Directions for public transport…

Last Monday was just another annual car-free day, when traffic in Warsaw was denser than usual. The possibility to take the public transport free of charge proved insufficient to induce inhabitants of Warsaw agglomeration to give up on moving around by car for that one day. I must plead I also weighed up going by bus to the underground line, but I woke up to the sight of pouring rain, the prospect of walking to the bus stop between numerous puddles has effectively put me off the idea. With some shame I also plead not to regret my decision. The traffic jam up ul. Puławska was so solid that the journey to Metro Wilanowska would have taken damn long, while in my depreciating tin I took a detour via Jeziorki, passing by the most clogged up section between ul. Karczunkowska and ul. Ludwinowska.

Over the weekend preceding the car-free day, public transport days were held. Authorities from Warsaw town hall and local public transport companies have prepared several attractions to convince some of the car-ridden sods to switch to public transport. One of such events was the train trip from Warszawa Zachodnia to Siekierki power and heating plant, through the so-called ‘coal line’, running from sidings at Okęcie, via Nowa Iwiczna, Piaseczno, Julianów, Kierszek, Konstancin, up to Siekierki. A noteworthy coverage can be found on W-wa Jeziorki. Sadly, I ran across the info on planned trips on Sunday morning when it was too late both to sign up and to reschedule my day order. The only option I had was to spot the train passing by near my house…

The venue – level crossing on ul. Mleczarska, marking the border between Piaseczno and Stara Iwiczna. The place once documented here. After over 5 years little has changed in the place. Councillors from Piaseczno have been planning to modernise ul. Mleczarska for years, yet the planning phase has lasted too long and no visible effects are observable. I heard it on the grapevine the renovation is to commence in spring next year…

The train was scheduled to pass Nowa Iwiczna around 2:10 p.m. It turned up with 25-minute delay. The sight of passenger train occupied only by coal trains is rare enough to deserve to be captured.

Koleje Mazowieckie had little choice in terms of what type of vehicle to put up for the trip, given the coal line is not electrified. This one set of the carriages is propelled by a diesel engine, hence is less eco than its counterparts running on electricity…

The train getting closer. This the first time I try out the camera in the corpo-smartphone. My private phone is Nokia 3110 Classic I’ve had since early 2008 and as long as it stays reliable, don’t feel like swapping it for a state-of-the-art phone, but I begin to discover the potential of Szajsung. The camera is up-to-the-standard, not much worse than in my compact Olympus…

As the carriages pass by, there is one other anorak (not visible on the photo), capturing the train with much more professional equipment. He turned up seconds before train came, quite probably after chasing the train from previous place of photographing…

The very idea of a trip was commendable, but putting into operation regular services running between W-wa Służewiec and Piaseczno / Julianów / Konstancin is a daydream… (Michael contends it could be a fixed for problems of commuters from those southern suburbs) I do not see it practicable for the following reasons:

1. The coal line has only one track what means the service would be a shuttle train, running back and forth between W-wa Służewiec and Konstancin.

2. The line is not electrified what means rail cars would either had to have diesel engines or it would take extra CAPEX to put up posts and wires (apart from building platforms, etc.)

3. The line was built in 1930s and since then has not undergone a thorough modernisation what means trains can run no faster than 36 kmph and implying one (or at best two) train running during rush hours which does not solve the problem of congested ul. Puławska.

4. The same line is in the winter heavily used by coal trains which run several times a day when demand for electricity and heat is the highest. Sharing one track with a passenger service is hardly imaginable…

But local election draws near, so any type of bait for voters might come in handy…

What really has to be pondered upon by folks responsible for public transport is what has to be done to persuade car-ridden commuters to use public transport. It does not take simple measures applied so far, i.e. financial incentives and disincentives. It takes a change in mindsets of the car-ridden to pull them out of their cars and to do this, someone must understand why they claim they will not give up on cars. The most often mentioned reasons are:

1. “My own car is more convenient” – sometimes the argument is hard to disprove since sometimes people travel tinned like sardines, but in general the standard of public transport has been significantly raised in the recent years. Compared to time when I commuted to high school, a huge stride has been made. Travelling by public vehicles is stress-free which I see as a big advantage. I just hop in and out, not having to worry about finding a place to park, parking meters, etc.

2. “Moving by my own car is much faster” – except for city centre, in Warsaw it is in many cases true. If I leave the car at P&R Ursynów, it takes me less than an hour to get to and from work. Late in the evening the time saving is greated and so is the comfort of not having to wait for a bus to pull out from terminus is… My journey from home to P&R takes as long as a walk to the bus stop and waiting for a bus… Not to miss a walk, I stroll between the office and the underground station which is around one kilometre.

3. “Try dropping children to school and handling some more stuff by bus” – for people having children too young to go to school on their own this is an excuse. I even noticed several people switching to public transport on days when schools are closed. This can also explain difference in traffic volume between schooldays and school holidays… How to solve this problem of logistics?

For those intent to use their cars as a matter of principle, maybe only the hard version of stick and carrot will work. Privileges for public transport and financial disincentives for private cars… The issue Warsaw is to tackle to show the superiority of public transport is to bring down fares for single journey, as the comparison of cost of moving by car for a person not having a travel-card is cheaper than buying a public transport ticket. One-per-car transport is oddly enough in many instances far less expensive. When more passengers travel in one car the disparity is even more eye-popping…

Looking ahead – in the pipeline – by the end of the year several infrastructure developments in the capital are to be completed. The last of them is the rebuilt P&R Stokłosy car park, opening scheduled on 15 January 2015 but likely to be brought forward. From my perspective it will shorten the daily distance covered by car by 3 kilometres. The one to be definitely opened before local election, due on 16 November 2014 will the central section of the second underground line, linking W-wa Wileńska Station to Rondo Daszyńskiego. Before it happens, streets closed for the period of construction are to be reopened; some wider, some narrower. This is scheduled for next Wednesday. Expect a photo coverage next weekend.

Government reshuffle

The expected course of events after former prime minister’s Tusk appointment to the office of the President of the European Council was his resignation from the position he had held for almost 2,500 days (the longest tenure in the history of Poland after 1989). A quite natural and in my humble opinion, most suitable candidate for his successor was Elzbieta Bienkowska, until recently deputy prime minister, in charge of ministry of infrastructure and development. Fortunately and unfortunately for Poland, Mrs Bienkowska will continue her career within EU structures as European Commissioner what precludes her from taking over as prime minister, a function she would definitely be eligible for (she’s got balls!).

Instead, Ewa Kopacz, former minister of health and speaker of parliament hitherto, was nominated as the new prime minister and entrusted the mission to form a new government. As my former boss told me, each new leader in an organisation, to justify they are the right person in the right place, needs to turn something upside down within the first months since taking up the new job. In the corporate world one needs a few months to get familiar with how an organisation functions before one initiates bringing about a change. In politics, before setting out to do the job, a new leader must elect members of its team. The mere change of a prime minister was hence out of question and Mrs Kopacz, to reinforce her position and independence in personal choices, had to do a reshuffle.

I dare to argue some of the nominations have been at least puzzling. Radoslaw Sikorski, despite my reservations regarding his (feigned) impeccable manners, was generally a decent foreign minister and especially well capable of representing Poland abroad. I doubt given his traits he has all makings of a good speaker of the parliament (what a demotion for him!) and I particularly have doubts how his successor, Mr Schetyna, will rise to the challenge… Nevertheless, Mr Schetyna, designated for one of the most prominent functions, is rising like phoenix from ashes. For years, as an informal opponent of Mr Tusk’s headship in the civic platform, he was on the sidelines of the Polish politics, for many bound to stay in the background until eventual withdrawal from politics. His sudden comeback is a great chance for him, but also, to put it mildly, an enormous challenge.

Mr Grabarczyk in charge of the ministry of justice… sounds ludicruous… I particularly dislike the chap (as I not tend to like people who hold their head up high) and if there is a person in the Civic Platform that could embody hubris and arrogance the party has recently stood for, Mr Grabarczyk can serve as an excellent example.

Another would-be minister who in my subjective opinion might not be the most qualified candidate, is Maria Wasiak, the new head of ministry of infrastructure and development. The very ministry, by dint of intricacy of issues it deals with, needs to be run by a person who is not only competent, but also, as Mrs Bienkowska, have balls. She was the CEO of Polish State Railways since 2011 (acting since 2010) and I do not see a significant turnaround in the workings of the Polish Rail Transport, although things could have been far worse and choice could have been far worse, given media speculation of Mr Nowak’s comeback…

I wish the new ministers all the best in their new roles, bearing in mind for some the tenures will be short. When I look at the make-up of the newly formed government, I hold the view it has been brought together to last out until the next election. And because most likely it will be less efficient then the one headed be seasoned prime minister Tusk and with fewer competent experts, odds of PiS winning the 2015 parliamentary election have just risen. Mr Tusk and Mrs Bienkowska have already made their leaps forward and jumped into EU-marked lifeboats. I am pretty sure they will foster our interests there (keeping in mind their mandate is to primary represent interests of all EU members), but Civic Platform’s strength in the Polish politics is bound to wane without them on board…

Against the Gods

Got the book by Peter Bernstein as one of farewell gifts when leaving the employer in late July. I pledge it has taken me a while to read it from cover to cover. The book, although worthwhile, is not actually immensely gripping and anything but breath-taking, albeit I realise I might not be the perfect target reader.

The content of the book revolves around manifold dimensions of risk and its presence in humans’ lives. Uncertainty regarding what the future holds has kept humans company since origins of the mankind, however centuries passed by before this uncertainty was quantified and gave rise to the concept of risk.

Uncertainty of future outcomes is an indispensable part of life, however sources of it are a matter judgement. You can put down future events to luck, fate, God’s hands or to mathematical probability. Depending on how you approach uncertainty, you may handle it in several ways. If you believe what lies ahead can only hinge upon luck, fate or God, you can only sit on your hands and wait for what future brings. However, if you put faith in existence of any rational root, presence of likelihood, you can harness tools to manage risks you come across. The concepts of risk management evolved with time, as people began to give credence that they need not to solely rely or luck, faith and Gods. Thanks to this risk could be quantified and thus ready to be handled…

The book, among many concepts highlights some that are pivotal in understanding economics on every-day level and deserve to be mentioned here…

1. Insurance is the price to pay for taking away uncertainty. Insurance premium as a matter of principle must be higher than probability of adverse event against you insure taking place. It is not only about an insurer’s profit. The case is that a humans are usually risk-averse and prefer a small, but certain loss (insurance premium) to a small probability of a big loss.

2. The bigger the sample, the more likely it is to reflect reality. The nature generally follows normal distribution. The two sentences above are clichés, however they can be employed to manage population. As the author argues, in the past there were concepts that birth regulation should ensure that only most intelligent, clever, beautiful people should proliferate to make the society in next generations more valuable… In practice, without any regulations, it works the other way round, namely the underclass have more children…

3. Volatility and uncertainty are highly correlated. Oddly enough, markets are placid when risk tolerance is high, but when market participants turn risk-averse, price fluctuations intensify…

4. Derivatives itself are not evil, but they are one of useful in risk management. It has to be noted the book was written long before 2008…

5. Although the concept that decision-makers act rationally underlies many economic theories, practice reveals the perfect world does not exist; the prospect theory justifies why this happens. In effect, people’s choices can easily be affected by their perception of the situation, which in turn can be easily manipulated…

6. Carrot, contrary to many theorem, works better than stick. Truth be told, I forgot why exactly, but maybe if this thread is left unsaid, it will prompt somebody to reach for the book…

If I were to recommend the book for reading, I would be in two minds. It definitely deserves credit for interdisciplinary character. It makes several references to religion, psychology, sociology, philosophy, mathematics, statistic and history. It actually is a handbook of risk management history, putting stuff risk managers deal with every day into historical perspective. It rather broadens horizons than introduces new concepts.

The book can be, however, an excellent read for economic laymen. It is written in a clear language and might help one familiarise with concepts I dwelled on during my studies. It should be much more interesting for somebody coming across some economic theories for the first time than to me… As for the drawback, I see one evident – it was written long before the onset of the 2008 - ??? financial crisis (its author died in June 2009, aged 90) and fails to incorporate lesson to economic reasoning learnt from the crisis in terms of risk management.

Next week’s break from blogging will be sponsored by my ‘duty’ to be off for most of the weekend…