Airbus dealt a heavy blow to the notion of a Very Fast Train (VFT) for the Melbourne-Sydney corridor with its Very Large Plane (VLA) forecast yesterday.
Airbus’ chief operating officer for customers, John Leahy, predicted that it will be extensively used between major city pairs such as Melbourne-Sydney by 2028, and possibly within 10 years.
Is he kidding? No. Half a lifetime ago, Sydney-Melbourne was served by 16 flights a day each way in 80-passenger Lockheed Electra turbo-props, private road trips that killed about 500 long-distance drivers a year on the Hume Highway between them, and two steam trains that met in the middle of the night in Albury to change passengers where the different rail gauges of the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales terminated.
Today, it is flown about 73 times each way each day by the combined jets of four airlines. The physical availability of slots at each airport is shrinking, almost to vanishing point at Sydney Airport, meaning the jets have to get bigger, but be boarded and disembarked in no more time than it takes today.
Given the heated Crikey debate over VFTs started by Guy Rundle and joined by Michael James, the VLA prediction comes with one potent characteristic. It doesn’t require a single dollar of taxpayer funds. The entire cost, and risk, is funded by the privately owned airlines and airports.
No billions of dollars in public private partnerships, no competing with education, health or defence for money, no endless inquiries and studies, and no permanent ways, cuttings or bridges slicing through towns, or national parks.
Sydney International already turns around A380s more efficiently than its domestic terminals manage with much smaller single-aisle jets, because the biggest jet ever has wide aisles and four main doors all served by quick-load, double-level gates.
Trains in Australia run on fossil fuels, even if they use electricity generated by coal. There are clear signs that by 2030 if not sooner algal-grown octanes will begin replacing aviation-grade kerosene, releasing no fossil-sourced carbon.
The Airbus forecasts concerning VLAs is predicated on continued urbanisation and the rise of mega cities. It lists 37 such cities in terms of air travel today, including Melbourne and Sydney, which in total generate 92% of all long-distance flights.
By 2028 it forecasts such mega cities will number 82, including Brisbane and Auckland, and will be generating 90% of all long-haul passenger trips. And something else happens, in that they will generate VLA connections over 80 short-distance connections between each other or nearby major if not mega destinations. Including most of the inter-capital and trans-Tasman flights served by smaller jets today. Just the way 767s replaced the 727s that replaced the Electras.
Leahy’s forecast excludes those city pairs where very fast trains will produce faster door-to-door trip times for most potential travellers. And this is one of issues that Michael James misses in his criticism of Australia, and alleged road lobbyists such as myself, for not getting behind very fast trains.
VFTs came to London and Paris, and linked the major cities of Japan, after many decades of serendipitous investments in public transport systems that make it easy to get to the likes of the Eurostar platforms at St Pancras and Gare du Nord from almost everywhere across their metropolitan and outer suburban sprawls.
Their Metros achieved critical mass and cultural acceptance before car ownership became common. The convenience of fast, efficient, cheap and proximate stations means that just about 100% of London and Paris can quickly reach Eurostar and in the latter, the Thalys and TGV network of VFTs. London and Paris can plan and build new Metros in about 10% of the time it takes for them to be studied, debated and ditched in Sydney and Melbourne.
A Sydney or Melbourne VFT terminal at Central or Southern Cross stations respectively is very hard or costly to reach by public transport, or car, from large proportions of their catchment areas. To begin to make VFTs attractive in Australia we have to make their speed usable in reducing the point-to-point trip times.
Both cities need much better public transport links to their airports, which can bring dividends to non-airport commuters too. But in terms of spending, and overcoming a century of public transport neglect, there is no case for spending billions of dollars building a 500kph 1000-kilometre long rail link when the airlines can assume all of the risk and cost.
Making public transport within the cities functional, slashing car dependency within them, and building some new “smart” cities seems a much better start to breaking with a dismal past.
arrrrhhh got the last time I wasn’t against VFTs (i was against the proposed gippsland route in the 80s but thats another story). I was merely arguing in my article that VFTs of themselves, solve nothing in terms of infrastructure provision for a growing population – they simply increase their velocity.
All very good if you only want people to live in overcrowded Sydney or Melbourne, and nothing else exists in between. I look forward to when flights of the airbus will be stopping at Seymour, Albury, Canberra, Yass, etc? Never, and this is the point the article misses! Airport development lobby 1, contribution to national policy debate and quality of life 0.
If algae fuel is all it’s cracked up to be, it’s going to be needed replacing existing uses of fossil fuel, not adding to it. Correct me if I’m wrong: planes do most of their work staying in the air, what trains achieve by static forces. It’s that externality cost of fuel in the carbon-trading age that will change the relationship between private and public costs (the same reason trucks are “cheaper” than trains–diesel tax doesn’t cover their share of road costs, but rail freight users have to pay the total cost of the rail.)
And I’m mystified how additional air terminals are supposed to be easier to build and use than VFT terminals. Both require intermodal connections but only one of these requires taxiing and takeoff space.
(from Michael R. James)
Guy, actually I wasn’t saying you were against fast trains. But as I replied (in a blog buried in the responses to my article) I absolutely believe that the trains must come first. Any serious attempt to create new cities, which will require a policy of devolution ie. relocation of industry and government departments, universities, hospitals etc., is doomed to failure if those fast, convenient links do not exist. In fact it was the specific policy behind the development and construction of the French TGV network. In Australia I would give Canberra as an example. It is almost 100 years old but remains a very modest city–by rights it should be a major city (look at Washington DC that has grown hugely to become one of the US’s top 10 regions). apart from the myths about Canberra, to get there one has to endure air travel or 4 hours driving. If it had the fast train link it could have taken some of the strain off Sydney (and Melbourne) and still could.
But Guy, my response to Ben’s article: Aarrrrgghh!
I find it hilarious that the Labor spin doctors have successfully inserted the ironically named Very Fast Train (VFT) into the vernacular.
Worse that people persist in using it.
It’s still quicker to drive from Melbourne to Sydney than by the speed-challenged VFT.
We should be asking why that is?