Report: “Comparison of Essential Air Service Program to Alternative Coach Bus Service”
In November, I mused about how intercity bus service would offer a cost-effective, lower emission alternative for subsidized short-hop air travel from small cities to large nearby airports. This air service is currently subsidized through the Essential Air Service (EAS) program.
I just stumbled upon the report “Comparison of Essential Air Service Program to Alternative Coach Bus Service”, released September 2011, which considers this idea through a cost analysis. The report is by M.J. Bradley & Associates LLC, and was prepared for the American Bus Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Reason Foundation, and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Download and read the report here for more details. The study selected a subset of EAS markets where the community was within 150 miles of a medium or large air hub. The current federal subsidy to air service for the study’s selected markets is about $70 million. The cost of fares to passengers is about $71 million. Operating cost for (comparable) alternative ground transportation services in these markets is estimated as $34 million. In short: ground transportation services would offer an alternative which is significantly less expensive for taxpayers and passengers (25% of the cost). The services would also produce significantly less environmentally-damaging emissions and consume 28% of the fuel which is presently used by aircraft for these services (considered by volume, not energy content, as aircraft fuel is usually more energy-dense than fuel for other vehicles).
In my view, the study is conservative in terms of exploring and describing potential benefits of the ground-based service alternative. The study assumes that the ground-based service will offer the same number of trips per day as the air service it replaces. However, because ground-based service is much less expensive to provide, it would be possible to offer additional frequency and capacity at a cost that is still significantly less than for air services. Frequency could also be improved, while controlling cost, by using smaller, less expensive vehicles (such as the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans, costs for which are described in the study).
Travelers who currently do not use the short-hop air service because of its high cost might find lower cost, higher frequency ground-based services appealing. More frequent feeder services may reduce connection times at hub airports, and therefore travelers’ overall journey times.
Furthermore, congestion is an issue for many airports. I know very little about aviation, but I expect that reducing the number of small aircraft landing and taking off would reduce congestion and air travel delays overall.
I hope the discussion continues and develops further. The realization of a bus service program like this would be a great improvement for the U.S. transportation network. And as I’ve said before, ground-based alternatives to air travel need to be supported by modern information technology and multi-modal sites for booking travel to be truly convenient.
I haven’t read the study. It would be interesting to compare time performance for each, since the rationale for essential air service is presumably that you are creating connectivity for entrepreneurs who can generate jobs if they could be bothered coming to town.
The study did compare travel times, but the study would have been better if the comparison methodology was more true-to-life. For 32 communities the bus service analyzed goes to the same airport as EAS flights. For 6 communities, the bus service goes to a closer airport because the EAS flights are to an airport farther than 200 miles. No attempt was made to compare the relative availability of follow on flights. To determine total travel time using short-hop air travel, check in/security, boarding, flight time, and de-planing was considered. For bus travel time, 15 minute check in and disembarking time was included, plus bus travel time and congestion delay. I think security check-in at the hub airport should be included for the bus travel option (and these times are longer for hub airports). Whereas, the study’s analysis considers that “minimum scheduled connection time at the hub airport between flight legs (for air passengers), and the time for check-in/security clearance at the hub airport (for bus passengers) would be essentially equal.”
I think an indirectly-expressed assumption in the methodology is that travel time for short hop air travel really doesn’t matter very much, because it’s less significant compared to connection time and the flight time of the (most often) longer connecting flights.
Using the methodology, travel time was pretty comprable: the bus takes only a little bit longer.
But, as often is the case with transit, a crucial aspect is being overlooked. Frequency.
I thought more about this in an earlier blog post. Essential Air Service flights are infrequent. This means long waits at hub airports for connecting flights. But, with smaller vehicles and much lower costs, it would be possible to offer much more frequent ground shuttle service to hub airports and thereby reduce travel time. I wish the study had at least mentioned this. It would be great if it compared costs for a few different service levels. And, if there was some survey of connection times after EAS flights that we could use for comparison.