From: whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)
Subject: Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
Reply-To: whheydt@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 21:46:23 GMT

In article <2935419638.0.p00004@psilink.com> p00004@psilink.com (Michael Smith) writes:
>>DATE:   Tue, 5 Jan 1993 22:30:28 GMT
>>FROM:   Wilson Heydt <whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM>
>>>>Nice dodge.  The question isn't "How can we increase private vehicle
>>>>occupancy?", but rather "Are *all* those trains full?" [....]
>>>
>>>But aren't we talking here about comparisons of *capacity*?[....] The 
>>>railroad can sell a ticket for every seat. The analogy to seats per car 
>>>is false, since the turnpike authority (or whoever) can't force drivers 
>>>to fill up empty seats [....]
>
>>The railroad can't *force* people to take the train (and fill up
>>seats), either.[....]
>
>Obviously the point isn't getting across, but I'm not sure how to make 
>it any clearer. If I don't have a car, I can go to the train station and 
>buy a ticket -- there is *capacity* for me -- but I would find it much 
>more difficult to obtain one of those empty car seats. These latter form 
>a kind of purely notional "capacity", since it isn't available. 

I understand your point.  Let me see if I can get parts of mine across
by extending your analogies....

That those trains have that unused capacity shows that--while you or
anyone--*can* purchase such tickets, not all that many people *are*
purchasing them.  You can purchase a car, too--and use the freeway as
another option.  That's an option that a *lot* of folks are going for.

>Let's say I have a conveyor composed of pallets; each pallet will hold 
>100 kg, and the conveyor moves pallets past a given point at the rate of 
>1/sec. So the conveyor has a notional capacity of 6000 kg/min. *But* it 
>turns out that the parts I want to put on the conveyor are oddly shaped, 
>so that only one will fit in each pallet; each part weighs 25 kg, so I'm 
>not going to get more than 1500 kg/min through it. That's the real 
>capacity; I'll never get more throughput than that out of it. On the 
>other hand, if what I want to transport is some kind of bulk material, 
>such that (if I chose) I could put a full 100 kg of it in each pallet, 
>then my capacity is back up to 6000 kg/min. Even if I don't use it all, 
>it's there and available. 

This may be a better analogy than you think.  Are you a bulk
commodity?  

Consider the conveyor belt some more....  The operator of the belt
charges for each unit of material he moves.  However--he charges
significantly *less* than it costs to move that unit on the belt--and
makes up the difference from a government subsidy.  Then he weeps and
wails that if he only had a *larger* subsidy, he could enlarge the
capacity of 'his' conveyor belt and he's just *sure* that all the bulk
cargo will beat a path to his door...  All this without asking--does
his conveyor belt take the cargo from it's source to it's intended
destination and insisting that someone moving their *own* pallet by
some other means is taking business away from him (and insisting that
the private pallet-mover help pay for the conveyor belt).

	--Hal

        Hal Ravn, Province of the Mists, West Kingdom
        Wilson H. Heydt, Jr.,  Albany, CA 94706,  510/524-8321 (home)
-- 
Hal Heydt                    |    
Analyst, Pacific*Bell        |            You!
510-823-5447                 |    Out of the Gene Pool!
whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM    |