WiFi on Wheels

First off, Happy Inauguration Day everyone! I suspect somewhere north of six billion people all around the world may breathe a collective sigh of relief at 12:01pm EST when the Dubya era is finally well and truly over. We'll have to wait and see if President Obama can bring about the fundamental change he has promised, but kudos to the American people for giving the first nominee of African descent ever this opportunity.

For transit enthusiasts, the logistics of the inauguration extravaganza appear promising: the Obamas and the Bidens chose to arrive by train, millions of spectators are using the Washington subway and buses to attend this historic event, cars are banned and there's a strict no-fly zone over the capital. The fly in the ointment is that these decisions were taken for their historical significance and security reasons, respectively, rather than environmental or energy security considerations. So far, the incoming administration is paying only lip service to HSR.

A new post on Treehugger brings the scale of the challenge into sharp relief. Analysis of the lucrative business travel market has shown that at almost 1.4 million trips, San Francisco-Los Angeles was the 7th busiest route in the world in 2004. Given that the alternatives for travel within California are time-prohibitive at present, that 7th place is actually not surprising. Even five years later, corporate etiquette still requires that meetings with important customers and partners should be conducted face to face. Trade shows and skills development are another major driver for corporate travel. Perhaps by now some of the following city pairs have moved further down the list thanks to HSR:

5. Milan-Rome
8. Amsterdam-London
11. London-Paris
13. Marseille-Paris
16. Boston-New York

For business travelers, perhaps even more important than raw line haul speed are fast transportation to and from downtown stations, punctual service and especially, improved productivity en route. A year ago, SNCF began introducing reliable broadband internet access on Thalys and TGV Est, with plans for expanding it to other parts of the TGV network. SNCF's Eurostar service will cut journey times from London to Amsterdam to less than four hours in 2009, though WiFi is still limited to hotspots at selected stations unless you bring your own 3G wireless router.



CHSRA should definitely seek commercial partners to provide no-fuss WiFi connectivity to its customers, preferably based on low latency terrestrial relay networks (802.16e-2005 or later) already tested by Caltrain, albeit at lower train speeds. Videoconferencing and shared desktops are fast becoming good enough for business use, but these applications tend to be both bandwidth-intensive and horribly sluggish over links based on geostationary satellites. CHSRA is not yet doing a good enough job of anticipating the kind of on-board services HSR customers will be expecting a decade from now. Reliable broadband data networking for fast-moving vehicles is a global industry segment that Silicon Valley ought to dominate. However, the initial focus should be on adding value for passengers rather than the even more demanding infrastructure applications (cp. ERTMS Level 2).

For corporate travel policies to take full advantage of HSR, it needs to offer a significant cost advantage over airline travel. For a business, the largest single line item in that equation is the opportunity cost of having someone in transit while he or she is on the clock and racking up expenses. Therefore, boosting productivity is even more important than boosting line haul speed or reducing fares. Perhaps more relevant is that WiFi would allow operators to offer fewer express and more semi-express trains, boosting economic development in the Central Valley - a macroeconomic benefit for the state that the airline industry cannot afford to deliver.

Still, the core business travel market in California will still be SF-LA and, HSR can expect to capture between 50% and 80% of that after a ramp-up period of several years. The exact figure will depend primarily on how the price of jet fuel develops. Note that airlines will figure out ways to offer WiFi as well, but that trains will always offer more seat and desk space. Also, you spend a larger fraction of total travel time actually sitting down in a train, so there's more opportunity to take advantage of any WiFi services on offer. You can use your cell phone while waiting in line to have your shoes inspected at the airport, but fine-tuning your Powerpoint slides? Not so much.

Note that leisure trips were not included in the analysis the Treehugger post refers to. However, if you want cheap HSR fares for the general public, you absolutely have to poach business customers from short-haul commercial aviation. Fortunately, the same networking technology that persuades the suits to choose clean, all-electric trains over dirty, oil-guzzling planes will also attract leisure travelers and tourists - even if they have to pay a little extra for it. Marrying WiFi and HSR could well be the killer application that supercharges ridership between the Bay Area, the Central Valley and SoCal, creating new jobs throughout the state. Now that's change we should all believe in.