Running cost of one train service in Ireland

T Corolla

Folks does anyone have a rough estimate of what is cost to run a train from Dublin to Sligo. I estimate it to be 5000Eur per service. I say it costs about 2.5-3k to fill the train with diesel alone and it will get four journeys from this fill. I looking for all costs invovled. Thanks for reading

schemingbohemia

It gets a lot more complicated than just fuel costs as you'd have to factor in maintenance costs for the train and the line, percentage of staff costs at each station along the way, depreciation of the asset per journey etc etc

JHMEG

At a simple level it should be very easy to calculate the direct costs, ie diesel, train staff, traffic control staff and insurance.

No need to add in stuff like pensions of retired staff or interest on outstanding group debt, etc.

schemingbohemia

I suppose it depends if you want the 'real' cost or a simplistic sorry 'pure' cost.

T Corolla

JHMEG wrote: »

At a simple level it should be very easy to calculate the direct costs, ie diesel, train staff, traffic control staff and insurance.

No need to add in stuff like pensions of retired staff or interest on outstanding group debt, etc.

This is what I'm looking for. The cost of getting the train from Dublin-Sligo. Say the train was my factory what would it cost me to produce one unit. An estimate

Cool Mo D

What you need is the marginal cost. This is the total amount of extra money needed to run your service, assuming you are already running all the others. This cost will go down with each extra train, until you fill the line.

It is different to the accounting cost, as that will spread the indirect costs like maintenance, pensions, etc, equally over each train - but ignores the fact that running 10 trains on a line in a day as opposed to one a day does not incur 10 times the cost, so running the first train requires the most money, and every train after that is somewhat cheaper, until you get to the limits of your infrastructure.

So, if you want to run a special train for an event, say, if you can pay over the marginal costs of running that train, it is worth it for the operating company. The marginal cost ignores money you would be spending anyway for all the other trains, so the main costs will be fuel and paying staff - but it still has to take into account some indirect costs - like bringing a train closer to it's maintenance.

If you work out what mileage the train gets, how much you pay the driver, and how much money it will cost to open stations, and run the signals at times they would not normally be open, you will be close to, but slightly under the marginal cost.

antoinolachtnai

I look at the accounts of the CIE companies every now and again. If you want to do the rough and ready calculation, figure out the number of hours of running per week from the schedule. Multiply that by 52. Ideally you would figure this out for the year 2008, but 2010 will be close enough to go on with.

Then get the figure for total expenditure for Irish Rail from their annual report for 2008. Divide total expenditure by total number of hours running, and you will have a rough-and-ready figure for the cost of running a service.

This will get you started. However, there are a number of 'funnies' in the CIE accounts which you would need to look at carefully. One is the amount that is put into the claims reserve; another is the amount received from the government as a capital grant. This money is not counted as an expenditure (mistakenly, in my opinion, but that's another day's work).

You could FOI for the Irish Rail management accounts, since this is a service operated under contract to a government agency. But this would be resisted and would have to go to appeal.

Hungerford

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

You could FOI for the Irish Rail management accounts, since this is a service operated under contract to a government agency. But this would be resisted and would have to go to appeal.

Nope. CIE are exempt from the FOI act because they are commercial body.

antoinolachtnai

NTA is subject to FOI, and CIE/IE provides the services to NTA under a public service contract.

As such, many CIE/IE records are deemed to be NTA records for purposes of the FOI Act.

See 6(9) of the Act:

(9) A record in the possession of a person who is or was providing a service for a public body under a contract for services shall, if and in so far as it relates to the service, be deemed for the purposes of this Act to be held by the body, and there shall be deemed to be included in the contract a provision that the person shall, if so requested by the body for the purposes of this Act, give the record to the body for retention by it for such period as is reasonable in the particular circumstances.

Hungerford

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

NTA is subject to FOI, and CIE/IE provides the services to NTA under a public service contract.

The problem is you are reliant on the NTA obtaining the documents from CIE/IE in the first place. A useful test case may be submitting an FOI to the NTA regarding Waterford/Rosslare as they would definately have been provided with CIE/IE figures in that case.

They could still refuse on commercial sensitivity grounds though.

antoinolachtnai

No they couldn't. They're a state sanctioned monopoly. There is nothing commercial to be sensitive about.