The Bus That Costs More Than the Snow
In the foothills of Mount Hakusan, a town of 8,400 people runs a bus route to a village of 620 residents. The village's aging rate is 41%, and 118 households have no car. Every winter the road is cleared of snow that piles up to 2.5 metres, costing the town 38 million yen a year, while the bus route costs 21 million yen a year and carries an average of 14 passengers a day. The town's total annual budget is 9.6 billion yen. In June the town announced it would reduce the route from two round trips a day to one on weekdays only, starting next April. At a residents' meeting, a 78-year-old woman said, 'Without the first bus I cannot reach the clinic before it closes.' A town officer replied that the decision was based on 'efficiency'. The town also plans to build a small clinic in the village in three years.
1. Using the geography of the Hokuriku region, explain why this village receives such heavy snow, and why the snow makes a bus route more expensive to keep here than in a flat city.
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Why the snow falls. In winter, seasonal winds blow from the northwest across the warm Tsushima Current, pick up water vapour, and are forced up against the mountains of Hokuriku, including the Hakusan range. The rising air cools and drops heavy snow on the Japan Sea side, which is why Kanazawa and the surrounding mountains have cloudy, snowy winters while the Pacific side stays dry.
Why that raises the cost. The mechanism matters because it multiplies fixed costs that a city spreads over many riders:
- The same 2.5 m of snow must be cleared from many kilometres of road for only 620 people, so clearing cost per resident is very high.
- Valley roads drift shut repeatedly, so clearing is not done once but many times each winter.
- A bus in snow runs slowly and with chains, so one round trip needs more driver-hours; the fare cannot cover those hours with 14 riders.
So the high cost is a product of terrain, climate and low density, not simply proof that the bus is wasteful.
2. Using the numbers in the setup, calculate the cost per passenger-trip, and explain what the figure does prove and what it does not prove.
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Calculation. 14 passengers a day x 365 days = about 5,110 passenger-trips a year. 21,000,000 yen / 5,110 = roughly 4,100 yen per passenger-trip. A fare is probably a few hundred yen, so the town subsidises most of each trip.
What it proves. It shows the route cannot pay for itself at current ridership, and it gives a fair comparison with alternatives such as a demand-responsive taxi.
What it does not prove. The 14 is an average. It likely hides empty midday runs and crowded early-morning winter runs, so cutting one round trip may remove the emptiest trip or the most necessary one; the table cannot tell us which. The calculation also ignores that 118 households have no car, so the alternative to the bus may be moving away, which would raise snow-clearing and school costs per remaining resident. Finally, operating cost includes the driver, the vehicle and the depot, which do not fall by half when trips are halved.
A better figure would be cost per trip by season and by time of day.
3. The town argues that the planned clinic makes the bus cut acceptable. Name two pieces of information you would need before judging that claim, and explain the reasoning behind each.
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The claim is that the clinic substitutes for the bus. A substitute must serve the same needs, at the same time, for the same people. Two checks follow from that.
1. Timing. The bus is cut next April; the clinic opens in three years. I would ask what residents are expected to do for those three years, and whether any temporary service (a taxi voucher, a weekly minibus) is budgeted. If nothing fills the gap, the claim fails as stated even if the clinic is a good long-term idea.
2. Scope of services. I would ask which treatments the clinic will offer. If residents currently travel for dialysis, specialist appointments or medicines that the clinic will not provide, they still need the trip, and the clinic does not substitute at all.
Two further checks would strengthen the judgement: the walking distance and slope from the village to the clinic and whether it is passable in snow, and whether the bus also carries students and workers, in which case the clinic is irrelevant to most riders.
In each case the reasoning is the same: compare what is lost with what is gained, for the people who actually use the service.