IBM hops aboard high-speed rail
Imagine traveling by rail at 200 miles per hour between cities, and then catching a local line to your final destination.
IBM on Wednesday plans to announce details of three rail projects outside the U.S. that bring that vision of efficient and convenient rail travel closer to reality. Overall, the projects in China, Taiwan, and the Netherlands show how rail travel can reduce urban congestion and cut down on pollution from transportation, said IBM.
Investments in rail--and high-speed rail, in particular--are a significant portion of many of the government-sponsored stimulus spending programs around the world. The U.S. is poised to put about $8 billion in upgrading the rail network and developing high-speed rail "corridors."
But establishing an effective network of high-speed trains is more than building faster locomotives. A large portion of what makes a successful network is its computer technology, according to IBM, which is angling for government business in transportation and rail.
(Credit:
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation)
"We're seeing a spike in projects and when you start moving people and trains at 350 kilometers an hour (218 mph), you need to start focusing on smarter trains and higher levels of safety to operate effectively," said Keith Dierkx, business development executive for travel and logistics at IBM's Global Technology Services consulting arm.
The U.S. rail network right now uses RFID tags to help railroad operators keep track of some inventory as trains roll past RFID readers. But a more sophisticated network of wireless sensors providing real-time updates will be increasingly important to the spread of high-speed rail, said Robert Goodwin, transportation industry analyst at Gartner. Amtrak's Acela line, which goes from Washington D.C. to Boston, tops out at 150 miles per hour, a speed that's limited by twisting tracks through most of the journey.
"These trains move so rapidly, you can't afford to have any errors so you need current feedback," Goodwin said. "There's a lot you can do based on what you didn't know 10 seconds ago. It gives you a chance to be more nimble."
Sensors could also ensure that hazardous materials aren't tampered with on rail cars and video scanners could automate safety checks on equipment, said IBM's Dierkx.
In the meantime, however, IBM's rail work has focused primarily on keeping the trains running on time. Its customers used a mix of IBM software and services to improve service and maintenance.
Netherlands Railways used software from Ilog, which IBM bought last year, to optimize its schedule to best match its equipment--5,000 trains, 390 stations, and 2,800 kilometers of track--with passenger travel. By fine-tuning this complex system, the rail authority lowered its operating costs between 5 and 10 percent, saving about 20 million euros a year, according to IBM.
The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation is using an "asset-management package," which IBM gained when it acquired MRO Software, to get trains running from the north side of the island to the south with a punctuality rate of 99.15 percent. The 90-minute trip replaces what would be a 4 1/2-hour trip by convention rail.
The Guangzhou Metro in China also used the Maximo asset-management to help operators manage cars, tracks, and signaling equipment for peaks in demand--like during soccer games--and stay on top of equipment maintenance.
Killing congestion
Part of the reason that rail travel is being promoted is that it's a relatively energy-efficient way to move both people and freight, said Dierkx.
On average, U.S. passenger trains emit less than half the global warming pollution per passenger mile than a typical car carrying a single person, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. A train can move a ton of freight 436 miles on one gallon of fuel, almost four times better than truck transport, according to the Association of American Railroads.
Traffic jams are also responsible for billions of dollars in lost productivity, Dierkx said. Rail travel serves as at least a partial solution to the trend toward giant megacities around the world where traffic is a serious problem.
"As a mode of transportation, rail has always been efficient and effective. There hasn't been the urgency around the environment and congestion issues," he said. "Especially in these megacities, the ability to effectively move citizenry around the country by rail may be the only way to do it effectively. And it's a green way to do it as well."
Speeding to the U.S.?
In the U.S., the country's rail infrastructure is due for a significant upgrade and, potentially, new high-speed rails projects that France, Germany, and Japan have had for years. Dierkx predicted that in five years, China will have more high-speed rail lines than any other country.
The U.S. stimulus plan dedicated $8 billion of funding for rail. The Obama Administration's budget calls for an additional $5 billion for high-speed rail grants over the next five years, according to the Association of American Railroads.
The Federal Railroad Administration is scheduled to publish a strategic plan for spending the $8 billion in the stimulus plan, which is expected to include a vision for high-speed rail corridors. Already, $1.3 billion has been set aside for Amtrak for intercity travel and $450 million to upgrade the safety of existing rail infrastructure.
However, transportation experts point out there are at least 11 proposed high-speed rail corridors in the U.S., each of which would cost billions of dollars to install. A project to build a fast train between northern and southern California alone would cost $45 billion.
As a result, IBM considers government funding for high-speed rail is the equivalent of "seed money" for large projects, said Ken Donnelly, transportation strategy manager for IBM's Maximo asset-management product. As problems over traffic congestion and pollution become more acute, IBM's Dierkx expects interest in rail to gain steam.
"In an economic downturn, a lot of green initiatives can come under pressure if you don't have strategic foresight," he said.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Yet even with billions in subsidies, Acela trains tickets are still more expensive than airplane tickets. A high-speed network of trains in the US is just not realistic unless the Amtrak model is scrapped.
Let's face it, that $8 billion in additional subsidies is just Obama & Biden's way of saying thank you to the labor unions. Paid for by the taxpayers.
Boston, Phili, New York, Washington makes sense but Washington to Chicago even with stop in Pittsburgh is served better via Air.
Get rid of the cross country routes (they are unusable anyways sine the freight companies own the right of way). Split Amtrak into regional providers and privatize it to compete directly with the airlines. Of course that will only work if the government first creates the necessary right of ways and lays down the capitol before privatizing it.
Hence, the net savings in foreign exchange for the country.
Now, With "High-Speed Trains", and, "High-Speed-Boats" and "High-Speed Planes...." there are now Higher Speeds Messages to "Martha". Wow!
Come Ride, Fly or Cruise With Us!
The Way To Go Folks!
Flying that same route could be shorter time-wise (though that's debatable) but I'm more productive on the train. I plug in my laptop and cell card and I'm in business for the entire trip. Many people who have taken a "bullet train" in another country will tell you that these things are impressive: Paris to the south of France in three to five hours--that sort of thing.
Granted, investing in the infrastructure is expensive and these high-speed corridors probably only make sense in just a few places in the U.S. But you have to need to consider all the benefits.
1) The distances between city centers in the USA make it -more- viable for maglev trains, since maglev trains become more viable with longer distances between city centers. For example, imagine downtown Dallas to downtown Houston in one hour flat or less!
2) Steel rail trains are EXPENSIVE to maintain for high-speed operation, especially above 186 mph (300 km/h). Between the physical contact between the overhead wiring and the trainset's pantographs and the same between the steel wheels and steel track, this means you need meticulous track maintenance, made even more expensive with the harsh winters east of the Mississippi.
Materials Sampling Technician - Concorde!
Besides, it will be really, really cool to see that "Titanium Clad Bird" and "Magnificent Flying Machine (the Concorde) fly again - commercially!
Also, why bother with "outer space" when it is getting more and more dangerous to dwell up there!
If you've ever ridden Japan's trains, you might have another vision of what rail travel can be. You can chart an itinerary online, and it will give you 3 minutes to make each connection... And you won't miss your connections. In 3 weeks of rail travel, only one train was late by even a minute arriving -- and that one had stopped for 20 minutes during a typhoon.
Ask Henry George. He saw it. So did a young Winston Churchill, and many other bright menschs.
All we need is to recognize that land value is created not by the landholder but by the community and its investment in infrastructure, and then to treat it as our common treasure, not an individual or corporate landholder's windfall.
I'm glad IBM is doing business in countries that are not afraid to make bold progress. Maybe the spirit of jingoistic competition will finally goad us into doing the right thing. (Like the 1960s space program.)
The folks that love Running OS/2 must be "over-joyed" that "IBM hops (has hopped) aboard high-speed rail"; and, here is why:
Re:
"Railroad
http://en.ecomstation.ru/solutions/pics/railroad.jpg
Railroad in Southern and Nothern Italy (2008/07)
photo 1, photo 2 (c) Samm
2008/12: All the ticketing kiosks and machines are using OS/2 Warp (source)
Municipal transport
(ENG) June 2007 -- Signaling system for Muni subway in San Francisco
2008/12: Actually, the New York City subway replaced Warp 4 with eComStation on their ticket selling kiosks some time ago. (source
http://en.ecomstation.ru/solutions/?action=solutions
So; if OS/2 can make money for the "Railroad in Southern and Northern Italy" and the "New York City Transit System".... then commuters that are using these high-speed trains should ask themselves if they need an OS/2 Operating System connected to the "Internet" behind every seat so that they can leave their Portable Computers at home and ride for free by making enough money to cover the cost of the trip by hitting the keyboards of their on-board computers!
Now, don't forget to cut us the "check" for this innovative, cost-cutting and money making proposal.
I believe even if mass transit in this country was like european/asian rail systems, we would still drive. A car is a status symbol, add our laziness....how can trains compete.
Read the above comment for the answer.to your question.
I totally believe with punterjoe and renGek in that we ARE a lazy population and are resistant to change. I sure hope Obama could turn us around. I would happily pay higher taxes in exchange for a a more innovative country and a country that isn't only spending on military 'cause were so ***** terrorists would blow up one of our "precious" buildings. Im glad Obama's worrying about better problems like getting our society's ******** off of drugs (not weed, which i think should be legal, lol), making sure we live a high-tech lifestyle with a well-funded broadband deployment, and making us competitive with other nations with a fell structured education system.
back to the train system, sorry about going off on a tangent, we need to make a high speed rail network that runs everywhere, i mean EVERYWHERE! a train can move hundreds of times more people on the same road as cars can. If the government reposessed three lanes from the roads and used them to make rail lines, this could really bolster productivity and make our country better than the rest.
Mass transit only works in heavily centralized urban areas like Manahattan. And even there, the government had to take over all the mass transit systems (mostly because they wouldn't let the private operators up their fares to coincide with increases in costs). In addition government mandates stops in places that don't have the population to support them (the primary reason Amtrack is always losing money). Get government out of the transist business (I know but we can dream) and it'd get more efficent. If you bypass high-speed rail and go hi speed mag-lev, combined with computer control, you'd develop a flexible yet reliable mass transit system.
But our great leaders have decided to waste trillions on STDs in San Francisco instead of building the powerplants, electrical lines, and other infrastructure projects we actually need in order to have things like high speed rail. Oh, and get this, nuts like Feingold are now trying to block solar panels in the Mohave because it might disturb the natural beauty. So now we can't build nukes, they're going to close off shore drilling, and now we can't even build solar?Are these people serious? I'm not even going to mention what will happen with wind-turbines,and endangered birds.
I suggest reading Tom Vanderbilt's book traffic, it might change your mind about that statement. For every road you add, for every lane you add to an existing road, there becomes a level of diminishing return in the improved speed of traffic flow. Part of the reason is as you create more roads and lanes you create more choices and options, which means more merges and turning. At a critical turning point it can actually get to a point where as counter intuitive as it may sound, it can in some cases improve traffic flow to take roads out.
But lets assume adding more lanes and roads always makes traffic better and faster. What of the land use? What about freeways already 5 or 6 lanes in either direction built up to the edge of housing? Do we just keep buying out homes with eminent domain and knock em down at great tax payer expense every time we "need" the 405 to go a little faster? Plus this need for extra capacity is only at some times of the day. At other times of the day and late at night, most of the freeway is just unnecessary empty space.
People are also fond of quoting Amtrak as losing money, but when was the last time someone asked if a highway was making a profit on moving people around? Where are the profit margins on the interstate 10, hmm, I want to see them. What about the airports that are heavily government financed, and the short hop flights that are not profitable but subsidized to maintain service?
Will Decker
Why do they ignore these things?
Because they are willing to pay whatever it takes, and make whatever sacrifice they have to, and kill as many people as necessary in senseless accidents, to avoid having to sit with strangers, having to compromise their spontaneity, make any compromises in their schedules, or sacrifice these statements of their aspirations.
Plainly, they don't play well with the other children. In their opinion, they shouldn't have to. That is NOT the American Way, in their opinion. They want to be in full control, the masters of their own destiny. Operating a car helps to nurse that illusion
When are we going to get past the idea that the transportation infrastructure should have to pay for itself?
When you build a building, do you charge people to use the stairs, elevators, or hallways?
Do the bathrooms pay for themselves?
These costs are shared by the tenants for the convenience of their employees and customers. Transportation outside the buildings are no different with the exception of the fact that we are all the tenants.
All of these cost arguments always seem to arise from those people who don't want to pay for anything, but are usually some of the folk who use public facilities most.
Yes, we will continue to have to use fuel guzzling, upper-atmosphere destroying planes for intercontinental travel. (God forbid that we actually had to go back to using sailing ships) For travel across continents and between cities, trains are more efficient.
It really hurts me to make that admission. I personally favor the use of large high-speed hybrid busses, because they can use the existing road structure for greater flexibility. Making great efficient hybrid busses is a way that the big three could make karmic debt service to America AND get Michigan back to work again. People don't like busses for longer trips, though. Less walk-around room, I suppose. Definitely no sleeper space on them.
Kudos to the commenter who noticed that, with the improvements in digital communication, travel was getting to be purposeless, especially business travel. Being there is so 1980!
- by SactoGuy018 March 26, 2009 8:59 PM PDT
- By the way, we already have the equivalents of high-speed rail in the USA--we call it Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways. Here's the problem with the USA: the distance between major city centers--especially west of the Mississippi River--is so big that even with the latest 210 mph steel rail trains, it would take several hours to travel between cities. Meanwhile, with relatively low airfares, you can just about go anywhere in the USA with Southwest or JetBlue.
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