Keep an Eye on Your Dipstick
Usually, this column is about a marketing topic. Not today.
We’ve all watched as gas prices rocketed to a national average of $4.00 a gallon. Now we’re beginning to see more people leave their cars for public transportation. In cities like San Francisco it has been reported that these new riders are filling up trains, buses and park-ride lots. So that’s good for transit, right?
At a recent state association meeting I attended, system managers all expressed concern about how they would handle increased ridership. Higher diesel prices, unbudgeted operating costs and limited excess capacity were cited among their concerns.
No doubt these are serious concerns, but mark my words, there’s a larger problem on the horizon for the transit industry and transportation in general. That problem is supply.
Sure there seems to be enough oil to go around…now. While everyone agrees that worldwide demand is driving up prices, what if supply doesn’t grow to meet demand or even diminishes? If you were around in the 1970’s you may have seen waiting lines for gas, limited rationing and lots of people converting to transit.
But that was temporary, and countries like China and India were still years away from being the petroleum consumers they are today…and will grow to be in the future.
How will this potential crisis play out for transit? It is likely that we’ll first see a capacity problem. But with bus and train car orders taking years to process, how do we effectively respond to capacity needs locally and as an industry? More importantly in the long term, how do we assure there will be fuel to run our trains and buses? What rationale can we make as an industry for national, state and local policy that provides funding and other resources to help us respond to both a capacity and a fuel supply crisis?
Just this month, GM announced the closing of four assembly plants that make large trucks and SUV’s, and indicated it would probably dump its Hummer division. In announcing the closings GM officials said they felt consumer desire to move away from large vehicles was permanent. Where is GM going to concentrate its efforts? Look for more fuel efficient vehicles short term, and more hybrids and totally electric vehicles long term.
It seems to me that there’s more to those moves then just the high price of gas. It seems to me that GM officials may be looking at a day when there is little or no gas at any price. They’re thinking strategically and acting accordingly.
I would say it’s time for the transit industry to do the same. In the meantime keep an eye on your system’s fuel tank dipstick. Your worst nightmare may not be how much that fuel costs; it may just be what happens if the tank runs dry.
Joe Caruso is Senior Consultant for Brecon Hill Consulting. He’s the former marketing director for the Milwaukee County Transit System (WI) and has over 33 years of transit marketing experience. He welcomes your comments at jcaruso@breconhill.com.
July 4th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Your analysis in MOSTLY on target but you left out one thing:
The Asians are mastering the small car manufacturing techniques
and are simply forward pricing their units while our folks think
there is no tomorrow and rake in the bucks on every overweight
inefficient SUV they used to be able to sell. Never mind the
pollution..But NOT even the Asians are positioning themselves
to solve present TRAFFIC CONGESTION let alone future congestion
as a lot of small cars also congest the roads. You must keep on
plugging for mass transit as even all electric AND small cars will
bring us smogless traffic jams, same waste of prime time etc
July 5th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
On Nov. 30- Dec. 1, 1973, I was newbie on a crew of three dispatched by the Lake Tahoe Unified School District, to pick up a new school bus. At Hayward, home of Gillig bus and coach, we picked up brand new bus 79 passenger #22, resplendent in school bus yellow… with a fuel gauge reading “E”. Not to worry, they said. They had calculated miles to South Lake tahoe, and had put in enough to make it.
We did make it, but the bus was sputtering when we finally got home after show delays overnight on Echo Summit. This was an early and indelible lesson, of a supposedly priority transport mode being caught short on diesel fuel. Interestingly, on the way to Hayward, we observed new construction for the BART rail system, and my older bus garage buddies made disparaging remarks about “pork barrel” projects. I kept my mouth shut, satisfied with knowledge of railway history and the efficacy of rail in times of fuel scarcity.
Mr. Joe Caruso is sounding a loud & clear call for transit officials to be the calm ones in the room, the ones intimately knowledgeable about the Peaking Oil challenge. All men & women of transit are charged with ability to produce, at short notice, “The General Depletion Picture” found at (peakoil.net), website of The Association For The Study Of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO). The coming months will require much outreach to civic groups, chambers of commerce, employees & the public at large.
As in WWII, the people responsible for “Keeping ‘em Rolling” know they have one of the most important jobs in the country, at a crucial period in our national history. With that knowledge, it is not out of line for APTA, stepping in for a lame Federal Government & timid elected officials, to look at how manufacturing was mobilized for emergency needs during the Second War.
This time, we will not be building Wright Cyclone airplane engines in the Buick plant, or B-24′s at Willow Run. We will talk to GM about getting back into the locomotive business, and assess closing auto plants for setting up lines to build buses and electric streetcars.
We will talk to the US Chamber of Commerce about putting a freeze on sale of steel scrap, diverting this raw material to several stateside mills that can get us sheet steel and dimensional products for transit vehicles. And, we will get the Bethlehem rail rolling mill back into action, for track, rail fittings & fasteners.
These things will not come about from the Federal Government, they are too enamored of their laissez faire philosophy to understand the present threat is not business as usual. This is extraordinary, so much so, that many responsibles will need to be replaced in order to fully position the USA for this emergency. It may be, that some courageous staff on candidates rosters will research “theoildrum” and demand some time with their respective presidential wannabes. APTA, don’t bet the country on this… Please take the initiative and make the contacts.
Immodestly, it is recommended interested parties see ASPO Newsletter 89, article #1037 in the May 2008 issue. This is boilerplate for rail mode discussion. Some will work the rail mode, many others will work with APTA for the USA bus manufacturing expansion. But rail is crucial for ensuring freight & victuals distribution, and rail is most easily linked to renewables generation to propel prime movers (electric). APTA must talk to GM and Ed Hamberger at AAR, get lines of communication open with manufacturing side, plus mains & short line rail operators.
As we move along on this new page, we must look at the role to be played by the respective States’ National Guard Units, and re-establishment of railway operating & maintenance Battalions. People working this part of the effort can download “GCOR” from the web, and see that their respective states NG Commandant has a copy for initial briefings of existing logistics personnel.
Political talk about drilling is ringing in our ears, but the emergency shortage of transit & freight rail infrastructure is Job #1, for the people of MASS TRANSIT. APTA, clear the calendar for some special doings. We have an emergency to deal with.