Commercial failure versus projected to perhaps make money? Like seriously. It doesn’t fit what you conceptualizer to be attributes of a successful project. If people want a 11 am frequency then it will be provided. Nothing stopping them.
Even before the pandemic flights between Calgary and Edmonton weren’t hourly (they were up to every 30 mins for commuting hour flights). Mostly since dash 8s got larger. And they can use those planes to fly captive and low frequency routes at suboptimal times times.
And yeah, a 8-12 car train set provides a lot more capacity than a Q400 or 736.
Why doesn't Air Canada just replace its 15 round-trips between YTZ and YUL with Bomardier Q400 (daily seat capacity: 74 * 15 = 1,110) with 4 round-trips of a Boeing 787-9 (daily seat capacity: 298 * 4 = 1,192)? Yes, I know that the runway at Toronto Island is way too short for such big planes, but the point is that they would still operate frequent small planes rather than infrequent large ones, because passengers are not willing to wait multiple hours until the next departure for such short trips.
If you refer back to my Post
#6,951, you will see that the headway between two departures increases the travel time (in the perception of the traveler) by an amount of minutes which can be approximated as (15 + 0.4 X, with X being the average headway in minutes). If we assume an operating period of 16 hours per day (e.g. first departure at 6am, last departure at 10pm), we achieve the following penalties:
| Trains per day | Average headway (in minutes) | Travel time penalty (in minutes) |
|---|
| 2 | 960 | 399 |
| 3 | 480 | 207 |
| 4 | 320 | 143 |
| 5 | 240 | 111 |
| 6 | 192 | 92 |
| 7 | 160 | 79 |
| 8 | 137 | 70 |
| 9 | 120 | 63 |
| 10 | 107 | 58 |
| 11 | 96 | 53 |
| 12 | 87 | 50 |
| 13 | 80 | 47 |
| 14 | 74 | 45 |
| 15 | 69 | 42 |
| 16 | 64 | 41 |
| 17 | 60 | 39 |
Note: given that the last departure is assumed to be at the end of the operating period (e.g. 10pm), the headway is obtained by dividing the 16 hours by
one less than the number of frequencies operated.
As you can see above, the 3 additional frequencies during the summer months halve the average headway and thus reduce perceived travel time by 64 minutes. Given a minimum travel time of 80 minutes (AVE 9726), the perceived travel time in winter (i.e. 80 + 143 = 223 minutes) can be estimated to be 39% higher than in summer (80 + 79 = 159 minutes), which multiplied with an elasticity of -1.58 (for intercity rail in respect to travel time) suggests a decrease in demand by 64%.
Therefore, we can safely assume that if revenues are so low that the operator rather forgoes a saving in perceived travel time of a full hour than adding three lousy trains per day, this must mean that the line barely recovers its operating costs and virtually none of its capital costs. And that would make this HSR line a commercial failure (so far - one would hope that things improve once the gap between Montpellier and Perpignan is filled with HSR lines), but the near-complete lack of any financial or economic justification has become the trademark of the Spanish HSR network:
Source: re-post from Comment
#636
I wouldn't argue for a minimum frequency of 60 minutes throughout the entire day, but if you can't operate at least every 2 hours and halve at least some of these gaps during rush hour, I don't see how the construction for that HSR line could possibly be justified to the taxpayers which paid for it...
Given that the last eastbound train of the day out of Toronto (train 650) terminated in Kingston and the first westbound train into Toronto (either train 651 or 655) originated in Kingston, I would guess it would layover in a siding somewhere near Kingston, since there would be no point having it deadhead back to Toronto (or on to Ottawa or Montreal) only to have it deadhead back to Kingston the next morning. Further evidence is that the evening train didn't run on Saturdays and the morning trains didn't run on Sundays.
Not living in Kingston, I am not sure which option they chose. Given that equivalent sized LRC trains are shorter than the new fleet (which I previously showed could easily use the wye), I would say using the wye in Kingston would be an option. They may have even had the train layover in the wye overnight.
You are of course right (I remember seeing it on the western leg of the wye east of Kingston station while passing through on board train 669 when 650 was still operating at 17:40 rather than 19:35) and it's really not that difficult to figure out, provided that you have the
pre-Covid schedule in front of you...
I think you are missing the point
@Darwinkgo was trying to make. Sure the airlines offer hourly or better departures, but could you show up to the airport early for your booked flight and have any reasonable expectation of catching an earlier one without having some type of super elite status that lets you bump someone else off of the flight or otherwise change the rules? Sure it might happen occasionally, but odds are either the flight is full or the gate agent won't let you take the earlier flight.
Frequency sells by giving the traveller more options, but one can't assume load factor or a service plan that encourages people to just turn up and hope there is a seat available. I wonder what proportion of travellers shop for cheap fares ahead of time and are locked into a specific itinerary.
Amtrak Acela for example can be heavily demand priced, so the frequency may not be the whole story.
Last time I changed a YTZ-YOW air reservation at the last moment, the charge was around $100. No doubt depending on the original fare category. My employer was happy to pay - it got me a half day back in the office that would have been spent in the Departures lounge had I been unable to move my itinerary forward. As a liesure traveller, I might have a different price point tradeoff.
- Paul
If you go on the link
@kEiThZ had posted, it appears that any ticket holders can expect to be allowed onto an earlier flight, provided that there are still seats available:
