RE: Airport rail service - SEPTA vs. Oslo

I recently received a copy of the "Ticket to Ride" series DVD - OUT & ABOUT OSLO - BERGEN as a gift. One of the subjects covered is the Flytoget Airport Express service. The differences between Oslo and SEPTA are striking.

The Flytoget service is operated by a fleet of dedicated EMUs designed to accomodate airline passengers traveling to and from the airport. They appear to be very attractive.

Service patterns provide 10 minute headways to Oslo Central Station (22 minutes travel time) and 20 minute headways to the western suburbs (51 minutes). The airport is located northeast of Olso Central, and the service to the western suburbs is through routed, requiring no change of trains.

SEPTA, by comparison, uses whatever Silverliners they can cobble together to provide service on any given day. Headways are 30 minutes. While the travel times to Suburban Station and Jenkintown are similar, the actual distance traveled by the Flytoget service is greater.

An older SEPTA R1 Schedule indicates that Terminal E to Suburban Station is 9.0 miles (note: SEPTA has removed mileage from the newer schedules to make it harder to figure out how slow they really are!). Doing the math - 9 miles x 60 minutes per hour / 26 minutes = 20.8 MPH, on a right-of-way with no level crossings.

And this while PHL is aproaching or breaking record airline passenger traffic counts due to the introduction of Southwest Airlines service into the Philadelphia market.

For some context, it should be noted that the population of the entire nation of Norway is just 4,574,560. That is somewhat less than the nine county region of the DVRPC area of jurisdiction.

That such a small population is able to accomplish such simple excellence while people here in the Philadelphia region wouldn't even consider it possible speaks volumes on yet another facet of SEPTA's incompetence.

No--it speaks volumes about the respective nations' attitudes toward transit. Norway is decidedly pro-transit in nearly every regard; in the US, it's viewed as a nuissance. Considering the context, I feel we in Philadelphia are lucky to have what we have. Not that it couldn't (or shouldn't) be run much better, of course.

Sweden also has superb rail service between the main Arlanda airport and Stockholm. It's a dedicated, fully-electrified line that makes the trip in about 20 minutes or so. The cars are comparable inside to Acela business class. There's a picture at http://www.stockholmtown.com/templates/ ... 3__SV.aspx (note - in Swedish )

The only disadvantage is that on weekdays the train costs about twice as much as the competing Flygbussarna bus service, but it's more than twice as fast so you get what you pay for.

Well, I live in the western suburbs and I fly to Oslo frequently. The new airport has been open a little over five years, it is quite remote from the city. Prior to the rail link being completed, a bus was the only practical option... then the train started, but traveled by a somewhat long route as a tunnel hadn't been completed on schedule. While the train now is wonderful and fast into the city, generally a cab or shuttle bus service is still necessary if you're staying outside the immediate are of the central station or the national theatre. A cab ride in Oslo is a new experience, as fares vary by day and by hour. There are surcharges on Sunday, for example.
Philadelphia has a far larger metropolitan area, and has a better highway network as well. While SEPTA is a nice alternative, for me to travel from Strafford to the airport is an ordeal at best, and tends to take at least twice as long as driving, involves a change at 30th Street, and the awkwardness of lugging bags in decidedly unfriendly railcars.
End of story: Europe is different.

Speaking of the R1, I've noticed that they've been advertising the crap out of it, with those yellow posters and flags, Melrose Park especially. None that I noticed at Warminster though.


I always thought SEPTA should have R1 trains coming from all outer points. It would make headways very close at the airport and people then have the convenience of not having to change trains.

People do ride the R1 to fly out of Philly, at least I've noticed on the R2. That could easily work elsewhere.

SCB2525 wrote:I always thought SEPTA should have R1 trains coming from all outer points. It would make headways very close at the airport and people then have the convenience of not having to change trains.

It's gonna be a lot less useful to people if a train to or from their home station is available every two hours (which is what you can hope for at best if you spread R1 across a lot of destinations) than every half hour (which is what you get if you concentrate the through-trips to a single line).

Doing that also is going to mess up the memory schedule for the rest of the system.

Well there's the thing. I wouldn't use SEPTA's standard headways. Also, I think it's less confusing pounding into people's heads that theres the R1 and the R? (whatever number) on each line and the R1 goes to the airport as opposed to the corresponding R. That way you can make it a universal well known policy as opposed to one that applies to this line these days and those lines on the third tuesday in months that begin with a vowel.

SCB2525 wrote:Well there's the thing. I wouldn't use SEPTA's standard headways.

Well, sure, increasing the number of trains (which of course would be a good thing) makes it a lot easier to through-route more lines to the airport. But more airport service further imbalances service on the Reading and PRR sides of the system, and you lose some of the advantages of the tunnel operation.

Also, I think it's less confusing pounding into people's heads that theres the R1 and the R? (whatever number) on each line and the R1 goes to the airport as opposed to the corresponding R.

Maybe, but it would introduce a new source of confusion, having multiple line numbers on one line.

Matt Mitchell wrote:

Maybe, but it would introduce a new source of confusion, having multiple line numbers on one line.

Agreed. People have a hard enough time understanding that there are two sides to each "R", as well as what side they need use. Certainly the daily commuter knows, but many individuals not familiar with RRD become baffled by it all.

This would not work very well for western suburb locations as a matter of geography and operational considerations.

Citing the Oslo example, the northern suburbs are the R1 target market, because they are on the opposite side of the city, and there is no direct major highway from there to the airport.

There are numerous options for how R1 might be more effectively routed in the northern suburbs, but the situation is a matrix with respect to the various impacts that any one routing might have.

With respect to the dedicated EMUs, the Silverliner V order presents an opportunity to have such equipment in the near future, as opposed to waiting for the next big RRD vehicle purchase somwhere down the road.