money, then I am sure that CN would buy the
technology (probably TGV freight technology) and upgrade the tracks to
offer a 200MPH container freight service.

The real issue though for people moving is speed versus volume, the
problem with moving people is that you run into three issues, one is
train frequency and spacing.

For example, IIRC, the TTC maintains 2 signals between subway trains,
when train 1 passes a signal, the signal turns red, it stays red until
that train has passed two more signals, then goes amber as it passes the
next, and green when it passes the 4th signal , to keep proper spacing
between trains. Which means that train 2 is at least 2 signals behind
the previous train. Unless something happens, jumpers, sick passengers,
etc, can slow the system down considerably. The solution for those
problems is either three or four tracks wide, instead of only two.

Automated single or double unit trains might resolve the cost issue, and
a computer that knows where all trains are and is controlling them,
would reduce costs, and allow for faster trains.


For a courier company, I'd guess that a major factor would be the
density of the pickups/deliveries. It might pay off in something like
downtown Toronto or Montreal etc. where not only lower fuel costs but
increased mobility/ease of parking might off-set labour costs (and come
to think of it possibly capital/ leasing/insurance costs as well).

This is why cities like Toronto, Montreal and New York have bike
couriers. There was a story a couple of years ago, of a bike courier
(in Toronto IIRC) that wanted to be able to tax write off "fuel" costs,
beyond the normal meal costs that couriers can write off.

Witness bicycle couriers as a niche market group. One could probably
expand this to larger/heavier deliveries in some cases. Come to think
of it, I'm pretty sure I saw a courier with a box about the size of a
computer monitor on the rack in Ottawa or Hull a few years ago.


I have seen very heavy freight, but then operating one or two trucks in
a fleet to handle heavy loads would work nicely, with bikes handling the
smaller stuff, however you would need more loading facilities in a given
city. For example for major couriers, Fedex has about 3 Toronto depots,
UPS has two and Purolator has 5, DHL has 1 I think. A bike based
courier might need 15 or 20 to cover the same area.

In the suburbs or more rural areas it seems very unlikely unless fuel
becomes basically unobtainable and even then horses might be a better
freight alternative for large shipments.

Still I wonder if one put say three men on a tandem-type cart: Capacity
might be quite high.


Except that labour costs would quickly outstrip the savings in fuel
costs....

W

The Wogster wrote:
John_Kane wrote:
The Wogster wrote:

John_Kane wrote:

John Pitts wrote:


On 18 Aug 2005 13:24:02 -0700, John_Kane wrote:


To some extent higher fuel costs may, in North America, simply displace
a lot of that truck traffic to rail (or even water in some cases)
assuming the railways have the unused capacity. Some probably do and
others given relatively small capital investment probably could produce
more capacity quite quickly. I believe right now rail is quite
competative in many long haul freight situations.


I can't see it making much difference. You still need fuel to run your
locomotives, and trucks will still transport goods to and from the rail
terminal.


Well, from the Australasian Railway Association, not exactly a totally
disintereted party Still these figures for freight sound roughly
reasonable for N.A conditions as well and it was the first reasonably
reputable site I could find that discussed rail freight.

"Urban rail is twice as energy efficient as buses and 2.5 times more
energy efficient than cars. Rail freight uses only one third of the
fuel required by road transport per tonne of freight hauled and
produces less than one third of the greenhouse gas emissions."

Local (metropolitain area-wide) delivery is probably the province of
the truck in most cases but long haul is almost certainly more energy
efficient by rail. Here's an example of the long haul idea.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/London...79100-sun.html
Here we're talking essentially cross-continent hauling in many cases.

One of the issues in the Trucking industry, is that young people are not
interested in driving, mostly because it involves a lot of long
distance, being away from home for days or weeks at a time, all for very
little pay. The costs of truck loans, maintenance, insurance and fuel
can easily exceed the $1/Mile mark.

Railways on the other had, can have 100 truck loads of freight per
labour unit, they are big enough to tell the oil companies what they
will pay for fuel, rather then being held for ransom, and they don't pay
as much fuel tax either.


They don't? I didn't realise that they had a reduced fuel tax. BTW are
you talking US or Canada here?

Canada, it's one of the issues that trucking companies have, locomotives
also don't need to meet the same pollution standards, since they are
federally regulated. You will never see a locomotive needing to meet
particulate standards that trucks do.


If the oil companies want too much, then it
justifies alternate power sources, of which there are plenty, Natural
Gas, Propane, Hydrogen using steam turbines, the same three using
internal combustion engines, and electric.

One of the benefits to the railways in North America, is that they own
and maintain the tracks, so if they want faster trains, they can upgrade
track lines for more speed.


Well yes and no I think They still have to meet some gov't standards
for speed I believe. However in many cases I suspect freights don't ht
the speed limit anyway.


The speed limit on the CN main line, between Toronto and Oshawa (at
least) is 90MPH for LRC and 60MPH for everything else. The speed limit
across some of Saskatchewan and Manitoba is less then 30MPH. However if
it would make them money, then I am sure that CN would buy the
technology (probably TGV freight technology) and upgrade the tracks to
offer a 200MPH container freight service.

The real issue though for people moving is speed versus volume, the
problem with moving people is that you run into three issues, one is
train frequency and spacing.

For example, IIRC, the TTC maintains 2 signals between subway trains,
when train 1 passes a signal, the signal turns red, it stays red until
that train has passed two more signals, then goes amber as it passes the
next, and green when it passes the 4th signal , to keep proper spacing
between trains. Which means that train 2 is at least 2 signals behind
the previous train. Unless something happens, jumpers, sick passengers,
etc, can slow the system down considerably. The solution for those
problems is either three or four tracks wide, instead of only two.

Automated single or double unit trains might resolve the cost issue, and
a computer that knows where all trains are and is controlling them,
would reduce costs, and allow for faster trains.


For a courier company, I'd guess that a major factor would be the
density of the pickups/deliveries. It might pay off in something like
downtown Toronto or Montreal etc. where not only lower fuel costs but
increased mobility/ease of parking might off-set labour costs (and come
to think of it possibly capital/ leasing/insurance costs as well).

This is why cities like Toronto, Montreal and New York have bike
couriers. There was a story a couple of years ago, of a bike courier
(in Toronto IIRC) that wanted to be able to tax write off "fuel" costs,
beyond the normal meal costs that couriers can write off.

Witness bicycle couriers as a niche market group. One could probably
expand this to larger/heavier deliveries in some cases. Come to think
of it, I'm pretty sure I saw a courier with a box about the size of a
computer monitor on the rack in Ottawa or Hull a few years ago.


I have seen very heavy freight, but then operating one or two trucks in
a fleet to handle heavy loads would work nicely, with bikes handling the
smaller stuff, however you would need more loading facilities in a given
city. For example for major couriers, Fedex has about 3 Toronto depots,
UPS has two and Purolator has 5, DHL has 1 I think. A bike based
courier might need 15 or 20 to cover the same area.

Yes and I am not really familiar with the problems of depots or nodes.
Still for within town distributions, smaller localized sorting depots
might be as effective as larger ones given higher fuel costs provided
that a fair bit of the packages were locally deliverable. UPS or
Purolator would appear to be putting in a lot a mileage on a parcel
which works as long a gas is cheap and traffic is not too congested.

On the other hand a lot of deliveries may not be courrier type
deliveries. Thus for example one might have a local lumber store
delivering smaller loads by bike rather than a 5 ton truck. I have seen
what must be less than 500lb of lumber on a large truck. It did not
make a lot of sense to me. Now 20 roof trusses called for the truck.

One might even find that there was a market for such things as grocery
delivery by bike. I often see people calling a taxi at my local
no-frills grocery store. A bike & trailer delivery system might be
cheaper for those without a car.

In the suburbs or more rural areas it seems very unlikely unless fuel
becomes basically unobtainable and even then horses might be a better
freight alternative for large shipments.

Still I wonder if one put say three men on a tandem-type cart: Capacity
might be quite high.


Except that labour costs would quickly outstrip the savings in fuel
costs....

Well I was thinking of a worst case scenario where one does not have
mechanised transportation (a sort of Alternative History type of idea).
The cost of three men vs the cost of a driver and two horses might
balance out. Horses eat a lot, are relatively high maintanence, and
not all that fast. I suspect that a cyclepowered truck or cart would
outpace horses over any reasonable distance. A horse's walking pace is
not that much faster than a human's and even a trot is, I believe,
slower than most cyclists. Plus loading and unloading would be
facilitated. I don't know if you've noticed but horses are not very
good at loading a truck or a wagon

John Kane
Kingston ON

John_Kane wrote:

The cost of three men vs the cost of a driver and two horses might
balance out. Horses eat a lot, are relatively high maintanence, and
not all that fast. I suspect that a cyclepowered truck or cart would
outpace horses over any reasonable distance. A horse's walking pace is
not that much faster than a human's and even a trot is, I believe,
slower than most cyclists. Plus loading and unloading would be
facilitated. I don't know if you've noticed but horses are not very
good at loading a truck or a wagon

John Kane
Kingston ON

So does this cycle-truck look like chariot with three guys at the
cranks?
That's a sobering vision...

Will wrote:
John_Kane wrote:

The cost of three men vs the cost of a driver and two horses might
balance out. Horses eat a lot, are relatively high maintanence, and
not all that fast. I suspect that a cyclepowered truck or cart would
outpace horses over any reasonable distance. A horse's walking pace is
not that much faster than a human's and even a trot is, I believe,
slower than most cyclists. Plus loading and unloading would be
facilitated. I don't know if you've noticed but horses are not very
good at loading a truck or a wagon

John Kane
Kingston ON

So does this cycle-truck look like chariot with three guys at the
cranks?
That's a sobering vision...

Well, use your own imagination Personally I was thinking of a
three-in-line tandem with a two wheeled cart body but your idea may
work too. I have seen a one person version in Ottawa being used for
tourist information. Just upsize the cart portion and increase the
motive power and away we go.

I'm somewhat surprised that we have not seen 2-man pedal rickshaws in
India or Bangladesh though the labour cost may be prohibitive.

BTW there have been eight person tandems in the past. They were used to
pace track racers before motorcycles were available.

John Kane
Kingston ON

John_Kane wrote:
The Wogster wrote:

John_Kane wrote:

The Wogster wrote:


John_Kane wrote:


John Pitts wrote:



On 18 Aug 2005 13:24:02 -0700, John_Kane wrote:



To some extent higher fuel costs may, in North America, simply displace
a lot of that truck traffic to rail (or even water in some cases)
assuming the railways have the unused capacity. Some probably do and
others given relatively small capital investment probably could produce
more capacity quite quickly. I believe right now rail is quite
competative in many long haul freight situations.


I can't see it making much difference. You still need fuel to run your
locomotives, and trucks will still transport goods to and from the rail
terminal.


Well, from the Australasian Railway Association, not exactly a totally
disintereted party Still these figures for freight sound roughly
reasonable for N.A conditions as well and it was the first reasonably
reputable site I could find that discussed rail freight.

"Urban rail is twice as energy efficient as buses and 2.5 times more
energy efficient than cars. Rail freight uses only one third of the
fuel required by road transport per tonne of freight hauled and
produces less than one third of the greenhouse gas emissions."

Local (metropolitain area-wide) delivery is probably the province of
the truck in most cases but long haul is almost certainly more energy
efficient by rail. Here's an example of the long haul idea.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/London...79100-sun.html
Here we're talking essentially cross-continent hauling in many cases.

One of the issues in the Trucking industry, is that young people are not
interested in driving, mostly because it involves a lot of long
distance, being away from home for days or weeks at a time, all for very
little pay. The costs of truck loans, maintenance, insurance and fuel
can easily exceed the $1/Mile mark.

Railways on the other had, can have 100 truck loads of freight per
labour unit, they are big enough to tell the oil companies what they
will pay for fuel, rather then being held for ransom, and they don't pay
as much fuel tax either.


They don't? I didn't realise that they had a reduced fuel tax. BTW are
you talking US or Canada here?

Canada, it's one of the issues that trucking companies have, locomotives
also don't need to meet the same pollution standards, since they are
federally regulated. You will never see a locomotive needing to meet
particulate standards that trucks do.


If the oil companies want too much, then it
justifies alternate power sources, of which there are plenty, Natural
Gas, Propane, Hydrogen using steam turbines, the same three using
internal combustion engines, and electric.

One of the benefits to the railways in North America, is that they own
and maintain the tracks, so if they want faster trains, they can upgrade
track lines for more speed.


Well yes and no I think They still have to meet some gov't standards
for speed I believe. However in many cases I suspect freights don't ht
the speed limit anyway.


The speed limit on the CN main line, between Toronto and Oshawa (at
least) is 90MPH for LRC and 60MPH for everything else. The speed limit
across some of Saskatchewan and Manitoba is less then 30MPH. However if
it would make them money, then I am sure that CN would buy the
technology (probably TGV freight technology) and upgrade the tracks to
offer a 200MPH container freight service.

The real issue though for people moving is speed versus volume, the
problem with moving people is that you run into three issues, one is
train frequency and spacing.

For example, IIRC, the TTC maintains 2 signals between subway trains,
when train 1 passes a signal, the signal turns red, it stays red until
that train has passed two more signals, then goes amber as it passes the
next, and green when it passes the 4th signal , to keep proper spacing
between trains. Which means that train 2 is at least 2 signals behind
the previous train. Unless something happens, jumpers, sick passengers,
etc, can slow the system down considerably. The solution for those
problems is either three or four tracks wide, instead of only two.

Automated single or double unit trains might resolve the cost issue, and
a computer that knows where all trains are and is controlling them,
would reduce costs, and allow for faster trains.


For a courier company, I'd guess that a major factor would be the
density of the pickups/deliveries. It might pay off in something like
downtown Toronto or Montreal etc. where not only lower fuel costs but
increased mobility/ease of parking might off-set labour costs (and come
to think of it possibly capital/ leasing/insurance costs as well).

This is why cities like Toronto, Montreal and New York have bike
couriers. There was a story a couple of years ago, of a bike courier
(in Toronto IIRC) that wanted to be able to tax write off "fuel" costs,
beyond the normal meal costs that couriers can write off.


Witness bicycle couriers as a niche market group. One could probably
expand this to larger/heavier deliveries in some cases. Come to think
of it, I'm pretty sure I saw a courier with a box about the size of a
computer monitor on the rack in Ottawa or Hull a few years ago.


I have seen very heavy freight, but then operating one or two trucks in
a fleet to handle heavy loads would work nicely, with bikes handling the
smaller stuff, however you would need more loading facilities in a given
city. For example for major couriers, Fedex has about 3 Toronto depots,
UPS has two and Purolator has 5, DHL has 1 I think. A bike based
courier might need 15 or 20 to cover the same area.


Yes and I am not really familiar with the problems of depots or nodes.
Still for within town distributions, smaller localized sorting depots
might be as effective as larger ones given higher fuel costs provided
that a fair bit of the packages were locally deliverable. UPS or
Purolator would appear to be putting in a lot a mileage on a parcel
which works as long a gas is cheap and traffic is not too congested.


Large courier operations work on high volume, take a truck that holds 5
tonnes of freight, it goes out with 4,995kg of freight, driver makes
his/her deliveries, and when he is done he has, 200kg of freight (not
home, problem address, company closed, refused, etc.). Then he starts
picking up at regular business customers, and call in customers, he gets
back to the depot with 4990kg of freight on board.


On the other hand a lot of deliveries may not be courrier type
deliveries. Thus for example one might have a local lumber store
delivering smaller loads by bike rather than a 5 ton truck. I have seen
what must be less than 500lb of lumber on a large truck. It did not
make a lot of sense to me. Now 20 roof trusses called for the truck.

It's the same deal though, you don't know what that truck left the yard
with several hours earlier, also it makes sense to have one really big
truck, then half a dozen trucks of varying sizes.....

One might even find that there was a market for such things as grocery
delivery by bike. I often see people calling a taxi at my local
no-frills grocery store. A bike & trailer delivery system might be
cheaper for those without a car.

It's cheaper to call a cab, then to make payments on a car, for a few
rare trips. My mom quit driving about 10 years ago, she takes transit,
or bums rides to get where she is going, for groceries, she takes the
bus to the store, then gets a taxi to go home, that way she can buy 2
weeks worth, much more then you can go on a bus, especially when your
over 80 years of age.....

Well I was thinking of a worst case scenario where one does not have
mechanised transportation (a sort of Alternative History type of idea).
The cost of three men vs the cost of a driver and two horses might
balance out. Horses eat a lot, are relatively high maintanence, and
not all that fast. I suspect that a cyclepowered truck or cart would
outpace horses over any reasonable distance. A horse's walking pace is
not that much faster than a human's and even a trot is, I believe,
slower than most cyclists. Plus loading and unloading would be
facilitated. I don't know if you've noticed but horses are not very
good at loading a truck or a wagon

True, however we have mechanized transport, and there really is no
reason to return to the middle ages, just as energy costs go up, you
need to make energy use more efficient.

W

The Wogster wrote:
John_Kane wrote:
The Wogster wrote:

John_Kane wrote:

The Wogster wrote:


John_Kane wrote:


John Pitts wrote:



On 18 Aug 2005 13:24:02 -0700, John_Kane wrote:



To some extent higher fuel costs may, in North America, simply displace
a lot of that truck traffic to rail (or even water in some cases)
assuming the railways have the unused capacity. Some probably do and
others given relatively small capital investment probably could produce
more capacity quite quickly. I believe right now rail is quite
competative in many long haul freight situations.


I can't see it making much difference. You still need fuel to run your
locomotives, and trucks will still transport goods to and from the rail
terminal.


Well, from the Australasian Railway Association, not exactly a totally
disintereted party Still these figures for freight sound roughly
reasonable for N.A conditions as well and it was the first reasonably
reputable site I could find that discussed rail freight.

"Urban rail is twice as energy efficient as buses and 2.5 times more
energy efficient than cars. Rail freight uses only one third of the
fuel required by road transport per tonne of freight hauled and
produces less than one third of the greenhouse gas emissions."

Local (metropolitain area-wide) delivery is probably the province of
the truck in most cases but long haul is almost certainly more energy
efficient by rail. Here's an example of the long haul idea.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/London...79100-sun.html
Here we're talking essentially cross-continent hauling in many cases.

One of the issues in the Trucking industry, is that young people are not
interested in driving, mostly because it involves a lot of long
distance, being away from home for days or weeks at a time, all for very
little pay. The costs of truck loans, maintenance, insurance and fuel
can easily exceed the $1/Mile mark.

Railways on the other had, can have 100 truck loads of freight per
labour unit, they are big enough to tell the oil companies what they
will pay for fuel, rather then being held for ransom, and they don't pay
as much fuel tax either.


They don't? I didn't realise that they had a reduced fuel tax. BTW are
you talking US or Canada here?

Canada, it's one of the issues that trucking companies have, locomotives
also don't need to meet the same pollution standards, since they are
federally regulated. You will never see a locomotive needing to meet
particulate standards that trucks do.


If the oil companies want too much, then it
justifies alternate power sources, of which there are plenty, Natural
Gas, Propane, Hydrogen using steam turbines, the same three using
internal combustion engines, and electric.

One of the benefits to the railways in North America, is that they own
and maintain the tracks, so if they want faster trains, they can upgrade
track lines for more speed.


Well yes and no I think They still have to meet some gov't standards
for speed I believe. However in many cases I suspect freights don't ht
the speed limit anyway.


The speed limit on the CN main line, between Toronto and Oshawa (at
least) is 90MPH for LRC and 60MPH for everything else. The speed limit
across some of Saskatchewan and Manitoba is less then 30MPH. However if
it would make them money, then I am sure that CN would buy the
technology (probably TGV freight technology) and upgrade the tracks to
offer a 200MPH container freight service.

The real issue though for people moving is speed versus volume, the
problem with moving people is that you run into three issues, one is
train frequency and spacing.

For example, IIRC, the TTC maintains 2 signals between subway trains,
when train 1 passes a signal, the signal turns red, it stays red until
that train has passed two more signals, then goes amber as it passes the
next, and green when it passes the 4th signal , to keep proper spacing
between trains. Which means that train 2 is at least 2 signals behind
the previous train. Unless something happens, jumpers, sick passengers,
etc, can slow the system down considerably. The solution for those
problems is either three or four tracks wide, instead of only two.

Automated single or double unit trains might resolve the cost issue, and
a computer that knows where all trains are and is controlling them,
would reduce costs, and allow for faster trains.


For a courier company, I'd guess that a major factor would be the
density of the pickups/deliveries. It might pay off in something like
downtown Toronto or Montreal etc. where not only lower fuel costs but
increased mobility/ease of parking might off-set labour costs (and come
to think of it possibly capital/ leasing/insurance costs as well).

This is why cities like Toronto, Montreal and New York have bike
couriers. There was a story a couple of years ago, of a bike courier
(in Toronto IIRC) that wanted to be able to tax write off "fuel" costs,
beyond the normal meal costs that couriers can write off.


Witness bicycle couriers as a niche market group. One could probably
expand this to larger/heavier deliveries in some cases. Come to think
of it, I'm pretty sure I saw a courier with a box about the size of a
computer monitor on the rack in Ottawa or Hull a few years ago.


I have seen very heavy freight, but then operating one or two trucks in
a fleet to handle heavy loads would work nicely, with bikes handling the
smaller stuff, however you would need more loading facilities in a given
city. For example for major couriers, Fedex has about 3 Toronto depots,
UPS has two and Purolator has 5, DHL has 1 I think. A bike based
courier might need 15 or 20 to cover the same area.


Yes and I am not really familiar with the problems of depots or nodes.
Still for within town distributions, smaller localized sorting depots
might be as effective as larger ones given higher fuel costs provided
that a fair bit of the packages were locally deliverable. UPS or
Purolator would appear to be putting in a lot a mileage on a parcel
which works as long a gas is cheap and traffic is not too congested.


Large courier operations work on high volume, take a truck that holds 5
tonnes of freight, it goes out with 4,995kg of freight, driver makes
his/her deliveries, and when he is done he has, 200kg of freight (not
home, problem address, company closed, refused, etc.). Then he starts
picking up at regular business customers, and call in customers, he gets
back to the depot with 4990kg of freight on board.


On the other hand a lot of deliveries may not be courrier type
deliveries. Thus for example one might have a local lumber store
delivering smaller loads by bike rather than a 5 ton truck. I have seen
what must be less than 500lb of lumber on a large truck. It did not
make a lot of sense to me. Now 20 roof trusses called for the truck.

It's the same deal though, you don't know what that truck left the yard
with several hours earlier, also it makes sense to have one really big
truck, then half a dozen trucks of varying sizes.....

One might even find that there was a market for such things as grocery
delivery by bike. I often see people calling a taxi at my local
no-frills grocery store. A bike & trailer delivery system might be
cheaper for those without a car.

It's cheaper to call a cab, then to make payments on a car, for a few
rare trips. My mom quit driving about 10 years ago, she takes transit,
or bums rides to get where she is going, for groceries, she takes the
bus to the store, then gets a taxi to go home, that way she can buy 2
weeks worth, much more then you can go on a bus, especially when your
over 80 years of age.....

Well I was thinking of a worst case scenario where one does not have
mechanised transportation (a sort of Alternative History type of idea).
The cost of three men vs the cost of a driver and two horses might
balance out. Horses eat a lot, are relatively high maintanence, and
not all that fast. I suspect that a cyclepowered truck or cart would
outpace horses over any reasonable distance. A horse's walking pace is
not that much faster than a human's and even a trot is, I believe,
slower than most cyclists. Plus loading and unloading would be
facilitated. I don't know if you've noticed but horses are not very
good at loading a truck or a wagon

True, however we have mechanized transport, and there really is no
reason to return to the middle ages, just as energy costs go up, you
need to make energy use more efficient.

Except of course, a human powered cycle is generally cited as the most
energy efficient means of ground transport available Now that is
using energy more efficiently Maybe not the most practically in
some instances but most efficient.

Besides as I was saying this was a "What If" scenario not a really
serious suggestion. Though given the prevalence and effectiveness of
cycle rickshaws in places like Bangladesh it may not be all that
unreasonable in parts of the world.

John Kane
Kingston ON

John_Kane wrote:
The Wogster wrote:
True, however we have mechanized transport, and there really is no
reason to return to the middle ages, just as energy costs go up, you
need to make energy use more efficient.


Except of course, a human powered cycle is generally cited as the most
energy efficient means of ground transport available Now that is
using energy more efficiently Maybe not the most practically in
some instances but most efficient.

True, I wouldn't want to necessarily cycle to Vancouver though, would be
a nice ride, but I only get 2 weeks vacation......


Besides as I was saying this was a "What If" scenario not a really
serious suggestion. Though given the prevalence and effectiveness of
cycle rickshaws in places like Bangladesh it may not be all that
unreasonable in parts of the world.


They work very well in places like India and Bangladesh, because labour
there is cheap, in North America where labour is expensive, except for
city cores, we have rickshaws in Toronto, but the travel distance is
very short, and the city keeps wanting to shut them down..... I think
the providers make more off the advertising then from the riders....

W