neroden
Engineer
When I read the studies (performance improvement plan, proposals for new services, etc.) they don't look that fancy. Is there a cut and dried procedure for them? A standard method of estimating ridership, a standard method of estimating revenue, a standard method of estimating costs? I know that they just make wild guesses as to what the host railroads will charge since they always turn out to be wrong.
What I'm wondering is... a lot of these studies seem to cost absurd amounts of money considering what they are. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions. That's suitable for a full EIS or a full set of engineering diagrams or negotiated prices with cities and railroads and property owners, but not for these rough ballpark studies.
If I, for instance, provided free volunteer labor to study the financial status of a "two a day on the Water Level Route" proposal, how hard and how expensive would it really be? That's the problem for me at the moment with making such a pitch: I don't know where to look for a ridership or revenue model which would be accepted, or a cost model which would be accepted. But it can't be that hard, can it?
What I'm wondering is... a lot of these studies seem to cost absurd amounts of money considering what they are. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions. That's suitable for a full EIS or a full set of engineering diagrams or negotiated prices with cities and railroads and property owners, but not for these rough ballpark studies.
If I, for instance, provided free volunteer labor to study the financial status of a "two a day on the Water Level Route" proposal, how hard and how expensive would it really be? That's the problem for me at the moment with making such a pitch: I don't know where to look for a ridership or revenue model which would be accepted, or a cost model which would be accepted. But it can't be that hard, can it?