Scale economies in rail transit systems

Technical Report · Wed Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1994

OSTI ID:7093113

Savage, I

The research uses Federal Transit Administration Section 15 data to investigate the operating costs of 13 heavy-rail and 13 light-rail urban mass transit systems for the period 1985-91. A Cobb-Douglas technology is used to investigate various types of economies of scale. The principal findings are: (1) Adding additional passenges to an existing network and schedule of services involves zero marginal cost for heavy-rail systems, and small additional costs for light-rail systems. (2) Adding additional trains, and passengers, to an existing network leads to a less than proportionate increase in costs. (3) An expanded route network results in mild increases in unit costs for the large heavy-rail systems. The smaller light-rail systems display reduced unit costs with an expanded network. The research suggests that the minimum efficient scale for rail operation is approximately 25 route miles.

• Research Organization: Great Lakes Center for Truck Transportation Research, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
• OSTI ID: 7093113
• Report Number(s): PB-95-130886/XAB; GLCTTR--66-94/01
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320202* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Transportation-- Railway
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ECONOMICS
MASS TRANSIT SYSTEMS
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS