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South Africa currently has over20000 km of rail of which about10% is used for passenger transport. However as it stands the current system is the3 feet narrow gauge,1.5KVA which is over30 years old. Would it be cheaper to upgrade to the4 foot Standard Gauge25KVA for the entire20000 km infrastructure to add more numbers to the rail system and reduce the traffic on the roads? Or cheaper to build new routes from scratch?
Which would be advisable?
my view is to build new routes from scratch is better and cheaper than railway system .
most People prefer driving to ride metros .
i agreed with the above answers.
My answer is as per the below article published by iea (institute of Economic affairs)
Rail versus road Paul Withrington 16 December2011Decades of propaganda have established the myth that railways cost much less, are far safer, have much more capacity, use less fuel, less manpower and are far kinder to the environment than road transport ever can be. Surprisingly the myth turns out to have no basis in fact. Indeed the reality is so different from the myth and the propaganda so powerful, that people suddenly faced with the facts are usually unable to accept them, even though the data and the associated calculations are easy to check.
Here are some key comparisons:
(1) Government expenditure on rail divided by passenger-km or tonne-km provides unit costs that are five to six times as large as those for the strategic road network.
(2) If the national rail function were carried out by express coaches and lorries on an uncongested network, such as enjoyed by rail, then the fuel consumption would be reduced by24%.
(3) A dedicated express bus lane has three to four times the capacity of a single railway track. An example is the contra-flow lane serving New York’s bus terminal. That carries70045-seat buses in the peak hour, offering over30,000 seats. In comparison the30,000 crushed passengers who arrive at Victoria Main Line in the peak hour require four inbound tracks, each wide enough for an express bus lane.
(4) Astonishingly, in London and in the peak hour the surface rail network is in highway terms scarcely used.
(5) The passenger or freight flows per track or lane are three times greater on the motorway and trunk road network than on the rail network.
Despite rail carrying only 6.3% of passenger-km and8.5% of tonne-km it enjoys subsidies and capital grants running at £5 billion annually, equivalent to £200 per year in taxes for every household in the land, or to £150,000 per track-km, or to10 pence per passenger-km or, if passengers and tonnes are added, to7 pence per mile travelled.
In contrast the strategic road network makes a profit for the exchequer of £13 billion per year, equivalent to £250,000 per lane-mile or to5.6 pence per passenger-km or to tax of £520 from every household in the land.
Such data underplay the poor financial performance of rail compared with road in that rail track is6 to7 times as expensive to build. Consequently, in terms of capital employed, the productivity of the strategic road network may outperform rail by a factor, not of3, but of20 (and that is before taking account of the relatively low value of rail freight, for the most part bulk minerals etc).
Moreover, nearly half the population uses rail less than once a year and those from the top quintile of household income use rail four to five times as much (the National Travel Survey) as those from either of the bottom two quintiles. Why on earth should taxpayers be subsidising the better off?
Rail Transport is well recommended.
eee mostlyy..,
later mechanical.., andall small gaps by remaining groups
