Elimination of dining car

evaluated

From the point of view of space utilisation, a restaurant coach is a waste of seating space. In the corresponding perspective of specific energy consumption (per seat), the elimination of a restaurant coach can be seen as an energy efficiency measure. However target conflicts between efficiency and service quality have to be taken into account.

Technology field: Space utilisation



General information

	Description
		From the point of view of space utilisation, a dining car is a waste of seating space. In the corresponding perspective of specific energy consumption (per seat), the elimination of the restaurant coach can be seen as an energy efficiency measure. For reasons of cost rather than energy efficiency, restaurant coaches are replaced by ambulant catering service in some railways (e.g. German DB) or never existed in the first place (e.g. Japanese Shinkansen). There is however a clear target conflict between efficiency goals of operators and customer wishes since a train restaurant is seen by many passengers as a real added value of railway transport.

General criteria

	Status of development: not applicable
		(no details available)

	Time horizon for broad application: not applicable
		(no details available)

	Expected technological development: not applicable
		(no details available)

	Motivation:
		Cost efficiency

	Benefits (other than environmental): medium
		Cost efficiency

	Barriers: high
		Customer preferences Attractiveness of long distance railway transport is reduced by an elimination of restaurant coaches.

	Success factors:
		Success factors Perform customer survey assessing the "willingness to pay" for the additional service quality offered by a dining car.

	Applicability for railway segments: medium
	Type of traction: electric - DC, electric - AC, diesel
	Type of transportation: passenger - main lines, passenger - high speed
		(no details available)

	Grade of diffusion into railway markets:
	Diffusion into relevant segment of fleet: (no data)
	Share of newly purchased stock: (no data)
		(no details available)

	Market potential (railways): not applicable
		(no details available)

	Example:


Environmental criteria

	Impacts on energy efficiency:
	Energy efficiency potential for single vehicle: > 10%
	Energy efficiency potential throughout fleet: 1 - 2%
		The elimination of the dining-car saves energy per seat-km for two reasons: More seats per train length Less energy consumption for comfort functions (dining-car consumes additional comfort energy) Depending on train length, the combination of both effects may reduce total energy consumption by up to 10 – 13 % per seat-km. These impressive energy savings however have to be balanced against reduced attractiveness of railway transport and the possible loss of railway passengers to other less energy efficient means of transportation, especially air travel.

	Other environmental impacts: neutral


Economic criteria

	Vehicle - fix costs: none
		Seat-specific investment costs for the entire train will clearly be reduced by eliminating the train restaurant.

	Vehicle - running costs: significant reduction
		In most cases cost efficiency will be clearly raised by eliminating dining-car.

	Infrastructure - fix costs: none
		(no details available)

	Infrastructure - running costs: unchanged
		(no details available)

	Scale effects: not applicable
		(no details available)

	Amortisation: not applicable


Application outside railway sector (this technology is railway specific)

Overall rating

	Overall potential: not promising
	Time horizon: (no data)
		The elimination of the dining car is advisable from an energy point of view. Given the loss of service quality and subsequent passenger dissatisfaction, the measure has to be judged with scepticism however.

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date created: 2002-10-04