Mobility Matters Daily #140 - Pricing public transport and the energy transition
Plus how worthy are some stations of investment?
Good day friend
Yep. I’m definitely on autopilot today. Cognitive Distraction is a well-established, and very unsafe, phenomenon among drivers. But I think I just experienced it as a cyclist for the first time. I just rode from the town next to where I live back to my own town (some 2-3 miles), and I cannot remember a thing about it. Pay attention next time! To the news.
James
Pricing public transport for climate change
I have often posted on this newsletter about how public transport fare strategies reflect policies on how to pay for public transport. Last week, the Austrian government added a dimension of aligning a new ticket - Klimaticket - to climate change objectives. Its cheap. Amazingly cheap. Just over EUR1000 for a years travel on nearly all public transport in Austria. For comparison, the cost of an annual season ticket between my local station and London (just over an hour away) with no travel on buses or the underground is EUR5500. Or you can ride all trains in Germany for EUR4000 for a year.
This is a consequence of decisions on who should pick up the tab for running public transport. In the UK, government has decided that fare payers should do that, before complaining that they are having to spend millions keeping the trains running when everyone is told to stay at home. But simply who pays is just one part of the pricing question. Other questions include how do you reallocate revenues from prices set based on carbon emissions, ensuring the distributional impacts are progressive, and whether it should be distance or demand-responsive based.
Perhaps, just doing a good thing is enough, and the Klimaticket seems to be that. Lets hope that it gets more people on buses and trains.
The transition to all electric may be long, messy, and may result in more carbon emissions
One of my favourite blogs is Naked Capitalism. Not because I’m some sort of free market radical or socialist revolutionary (however you have taken the title of the blog I have just mentioned), but because it encourages critical thinking behind policy initiatives and financial results. This time, they have cast their beady eye over initiatives in the US to go all electric. They are not impressed.
The electrification of homes is touted as one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the residential sector as the U.S. Administration aims for a net-zero economy by 2050. But going all-electric will not be as easy as it seems.
The “electrify everything” drive comes with higher upfront and—in some cases—higher maintenance costs for consumers, higher costs for homebuilding contractors, and higher intangible costs for politicians who may prematurely call the end of gas furnaces and boilers and saddle voters with higher energy bills.
In addition, all-electric homes with electric vehicle (EV) chargers are expected to raise peak power demand, which some electric grids cannot handle as-is and would need billions of dollars of upgrades.
This chimes a lot with experience here in the UK, which is much further ahead in its mission to become a zero carbon energy supply by 2025. The carbon intensity of the grid has gone down by over 65% since 2013. This means that the National Grid considers that there is capacity in the grid overall as our total peak energy demand from the grid has fallen by 16%. Effectively, the UK has headroom because there has been a focus on reducing demand, and increasing investment in the grid as opposed to the US approach of, well, not doing that.
The irony is that in order to charge electric vehicles, less electricity needs to be consumed. Otherwise, the costs of going all electric will be prohibitive.
Visualisation of the Day
This data is a little old, but I love this little tool called Ridescore by the Delaware Regional Planning Commission. It takes data from local public transport operators, the location of intersections, retail districts, outdoor trials, population density, and employees. It then calculates a score for bicycle investment in each station.
If you do nothing else today, do this
Sign up to the Scottish Rural and Islands Transport Community Annual Gathering. Its not just about Scotland, but its about all aspects of rural transport and how they can be improved.