Peter Gordon on HSR: How to make a lot of money

Peter Gordon on HSR: How to make a lot of money

"Official 2030 ridership projections are higher than for comaparable systems in Europe and Japan. When airline competition for the LA-SF run heats up, these fares have been known to plummet.

The Simon-Ehrlich wager is well known. Is there anyone out there willing to bet real money on these HSR ridership foreacasts? How about the forecast's authors?"

This suggests just what we need to ensure more accurate forecasts, payments for forecasts proportional to their accuracy. Forecasters would get paid more if their forecasts were more accurate, less if they lied. The problem is that the forecasters in transportation are looking ahead so far in time, the NPV of the difference may be too small to matter.