Many of us have read about Air-conditioned local train that has been plied on western railway from 25-12-2017. The journey from local train is expensive. One time ticket from Churchgate to Borivali is ₹ 165. Another interesting feature is this AC local train will not run on weekends. (For now, this has been announced.) This new service and operation of suburban railway is general, has lot of interesting questions.
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Case of Injustice for better revenue: looks obvious
AC local trains has not been given extra trips. Some of the trips from non-AC local trains have been changed to AC train. Since AC train is expensive and ticket checking is likely to be stringent in AC local train, those who travel from non-AC trains are less likely to travel from AC trains. Considering this, the commuters whose non-AC train trip has been replaced by AC local, on average, are likely to be worse off. (Commuter have expressed the same. This is a news in Marathi about their complaint.)
It is obvious that local train schedule has no space for additional trips unless these are added in non-peak hours, which is of little use. So it is not the case of mis-management.
Replacing non-AC local train trips with AC trips will add revenue in the coffers of railway. Commuters of non-AC local trains who have lost their trip are very less likely to substitute to other mode of transport and hence they will switch to another local train trip. So there is no loss of revenue. At the same time, some commuters, who do not mind paying the high fares or those who can spend ₹ 1640 for monthly commute from Borivali to Churchgate will switch to AC local train, adding to the revenue of railway.
So there are going to be 12 more crowded trips of non-AC local trains and there 12 trips of AC local train which will add to the revenues of the railway. So it seems to be the choice towards improving the financial position of railways. The injustice is very obvious and it comes without compensation. Only first class commuters of non-AC trains are somewhat compensated. They are likely to experience less crowding since some of the first-class travelling commuters are likely to shift to AC trains.
One way to partially compensate will be to run 15 coach non-AC train before and after the AC-local train trip. But it seems that suburban western railway doesn't have 15 coach train.
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Gifts to better-offs: why the extra-benevolent pricing?
Pricing of AC local train and of suburban railway tickets is also surprising. Most of the commuters use season tickets, for a month or for 3 months. The basis of pricing season ticket is confusing. As a producer demand one faces from commuters is more inelastic than demand from non-commuters. Hence from profitability point of view, it makes less economic sense to make the season ticket very cheap. Even more surprising, the quantity concession offered to relatively better-off first class travellers is more than other commuters.
For example, Churchgate to Andheri return fare for Ist class is ₹ 330 while for IInd class it is ₹ 20. The monthly season pass for Ist class is ₹ 1170 and for IInd class is ₹ 215. So first class travellers are paying less than 4 times of their daily commute cost while IInd class travellers are paying more than 10 times. This is absurd.
For Mumbai metro, season tickets (for 45 trips and 30 days) are at least 20 times expensive (for longer distance e.g. From Ghatkopar to Versova) and at most 38 times expensive (for shorter distances like Ghatkopar to Jagruti Nagar). For BEST buses, season tickets are about 20 times of return fare.
I am not arguing that suburban railway should exploit commuters to fullest. What I am arguing here is mass-transports should have a parity of season ticket pricing. It seems that commuters are paying 20 times of return ticket fare on other modes of mass transport and demand is high. So suburban railways can do the same. Giving cheaper pricing to better-off commuters is a mistake. Railways are not run for profit maximization, but that shouldn't mean railways should not make sensible decisions.
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Speculations about AC local trains
Now let's see the season ticket pricing of AC local trains. First class monthly season ticket is ₹ 750 and monthly season ticket for AC train is going to be ₹ 1640. Even though it looks like more than double, we have to keep in mind ₹ 750, price of non-AC first class season ticket, is likely to form a very low fraction of commuter's income. SO I make two speculations here:
1. many First class commuters will be willing to shift to AC local train.
2. In first few days, it is likely that AC train might witness some overcrowding.
3. Eventually non-AC local trains before and after AC local trains will have less crowded first class and more crowded second class.
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Mean trick of inducing self-selection
Indian railways, which in general seem to be proving very cheap commuter transport, practice, what economist will call, 'second degree price discrimination'. In second degree price discrimination, there are products of higher and lower quality. Producer plays with lower quality product so as to tie better off consumers with higher quality product. For e.g. less leg space in economy classes.
Indian railways does this neat trick by letting overcrowding in sleeper or general coaches of long route trains unchecked. It forces those who can buy AC coach tickets to do so. The ticket checking in these higher quality coaches is always up to the mark. As a result, third tier AC is simply a collection of travellers who could have travelled with sleeper coach had ticket checking been better. 😊 Then it pushes some to second tier which is relatively much more expensive. The sleeper coach and general bogey, ah, they should not be discussed.
I think the similar treatment will be given to AC local trains and adjoining non-AC trains too.
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Boon or bane?
Many believe that suburban local trains are boon to millions of commuters. Yes, they are very cheap, even more if you compare monthly cost of commuting for better off commuters in first class compartments.
But in general, cheaper commute provided by these suburban local trains is one major reason of the sprawl of the metropolitan region. Employers can hire workers from distance places at cheaper salaries, thanks to the cheap suburban railway transport. So residential dormitory suburbs are stretched till Kasara and Karjat, but employment centres do not diffuse rapidly. Net result is a metropolitan region, with rapidly declining living quality towards peripheries and inhuman commute that millions of commuters undertake everyday.