A Few Hours Researching Transit
Dec 2024 - Alex Alejandre

I had the following exchange:

Me: absent government government intrusion into free market efficiencies like the Jones Act. shipping is better than trucking

Guy: US rail is the best in the world

Me: Shipping is still more energy efficient (and thus cheaper in isolation.) The Rust Belt along the Great Lakes is suffers from the underutilized Misiissippi. While rail helps bring goods closer to the end user (not limited by geography), the physical efficiencies of shipping would encourage industrial activity along the main waterways if liberated from artificial barriers. (Other issues like dock worker unions preventing automation are also in the way.)

For rhetorical effect, I wanted to append “why do you think Shenzhen grew from 300k to 20m in 40 years?” But how true is that? An actual research question!

How would I model to what extent physical geography (ignoring proximity to hong kong) played in Shenzhen’s growth, taking out factors like:

  • first SEZ
  • not having to go down the mississippi first
  • global demographic shifts nearer china
  • economic center of gravity shifting
  • other socioeconomic factors (e.g. China’s pent up potential being liberated by new policy)

Distance decay with demographic numbers along various models works for china or the us alone, since you can arbitrarily only change location but claim the same policy etc. could happen elsewhere.

But how do you compare policy factors in both? Is it at some point just arbitrarily ascribing numbers to policy aspects? Well, numerical methods isolating just geography could locate optimal geographic locations at different periods in each country’s development (and if they line up to existing growth, that already answered it.) That’s something.

Asking friends, I had to word the question more clearly. This led to quite a few which the same data and methodology would address e.g.:

  • to what extent did the Jones act etc. kill the Great Lakes economy vs. other factors
  • What percentage of regional economic success can be attributed to geographic advantage versus policy design?
  • How do artificial barriers (regulatory, infrastructural) modify natural geographic potential?
  • How do maritime and inland transportation networks influence industrial complexity?

But at its core: To what extent does US policy prevent the Great Lakes from being another Pearl River Delta? (I abstracted away issues of timing like “did prevent” and “from staying”.)

A friend and I then wondered why didn’t New Orleans industrialize or keep up? The new orleans angle’s very good. In 1860, it was the 5th largest city in the country with 2nd highest per capita income and 3rd most active port, flourishing through trade and finance. By 1960, Miami, Houston, Atlanta and Dallas had eclipsed it in the South alone.

Now, to the data, first of all, just how efficient is each transport method in theory and practice? While Wikipedia offers some numbers, Dr. Chris Barken’s Railroad Transportation Energy Efficiency answers the first question clearly:

Transport Speed and Resistance by Mode

Barges are less efficient than rail with any appreciable speed. The extra distance (and time) transiting the Mississippi cancels out potential energy efficiencies of riverine transport from Rust Belt industrial facilities compared to those in the American South and Midwest, which use rail to reach ports and coastal cities. The lower speeds (under ~15km/h) where shallow draft water transportation still wins out, reduce throughput.

A friend noted that in China, road dominates water transportation volume such that after a recent push for inland waterways, roads still move 4x the volume (40B tons). What factors lead to such distributions of road : rail : water freight inconsistent with their energy cost?

And why does no one have both passenger and freight rail? Current shared tracks give freight (in the US) or passengers (in Europe) right of way, wasting a lot of time and energy from breaking (even with regenerative braking).