Mass Transit Systems

"Mass Transit Ecosystems: Revisited" by v. johns, 4/15/12, 6:49 PM

When most people think of mass transit, trains and buses come to mind. This is correct. But what most people don’t readily understand is that there are modes in between shoes and trains that don’t seem to be accounted for when building and maintaining modes designed for large numbers of end users. Effective mass transit systems should include all or more of the following: Trains, planes, automobiles, buses, cabs, shoes, bikes, motorcycles, golf carts, trolleys, boats, water taxis, monorails, scooters, wheelchairs, etc.. This is what can be called a mass transit ecosystem and is what I call a logistical ecology of scale. I’ll explain what I mean in due time. But before I define this term and present base arguments for a more professional assessment from experts, here’s a quote from a previous column posted on March 12 of last year:

Mass transit has long had a reputation for having low dollar returns on investment. OK, I get it. But what people don’t realize is that the returns, unlike in a business where goods and services are sold and accounted for, are not direct. They tend to spread out into less tangible and less easily measured ways such as increased revenue from tourism or corporate relocation. Not to mention the maintenance of urban population without further gridlock from cars. While Palm Tran and Martin County Public Transit may occasionally suffer from budget shortfalls and low ridership, the real costs of not having these outfits would come in the form of higher unemployment, low growth and lack of any real business investment from serious firms that look for low labor costs and infrastructure efficiencies as pathways to profitability.

My final point is a theory in which I have no real name for at this time, but involves a potentially new way of looking at mass transit that’s often overlooked: how to make it profitable, at best, or at the least, self-supporting… A theory which not only calls for examining the implementation of full service on a regional scale but ignores population support in favor of scope and reach… This way of looking at public mass transit can only thrive if it is constructed in such a way that driving a car to a certain destination makes no sense whatsoever. Thus, the heart of this theory is the idea that smaller transit outfits like buses, taxis, rental cars, city rail, cruise lines, bike routes, walking trails, etc. would feed into larger outfits like regional trains and airports to form a symbiotic relationship that would eventually lead to self-sustainability. For example, with the proposed Amtrak line from Jacksonville to Miami, aligning Martin County Public Transit in such a way that [it] collects riders and tourists from the train station to reach their destinations in Martin County would mean that MCPT would not have to worry much about funding since fares collected from enticing train riders would stabilize ridership.

The overall idea in aligning various modes of transportation so closely together, including cars, would be to create an economy of scale of sorts, but with regard to human logistical efficiency, rather than an industrial economy of scale in which suppliers and distributers align themselves closely together to reduce logistical and informational costs. An example of an economy of scale would be a parts store and other automotive-related entities being located near car dealerships. Another example would be the biotech companies forming around Scripps Florida to take advantage of proximity to their research.

Nearly a year later, I’ve finally found a term to describe the close alignment of as many modes of human transport as possible. I define the term logistical ecology of scale as the symbiosis between all available modes of transportation, public and private, within a city, county, or regional structure, that forms a nearly seamless and self-supporting human-logistical ecosystem. Borrowed from the economic term, economy of scale, the concept suggests that in order for large modes of transportation to make profits and thrive, or at least sustain themselves, their connections to smaller, less costly modes of transportation (that claim more users, in aggregate) must not only be able to accommodate and collect traffic from all available modes, but must be able to send that traffic out just as orderly and smooth.

 

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