The
time required to payback the cost of a maglev guideway is much shorter
if it carries truck trailers as well as passengers. The revenues from
carrying 2000 trailer trucks per day (less than 20% of the truck traffic
in US-80, the route between New York and Chicago) is equivalent to
the revenue from 100,000 passengers per day. If the maglev system
carried only passengers, and the ridership were 10,000 passengers
per day, the highest intercity daily air passenger traffic now carried
in the US, it would take 30 years to pay off a guideway that cost
10 million dollars per mile. The same guideway could be paid off in
only 3 years by carrying 2000 trailers daily - a small fraction of
the present truck traffic on the Interstates.
Intercity truck traffic is growing rapidly. DOT estimates for the
year 2000 truck traffic are 1.1 trillion ton miles annually, and
for the year 2025 it is estimated that truck traffic will be 2.1
trillion ton miles. In comparison, estimates for rail freight are
1.4 trillion ton miles annually in 2000, and only 1.5 trillion ton
miles in 2025. Accordingly, intercity truck traffic will not only
double in approximately 25 years, but it soon will be larger in
volume than rail freight traffic.
The
time required to payback the cost of a maglev guideway is much shorter
if it carries truck trailers as well as passengers. The revenues from
carrying 2000 trailer trucks per day (less than 20% of the truck traffic
in US-80, the route between New York and Chicago) is equivalent to
the revenue from 100,000 passengers per day. If the maglev system
carried only passengers, and the ridership were 10,000 passengers
per day, the highest intercity daily air passenger traffic now carried
in the US, it would take 30 years to pay off a guideway that cost
10 million dollars per mile. The same guideway could be paid off in
only 3 years by carrying 2000 trailers daily - a small fraction of
the present truck traffic on the Interstates.