@@fishofgold6553Agreed! We need more tram signal priority. It's 2024 - traffic lights should know when a tram is approaching and give them the green light so they don't even have to slow down.
I’m Japanese and have visited Melbourne twice. I am impressed with Melbourne’s tram network and enjoyed travelling with them. You have good points of views. Stops every 200-300 metres are too much and trams should be prioritised in traffic controls. Other than them, city’s tram network is so outstanding. It’s more eco friendly and trams carry more people than buses. PS: I reckon Melburnians talk about footy more than tram networks 😂
6:45 You're missing a very important point here - Route 96 serves areas of the city that are much more densely populated than in Vermont South. Therefore, stops are closer to serve more people. If you tried removing some, the remaining ones would get very crowded during peak as passengers previously spread across multiple stops all crowd into one. Traffic light priority is the much biggest issue facing this part of the network.
@@hobog A couple of years ago they upgraded the Nicholson St section of the Number 96 tram to have massive island platforms with large shelters with the tracks being rebuilt to goo around them. It must have cost a fortune. That sort of thing is being extended throughout the city, but it will cost more and take longer than if they did more modest stop upgrades.
They did remove some stops in this process, but it is a large number of people, and they did add priority lanes, but these need to be policed (traffic cameras?)
I think the lack of traffic light priority is easily the biggest factor slowing down the trams. I think I spend more time stopped at traffic lights than I do at tram stops. Having dedicated trams lanes barely makes a difference if all the cars you passed get to go through the lights before you. In terms of accessibility, I also think they need to give much better priority to pedestrian crossings around big tram stops. Eg the St Kilda / Toorak Rd intersection. It can sometimes take up to 5 mins waiting to cross 2 tiny pieces of road to get to the tram stop. While the raised tram stops are much nicer and safer, they remove the concept of “when a tram stops, you stop”, meaning my tram can pull in to the stop but I’m stuck waiting for a bunch of drivers who have the green light to drive past. And another thing that would be cool and could reduce unnecessary stops, is a stop request button at the tram stops. Eg you push a button for the number tram you want to catch, then a sign lights up for that route indicating that the driver needs to stop. Rather than drivers having to guess if someones standing at a stop wants to catch that tram, they go on the reliable information from the lit up sign (or a hand wave if the sign is faulty). Something else that would be useful would be to re-purpose the Authorised Offiers. They simply make they journey feel uncomfortable, even for regular paying travelers. These people should instead be used to issue fines to drivers who block tramways and pedestrian crossings. I see drivers in this position every day I walk anywhere in the CBD. It seems to be a pandemic that drivers can’t judge when it is okay to go into an intersection. And they continue to do it because there is no enforcement. Give those Authorised Officers a more meaningful purpose and put the fines toward the PT budget. I am certain they will make a lot more money from fining drivers than tram passengers. In the interest of safety however, I still think we should have some Authorised Officers on trams, especially at night times, however they should only be there to keep an eye on passenger safety and preventing vandelism, and should never be checking MyKi tickets. Even passengers who don’t pay for PT are doing a service by not driving a car. Every passenger should be valued for their contribution even if they aren’t doing so monetarily.
Traffic light priority is crucial. In Stockholm the PriBuss system has been running since 1992. Giving priority in intersections whenever a bus is behind schedule. Saving 10-20 seconds per traffic light is super effective.
I also forgot to mention how badly we need a couple of East-West tram lines across north Melbourne. It’s silly that I have to travel into the city just to go back out on a different line, turning what should be a 10 min journey into 40. In those cases it’s just as easy to walk.
all of these suggestions are really good. i think your point about the AOs is really good - enforcing drivers in the CBD to make PT easier and more accessible is sorely needed.
@@xr6lad Maybe what needs to be clarified is that it isn’t just about prioritising Tram lights over car lights, but also about timing the Tram lights a lot better, and actively responding to an oncoming Tram.
I think it's worth pointing out that the problems with Melbourne's trams were in fact, a big part of why other cities closed tramways down. Trams in the 50s and 60s were slow, didn't cover anywhere near enough of their rapidly growing cities, and they lacked the passing loops and on time consistency to run express services. For these reasons most cities began experimenting with diesel or trolley buses. Cities that flirted with buses generally wound up going all in. Melbourne, for reasons you outlined, opted (initially) for a hybrid system with trams where they already existed and buses elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, the tram routes Melbourne kept still exhibit the same problems today that put them at serious risk of closure in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Since then, cities have embarked on programs of building modern light rail. This looks a lot like legacy trams, but it (mostly) designs out the problems that legacy systems had. Melbourne is no different, building modern light rail over the top of legacy trams or shorter heavy rail lines, and down main road medians. Interestingly, Melbourne arguably hasn't built that much more modern LRT than Sydney (which was starting from zero). I expect that this is because building modern light rail is politically fraught, whether you already have trams or not.
Or using common sense - your not going to be able to build light rail on most lines. I really wish people would look at the actual landscape before making plans. Many trams run down narrow roads - and they are major roads. Those roads will not be closing for trams.
However 24/7 clearways will certainly help and before the shop keepers complain studies have show vast majority of those shops get the majority of their customers by tram, cycling or on foot and if they drive they often park hundreds of metres away normally in side streets. If your business is mostly online or has few walk in customer are you in the best cost effective location most likely it isn't when a suburban office park or light industrial area would suit these business better.
You raise a point with politics - even if the system isn't as efficient as it could be, by virtue of the fact that the tramways are there at all relieves a lot of issues that other cities are having in even getting construction projects started at all. Better to have a less-than-ideal system than no system
As a wheelchair user it's even worse than the fact there's only 30% level access tram stops, because only approx 40% of the tram fleet are accessible low floor trams. And the routes with level access stops are not necessarily served by low floor trams (e.g. a large portion of the 75 route near burwood/vermont is level access stops yet it's fleet is exclusively high floor trams). Because of this, when you factor in the requirement for both accessible tram and tram stop, the overall accessibility of the network is actually a disappointing 15-20%. From personal experience only the route 96 is 100% accessible stops and trams.
I think they are ordering more low floor trams for some routes which arrive in a year or two, as well modifying some stops to be level access but it's extremely slow progress. Like I think they did less than 5 level access stops during the 2 year period of covid lockdowns. It may be after my lifetime that the whole network is accessible, though tbf I appreciate any small improvements, even if slow. @@Secretlyanothername
If they'd bought trams with ramps or lifts, every stop would be accessible. Instead, they chose to delay the process by decades, spending billions of dollars, screwing up traffic and removing vast amounts of parking areas.
I'm not sure if I imagined it, but I think I remember reading, how trams themselves, will have a feature built in to have a drop down platform, making each stop accessible. But I hope I'm remembering that right. But it'd be lovely
Thanks for the video. Excellent as usual. Very good points. Another option would be closing some streets to cars. A less controversial option is removing the side parking and making these lanes for cars or turning lanes. This would greatly improve traffic flow as one person parallel parking can slow traffic a lot, plus the middle lanes could then become dedicated tram lanes. Another is smart traffic lights that act more like a police person would (e.g. let more cars through, change immediately after the last car goes through, and never go red when nobody is waiting). Another good option is no right turn. This holds up traffic all the time. If people were forced to pick smarter routes then they wouldn’t hold up traffic all the time. If we both greatly improved traffic flow, made trams a priority, removed excessive tram stops, as you suggest, then I believe this would make a huge improvement to tram speed. I’m also going to keep mentioning that trams pollute less than electric buses (due to no tyre dust, and more efficiency) until I hear it mentioned by more than just me :)
I can't remember which company it was...maybe UPS, in the US they found that it was actually faster for their drivers to make a series of right turns rather than a left turn (mindful of driving on the right there). Restricting turns during peak times would definitely help, and I'm also in favour of restricting parking on main roads - keep that to side streets and car parks. However, it must be noted that street parking actually has SOME benefits to the street scene in that you have one less lane of moving traffic, and a buffer is provided between pedestrians and moving traffic - but of course, this needs to be balanced - so perhaps a simple way to calm traffic while clearways are in operation? Variable speed limits in urban areas is a difficult thing to instruct, however.
great video. i've been living in melbourne for 2 years but in the southeast suburbs where there's no tram service (or train near me...) i'm about to move to an area with a tram stop within a 5 minute walking distance and i'm really looking forward to riding on trams more often and experiencing all of the pros and cons of this kind of PT
I'm from the UK and visited Melbourne on holiday this time last year. Used the tram (and train) network extensively and I can only say you're absolutely spot on with everything you've highlighted and suggested here. Off topic for this video, but it's fair to say that commuter train speeds in Melbourne (and Sydney where I've also previously visited) are also very slow in comparison to other countries. It is frustrating how long it takes to get somewhere - on what it is an affordable, extensive and good quality public transport network - compared to the UK.
You are so right! The government did not impose penalties upon itself for late running and trams being turned short of destinations to keep the service running on time. All penalties written into the privatization contract should be revoked to allow the current operator to adjust the trams as necessary to keep the trams running on time. The trams will never run as they did when the trams were shorter, had a conductor on board and there were no super stops stealing precious road space from other road users.
My mum always said that the problem with Melbourne roads is that there's one lane for parking, and one lane for trams, and the cars just have to switch between the two. Ideally all trams should be light rail, but at the least have their own designated lane, otherwise any major arterial roads that have both cars and trams should ban on-street parking. Also all tram stops on roads that are wide enough should automatically be on a platform in the middle of the road at a traffic light intersection, so that passengers can cross with the pedestrian lights, and the cars don't have to randomly stop whenever the tram stops to let people off.
Many places don’t have dedicated tram lines because of the outer lanes on those roads being filled with parked cars so they would also have to have clear ways enforced while those peak period tram lines are active.
Tram priority, both at intersections and exclusive lanes free from cars, should take priority.. Removal of stops can be considered after that. Trams have a lot of value in their convenience for relatively short trips, which would be diminished with the removal of stops. Longer distant commuting is better served by the rail network when it exists.The larger distance between stops along the newer extensions (like 86 and 75) reflect the inefficient car-oriented urban development in the outer suburbs into which they extend.
Good point, I agree. I hadn't really thought that far and wanted to highlight the points about priority over cars and that in the more central areas, the a greater distance between stops would not be appropriate.@@itechcircle9410
@@mudelta4068 Intersection priority can definitely be done without touching the stops (It's just reprogramming the lights or adding sensors). Stop distance needs careful consideration, some are uselessly close together but a general balance needs to be maintained to ensure adequate coverage.
I've watched the many videos of Melbourne trams (driver POV) from two loyal contributors, and I can see some of the problems. There are many intersections where the tram sits at a traffic light for quite a length of time, and inserting a quick 10-second tram interval into the sequence wouldn't seriously impede car traffic. Investing in sensors and sophisticated traffic signal programming wouldn't be that expensive and could be spread out over time. On some streets there isn't room for a dedicated right of way, though a small part of the solution would be if the city actively promoted off-street parking and parking on parallel streets behind the stores in some areas. That would free up two lanes where cars presently park. There are at least two or three lines that could be extended to metro stations.
You're right about the traffic lights, and I just don't understand why every city I have ever visited still uses the really dumb logic systems for traffic lights that have been around for decades. You can run games on your smartphone now that would have required a high end PC 20 years ago, the technology is cheap and abundant. I just don't understand why intersections in urban areas aren't monitored by cameras which are smart enough to figure out how many pedestrians, cars, buses and trams are waiting in each street, and how to manipulate the sequence accordingly. It's near-enough passive, you don't need to energize induction loops, it's cheap, the technology is there.
When you travel in Melbourne's trams, you stop at traffic lights, you stop behind the tram that is stuck ahead and sometimes behind cars too. Some journeys you are spending a greater amount of time being stationary than moving. It's like a worse version of the bus, totally defeats the purpose of of using public transit. The ones in Adelaide run much better.
You have to remember that most tram stops are on the arrival side, not the departure side. There is actually a lot of hidden traffic light priority - where the traffic signal is held at green, or it triggers the right turn arrow to remove any turning traffic as the tram stops, to give it priority after finishing passenger embarking / disembarking. It is not commonly seen, and without it, the trams would be even slower!
True, but I think stops should be on the intersection departure side. Trams should get a preemptive green and then only need to slow down and stop if passengers are embarking/disembarking.
it doesn't really matter if most stops are arrival side because it still slows the trip down. whether there's extra walking before or after (or both) the transit trip, the whole journey will still be faster with less stops
@@zen1647 If they are left where they are, priority could be improved by allowing closure of doors by drivers to trigger signal priority. With long enough stop spacing and high enough patronage, stop skipping would get very rare, as on many European systems, many of which also have request stopping. For example, Gothenburg has a handful of little used stops but apart from that, stop skipping is mostly done late at night.
I think you've put together an excellent video. Your voice over is clear and very easy to listen to. Well done! You've brought up a topic that makes a dedicated corner of the internet want to rise out of their chair and comment. :-) I definitely think the accessibility problems with trams is far greater than the speed problem. I recently had to help a young mother try to get her tram on a B Class Tram and boy... that's a bugger! As per the comments in this thread, I think there are a few issues to consider: (1) the assumption made in this video is that one takes a tram from one end of the line to the other. Or from the city to the end of the line. Many commuters will take the tram to the nearest train station and them resume their journey. (2) the increased number of stops is important for accessibility, so that there isn't massive walking distances to houses and other places. Reducing the number of stops then turns the tram into a half-assed train, which then has no point of difference. (3) the speed is often not that much of a problem. I know from my home it takes ~35 minutes via the tram to get to the city. Therefore I plan accordingly around it. If I was in a hurry, I would get a tram to a train station and change. I think "speed" is only questioned when comparing other systems. For example, yes, Melbourne is far slower than, say, the Tube. However, dare I say: the speed is something you just get used to?
Tram priority at traffic lights is a must and the same applies to buses. Reducing tram stops doesn't mean quicker running times especially a long higher density routes. We need to remember a tram is to move large number of people between stops, wider spaced tram stops like 400-500 mtrs is good for lower density outer suburban routes and stops 700/800 mtrs apart on dedicated right of way/reserved track like on the former St Kilda and Port Melbourne rail corridors on the Airport West route from Footscray. We need to encourage people to use PT not discourage people with reduce stops which also applies to buses.
I don't think reducing the amount of stops won't make much difference. The problem is where trams share the road with other traffic, rather than having a dedicated lane. And in places like Victoria Parade, can't be really be improved.
In 1961 2 routes in Melbourne’s Western suburbs were closed down permanently, one replaced by a MMTB bus, the other not. A tram line down Footscray rd to Footscray and then to Brooklyn and North Altona would be a nice start.
I agree with your idea about tram priority, in that sharing the road with cars, slow the trams down big time. With the 86 outbound crawling on both Smith St, and later High Street both for kilometres.
I agree completely with the points made here. The aforementioned 96 is my local tram and it's horrendously slow, taking much longer to get to the city than driving or even cycling, and being only slightly faster than walking. There are far too many stops, I'd happily walk another 5 minutes to a more distant stop if it saved 10 minutes of sitting around in a stalled tram. We also need to get parked cars off of roads with trams, as these force moving cars into the tram lane, frequently delaying the trams, as well as getting in the way of boarding passengers, and causing a hazard by reducing visibility.
The 96 is definitely faster than walking, sometimes faster than riding, and depending on where you’re going it can be faster than driving. Only the northern section is really fast though, through the city and the southern section is pretty slow. I used to live near the northern end of the line and it was quicker for me to get to school on the other side of the city on the 96 than by car. During peak hour riding can be faster, but otherwise the tram is. Now I need to get to work on Fitzroy St in St Kilda, the 96 from Southern Cross is quite slow. The issue isn’t tram stop distance though, Batman Park is the only stop too close to others, but it’s used to interchange with the 35/70/75 and for trams to terminate/turn around. The real issue is traffic light priority, not enough frequent trams so it takes 3-4 minutes for people to squeeze onto the tram, poorly maintained light rail bridges where the tram has to slow down, and no train station at the Exhibition & Convention Centre/Crown so people take the tram from Southern Cross as it’s not a journey designed for walking. More frequency smaller trams, such as if the 12 went down Spencer St from LaTrobe St, will help take the load of people who aren’t Melbourne locals and don’t realise they can walk to the Collins St stop to get a 12/109 to Crown or a convention. Infrastructure improvements to the bridges are definitely needed. Or ideally turning the 96 southern section back into a train line (ideally direct from Southern Cross with a stop at the Convention Centre), in which case you could remove a couple stops like Fraser St.
how is the 96 slow? the St Kilda section of it is separated from road traffic and a huge portion of it runs along a former railway line. it's only somewhat slow going up Fitzroy St because the stops are 10 meters apart
@@QazzyTransport As the stops on route 96 are hardly ever skipped, stop consolidation would increase passenger loads and thus lengthen dwell time at each stop.
Having ridden buses and trams, and driving around Melbourne recently - I got to say that you're definitely right on the traffic lights. Whether or not they have priority systems built into them already - the lights in Melbourne are almost spiteful. They're pretty dumb, sitting with a green phase for nothing approaching on that side, and then only allowing a few vehicles through on each sequence before going back to red for a stupidly long time. Smarter traffic lights would certainly help with this issue - I believe Google is dabbling in trying to help solve this using traffic and pedestrian movement data in lieu of cameras. I think you are definitely correct regarding stop density - in this day and age, trams simply do not serve this purpose. Localized transit is normally served by buses, with trams in most cities providing the 'heavy lifting' in between buses and commuter rail. Perhaps the intermediate stops, rather than being removed, could be downgraded to halts with minimal services to reduce maintenance, and are request stops only at certain times? Service is maintained in that situation, but you speed up the service and lower cost.
I don't know how downgrading intermediate stops at certain times would work. Outside of the city centre, trams only stop on request anyway. It's just that there's usually a request at every stop, at least during busy times. Perhaps certain stops could be made "non able-bodied" only, whereby those with a disability or travelling with small children could request the stop via the Tramtracker app. Not sure exactly how this would work.
Thanks for an interesting video. One thing that Melbourne does have in its favour with the tram stops is that the tram only have to stop at many of them when passengers actually want to get on or get off and they don't have compulsory stopping at every stop, which was a major problem with Sydney's original tram system. I definitely agree that there should be more dedicated tramway lanes free of other road traffic blocking the trams where it is possible.
The thing is that we stop on demand at nearly all intermediate stops, even at ones so busy they are almost never skipped, in which case, requesting them might seem pointless. On the Glenelg tramline in Adelaide, they only stop on demand on the off-street section, the stop announcements actually indicating that. They have compulsory stopping on the street running sections, the stop announcements simply stating what the next stop is. This sounds like a better system if the compulsory stops are busy enough and the request stops less so. Many European tram systems also have request stopping but stop skipping is often less common. For example, Gothenburg has a handful of little used stops and apart from these, stop skipping in Gothenburg is mostly done late at night. In Prague, trams only stop on demand at a few stops, and when the next stop is one of these stops, a bell icon appears where the next stop is displayed.
The CBD and very inner suburbs do benefit from the slower speeds and closer stops, keeping the paths clear for pedestrians, but it does make sense to remove a few stops in the mid and outer suburbs. But, the general consensus of the network is that it was built to cover a city that doesn't really exist anymore, now only serving as a rapid network within it that's best used for shorter trips. If you can use trains to get the long distance, it will always be better to ride them and use the trams to get you within walking distance than get the tram all the way
Good video and it’s great to see robust and respectful conversation in the comments. I live in the inner south east so we are well served by the network but I appreciate your point about a lack of services in the west. With the amount of new suburbs I wonder if an opportunity to boot a network that doesn’t come into the CBD but instead connects to the rail network has already been missed. Secondly, I believe the network was deliberately built to not connect with rail back in the day. You mentioned the 5 and Darling station but the 3 is also not connected to Malvern East station, literally just 950m away at the end of the same road it terminates on (and would link the Glen Waverley and Pakenham/Cranbourne and Frankston lines by tram from Caulfield. Madness these small extensions don’t happen.
Excellent video! I 100% agree on everything! Another thing I could see helping is an express line on St Kilda Rd - city bound in the morning and opposite direction in the afternoon.
How to fix easy 1. get rid of the budget operator 2. BAN PARKED CARS!!!! Melbourne is a mess and it's all to do with greed and money... Imagine how quick the trams would be with NO parked cars everywhere
However, stop consolidation can increase passenger loads at each stop, meaning longer dwell times at each stop. It is going to be most beneficial where stop skipping is currently most common.
They should remove at least half of the stops outside of the city core. There's no reason to have 200 meter stop spacing, even in the city center, let alone the suburbs. Ideally, there should be one tram stop per suburban arterial, as they're generally 800 meters long, and it only takes 5-8 minutes minutes to walk 400 meters. Next, they should give some healthy road diets to assure that there's much greater dedicated lanes or track, especially closer to the city core. It might also be worth it to look at the busiest routes and see if it's worth it to bring them up to modern LRT standards. Also, it would be nice to see more orbital tram routes going through the central suburbs and connecting to major rail hubs.
Stop consolidation will actually work best where stop skipping is most common and is really ineffective where passenger loads at existing stops are much greater and dwell times longer.
I wish we had trams out west. There is that one that goes to Footscray, but out further there is nothing. There used to be a tram that ran down the princes hwy past Seddon and Yarraville and Kingsville. I wish that was still there. I can imagine it still being used. I also think a tram way out in Hoppers Crossing and Werribee would be great, not necessarily coming into the city but to get people around out there from Werribee plaza to the train stations for instance. That part of metro Melbourne is so chock a block with cars
Good video. I agree that traffic light priority and sharing lanes with cars are the biggest issues. I'm not so keen on removing stops from high-density areas. Also, it wasn't just cars that killed trams in many cities, it was also busses.
There's a *PERFECTLY VALID REASON* for Melbourne's trams to run slow: *PUBLIC SAFETY!!!* Trams share street space with other types of vehicular traffic(cars, buses, motorbikes, lorries, bicycles) but above all, the trams share space with *PEDESTRIANS!* It is only where the tram may have a reserved track area secluded from the rest of traffic where the tram may run at a faster speed. So, @CityMoose, your question is rather ridiculous.
I like to ride a bicycle in Melbourne, and racing with trams is something I often do. From my testing, they tend to max out at around 35km/h, but since they stop quite often, their average speed on Swanston street factoring in stops is more like 12 km/h.
Great video! The tram network should also be viewed in the context of the accompanying train system which serves the outer suburbs of Melbourne more efficiently than a very long tram route ever could. I'd like to see more quick local tram routes that link up with nearby train stations.
Great video, thanks for sharing. I don't think anyone would disagree that providing tram priority through signalised intersections is preferred. It's then how do you manage residual risks to all other forms of users - vehicles queuing unsafety in areas of high risk - pedestrian crossing intervals - pedestrian / cycling refuge storage in and around the intersection - phasing of the signals (how will it remember which phase it was ment to jump to next) etc. Food for thought
Frankly, the biggest advantage to the tram system IS that the stops are close. Hopping on and off trams for short trips is what made Melbourne's tram system incredibly convenient, especially in the city centre (before they screwed them up by making the now-accessible stops further apart). If you're going on a really long trip, most of us go by train. Alternately, just enjoy your book if you like going on long tram rides. Also, i) Melbourne trams DO trigger traffic-light priorities, and ii) Most shared tram-lines have yellow lane markings: a) solid line means cars can't drive on the tram lane during peak hours, and b) broken lines mean cars can drive on them but must get out of the way of trams and definitely don't hold them up doing a turn from that lane.
The tram stop issue is definitely one I've noticed. I used to go on the route 75 tram and the stops at Koyoongkoot road and Berkeley st (stops 33/34) are ridiculous. They're only around 120m from each other.
There are several tram corridors that should remove car traffic entirely. Chapel Street is an obvious one. Driving on Chapel Street is slower than walking, and there is nowhere near enough parking to support cars. Cars should be banned on streets like this to prioritise trams, and to allow the retail businesses to generate more profit. It's already at the point where everyone avoids driving down Chapel if they can, so the City Council needs to pull the pin and remove cars entirely from that corridor. Brunswick Street is in a similar situation. Re-routing the 75 through the Hawthorn section Burwood Road and down Camberwell Road would reduce congestion on Riversdale and serve all of the businesses, residents, the university, and the train stations far better than what currently exists.
Most traffic lights appear to operate an anti-priority system. About 5 seconds before the tram arrives, regardless of whether it is stopping to pick up/put down passengers, the light will turn red - to the point that on my bike I know to try to accelerate to keep 100m clear in front of the approaching (from front or rear) tram so I don't miss the green light - once I'm clear 1 light cycle in front of a tram, I've got a clear way all the way into work before all the cars are stuck behind the tram. The justification will be simple - to get the red light out of the way while the tram is stopped for passengers, and give the traffic no reason to try to jump the tram and potentially run over alighting passengers (no point being impatient when the lights are red anyway, not that that ever stopped a F150 driver). But the red light cycle is too long, and unconditional on passenger loading, so the tram sits at the front of the queue, unable to move, for far too long, at every single controlled intersection. It seems so deliberately bad to me that I almost think they've accidentally inverted a logic flag in SCATS, and no-one's noticed because everyone's stuck in traffic unable to see around themselves and doesn't get a broad view of the network. Maybe traffic engineers need to have a compulsory 6 year stint riding bicycles before they're allowed to design road control systems.
Definitely - the status of a traffic light ahead makes absolutely no difference to a tram that's boarding. It would be very easy to change the design of newer T lights that they recognise when a tram actually WANTS to cross (pressure sensor, transponder, etc).
I always feel like it needs to be said in these discussion on the 'removal of tram networks across the globe' that while there was certainly political interference going on, when you consider the context of the time, and anticipated planning needs of the next few decades, trams no longer stacked up, and for most cities merely maintaining the existing networks would have resulted in rapidly depreciating returns while failing to provide service for newer developed suburbs. The removal of trams across the road was predicated off 2 decades of decline in their relevance. When street trollies ruled the urban landscape they were basically the only way to rapidly travel an urban area without a horse. As gasoline powered vehicles became more and more practical, the need for street trollies declined. With the emergence of affordable private vehicles and busses that could adequality perform the main role of street trollies without the limitation of the required infrastructure, scaling back and (in most cases) removing tram networks was sensible. In most jurisdictions it's only 40-50 years later that the urban environment conditions have swung back in favour of public transport investment as the best practice option. It's not that you can't predict this swing. We had cities with massive populations around the world already, and congestion is an issue that predates the motor-vehicle. The real issue is that you can't reasonably plan for such a long timeline, nor can you be expected to spend significant amounts of public money on something the public views as not being useful to them in the now. To keep tram networks would have been a gamble on providing the best possible service for residents 50 years in the future rather then providing the best possible service for residents in the immediate future. It's a difficult sell to the voting public, to spend the transport budget on something that isn't able to adequality serve the full public, for the sake of people who wont be born for 4 or 5 decades. In this context Melbourne really is anomalous in their decision to stick with the trams, and there are various factors at play that helped that outcome succeed (I believe the Melbourne network was more up to 'modern' standards in 1960 then most of the Australian networks, and required less immediate investment to maintain acceptable standards, that an a huge wave of public support for the trams). It also really must be emphasised, without reservation, that the trams removed around the world really aren't the equivalent of the tram systems being built today. That is why I have been using the term 'street trolley' rather then light rail. Modern light rail systems almost universally feature dedicated right of ways, lanes free of car traffic, signal priority, high quality high capacity rollingstock and a higher quality standard for stops. A street trolley system from the 1940-60s really isn't much more then a modern bus service. I often see people complain about how they use to be able to catch a tram from one specific location in Brisbane to another, completely ignoring the fact that there is a modern bus route that almost identically replicates the old tram route they're talking about. As you highlight in this video, the portions of the Melbourne network that haven't received real investment over the past decades have really fallen off, and I'd argue that in that undeveloped form, they really aren't much better then a bus. Don't get me wrong, they are 'better' then a bus, not not so much so that you'd have gone out of your way to build it from scratch. You wouldn't spend millions to have a slightly better bus, you'd spend millions to have a significantly better bus. I do think the complete removal of trams in cities across the world was short-sighted to some degree. Generally speaking I think the best option for most cities would have been to retrain a core network of a few key routes to be modernised, while shedding external, lower utilised routes. In my home town of Brisbane, there are a couple of the old tram routes that I think could well have been preserved and upgraded overtime to provide what would have been an invaluable service today. Likewise, there are many routes that I think wouldn't have been worth keeping. The problem with this though is that a lot of urban planning is strategically driven. The 'right' answer is heavily based on your overall objectives. The dominate planning perspective at the time was that inner-city suburbs would have little development while outer city expansion would be the prime mover of the next few decades. With that in mind there is just very little incentive to dedicated additional resources for the inner city areas you aren't planning to push growth in, particularly when there is no reason to believe they'll actually be necessary in the next few decades. Despite being a massive train fanboy, I really don't think there was anything unreasonable about the removal of tram networks across the globe in the 40s-60s, and I don't think it's a given that we'd be better off today if they hadn't removed them.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Although there was a lot of skullduggery with the auto industry (like buying up tram lines then shutting them down), as well as campaigns to sway public opinion - I think the same would have probably happened regardless. You can't really blame people for making decisions which were what they considered best at the time - who knows what sort of decisions we are making these days which would be considered disastrous in 50 years. In some ways, tearing up the tram lines 70 years ago may not necessarily have been all that bad, as it means that more efficient light rail systems are able to be installed to replace them. The problems with cost and politics is a fault of the system, not of the tram. If we actually prioritized our public spending with a view to long term benefits, most cities ought to have a decent light rail system by now.
I am sorry but I struggle to find the benefits of light rail. Heavy rail has some major benefit. It has a dedicated corridor and speeds can easily reach 110km or more (depending on rolling stock and network). They do not need to worry about traffic. Trams do not have that. They are more like a bus on tracks and have all the short coming of a bus. That means you could place an articulated bus (bendy bus) on a tram route and provide a similar service with the existing roads. No need to invest billions on infrastructure. We better off investing in heavy rail and using buses when heavy rail is not suitable.
Rotterdam tram in the Netherlands are also very slow due to some tramlines shares the streets with cars in the older districts. But also the lack of priority and the rolling stock is just not suitable for tight curves. So they manouvre curves very slowly...
Does Rotterdam have request stopping. I have looked up how to use Rotterdam's trams but could not find information on that. I know Amsterdam has request stopping but I don't know how common stop skipping is there.
While I think you've made some great points on accessibility, increasing the prevalnce of dedicated tram lanes, and improving interchange connections, comparing the back end of route 75 (one of the longest tram lines in the world) to an inner suburbs line like the 96 without talking at very least talking about density is really missing the mark here...
#1 issue I see is the route 12. It runs along Collins St along with the 11, 48 & 109. All of these trams are newer models (with the exception of the occasional 48 but that is still a full size tram) The 12 is an old class that is half the size of the rest, people constantly crowd the doorways and it takes 2-3 times longer for people to disembark and embark the tram which holds up the rest of the trams behind it. To make matters worse it’s almost a guarantee that if there’s a 10 minute gap in trams the first one to arrive is always a 12 and 100 people try to cram into it.
Relevant to the current high number of tram stops is that in the cable tram days, trams often didn't stop, but just slowed down and men at least simply jumped on. My granddad, who came to Melbourne in 1917, said that if a tram actually stopped for a man (by himself), it was a bit of an insult. Old trams also had no doors, so there was no time spent opening and closing them. And even in the days of the Ws, (which had either no doors or doors that could be opened before stopping, and only one step) it was much quicker for (most) single passengers to get off the tram and the tram to go again, which meant less time per stop, especially in the evening. The current stop layout was clearly designed for a different era.
The final point is definitely wrong. The 96 travels along one of the busiest roads (the same if not busier than lygon street and sydney road) with little to no tram priority, the 75 is along a much less used street with about double the tram priority. A better example would be the 59, which accross the past 40 hears or so has seen a reduction to just over half the number of stops, but only an increase of ~2 minutes of speed over ~70 years (based off city to moonee ponds distance)
3:22 The route 5 was meant to serve the suburb of Malvern, though it terminates in east Malvern. Darling is not a suburb and is in East Malvern, that makes 2 routes to east Malvern. Additionally darling is in a neighbourhood block and you have to go through side streets to get through, it would be nice to have a connection though.
Agree with all points. It's about time there was a big transformation to fix Melbourne's car problem. Fixing the trams should be a part of that process (as well as implementing other strategies like prioritising walking and cycling) to reclaim our streets.
Speaking of points, another thing slowing down our trams is compulsory stopping at most facing points, and until recently *all* facing points. There are now some with a speed restriction through them but apparently drivers have to check the points are set correctly themselves. Facing points at busy junctions should be operated and visually checked by personnel other than drivers, those being the personnel who would check the points are set correctly before the trams get there. Where there are driver operated points, they should work on the principle that one tram on a junction at a time cannot run into another even if the points are wrongly set unless that tram had to stop behind them anyway, such as places where and times when the points can be checked during dwell time. So, for example, if there are tram priority signals, only one tram would get signal priority at a time unless it has to stop right behind the points and won't, upon proceeding, pass another tram going over any other facing points non-stop.
I think it's good to remember that there are a lot of disabled, elderly and otherwise physically less capable people using transit. Removing tram stops could make transit use harder for those kinds of people. For me, an increase of 200 meters to closest tram stop would not be a problem at all, but for someone else, it very much could be a deal breaker, forcing them to rely on taxis and such. One of my mom's co workers, for example, takes train to Helsinki city center and a bus from there to her workplace, instead of walking 800 meters from previous train station, adding at least 20 minutes to her journey. Here in Finland, we do see extreme cold, snow, and ice, which during certain times of the year, makes being outside very unpleasant. Okay, enough of this. Another thing I'm quite surprised you didn't touch, is that Melbourne is large, perhaps even too large for its population base. Most of Melbourne is composed of single family homes and have a density of just 500-3000 people per km2. Helsinki has a land area of 220 km2 (660,000 pop), while Melbourne has a land area 2500 km2 (5,000,000 pop). Both have roughly the same area dedicated to nature (15-20%). However, if Melbourne were to have the same level of density as Helsinki, which isn't that dense to begin with, Melbourne should have 7,7 million people. So, here are some solutions to Melbourne's tram problem: Short term: 1. Removing cars from tram tracks on most sections. In order to achieve this, some narrower streets would likely be converted to pedestrian only (excluding service vehicles) and have parking spots removed. (The more I look at Melbourne's tram tracks, the more monumental this task looks like, but I'll keep it here because in reality, it is possible to close vast number of streets from cars just like that. It's a political choice.) 2. Tram priority at all points of the journey. Signaling etc.. 3. Tram stop distance adjusting. Some are simply too close to each other, but I don't think every stop should be 500-600 meters apart. That's too much. Since many parts have practically no tram stop infrastructure at all, this should be pretty easy. Mid term: 1. Platforms. There are many places where there are no platforms at all, just a sign on a sidewalk telling that trams do stop here. Those kinds of "stops" slows down service needlessly. 2. Increased service frequency. If a tram comes every 10 minutes, an average person waits 5 minutes. If that is reduced to 5 minutes, an average person waits 2.5 minutes. Higher tram frequencies can also make trams faster due to fewer stops per run. Likely not during rush hour, but certainly during other times. Long term: 1. Better connectivity to other lines, extensions and new lines to underserved areas (west), as you mentioned in the video. 2. More focused land use around transit stops. Single family homes along transit stops should be slowly upgraded to higher density low and midrise buildings. Furthermore, external expansion should be axed entirely. These are just my thoughts, maybe they're good ones, maybe not. Anyway, thank you for reading and have a nice day!
Regarding what you mentioned at the start regarding accessible transit - do you think that there is a market for a new type of paratransit in urban areas for those groups? We have new vehicle technologies which would be able to provide a taxi-like service using small electric scooters (or whatever) which could be paid for or heavily subsidized by the city. Users with extra requirements could get the additional support they require whilst not being under any sort of pressure to hurry onto a tram, or have anxiety about finding a space. The downside I can immediately see with this is that it smells a bit like segregation, and would remove some impetus to make trams and buses accessible throughout.
Malvern Road is the stopper for extending the 5 to Darling Station, it's too narrow without imposing a 24/7 Clearway. The plan that's been on the boards for longer is extending the 6 to Glen Iris Station and potentially further.
4:45 history repeats itself trams were removed in the first place because of cars getting in the way and causing traffic which slowed down trams(which ofcourse people took as 'the trams are slow and are causing traffic') yet again cars get in the way and caused trams to be slow which people blame on the trams themselves
Melbourne's network is only the biggest because they kept most of it in place whilst other cities experimented with diesel motor buses. It should be clearly noted that Melbourne never BUILT the biggest network. Sydney's former system had an extra 100km or so of track and around 1,600 trams at its peak and there were times when trams would be stabled next door to special events (such as the 1930 Sydney Cup at Royal Randwick) and used to take travellers to strategic locations to join other lines for the trip home. The racecourse had a six-platform tram stop and the stabling area could hold 400 trams, which were then used to ferry punters away from the racecourse. There is a video elsewhere on RUclips that shows this great example of mass transit at work. I commend Melbourne for keeping most of its network but one of the compelling reasons was not to preserve history, it was because Melbourne had no freeways at the time other cities were becoming more car-centric.
Yes I agree that a 10% reduction in stops is required, which that are doing with the upgrades (Latrobe St, RT30 4 out of 11 stops are closing, I would say one every 600m, at the moment I am in a wheelchair to travel on PT and have to travel over 2k for my nearest accessible stop, despite 2 lines being within 100m of home. and yes traffic priority is a must,
I think generally for trams the journey time of 25 to 30 minutes of the major trip attractor, in the case of Melbourne trams that would be the Melbourne CBD, is more or less the limit. I would make an exception for up to 40 minutes for a city, the size of Melbourne (or San Francisco). Beyond that you just get diminishing returns the further out you get. You get fewer and fewer riders who want to spend that amount of time on a tram ride and then ironically, you're just adding to crowding conditions for the passengers who are boarding closer to the center. Otherwise, yes, I completely agree. 400m between stops should be a minimum. Outside of the CBD it should be more like 600 to 800 m. Combine that with signal priority and exclusive lanes and you can easily double speeds.
The issue with this is that you'd end up with transit stops on or near highways, which are absolutely awful places to be. There's a youtube video about one in LA, the person who made the video recorded ambient noise volumes and found it was dangerous to health. High speed suburban routes with limited stops are probably best served by commuter rail or express bus for places lacking rail lines.
More tram lanes and stops that aren't shared with cars would be a win for trams and cars alike. Would help trams stuck behind car congestion, and cars stuck behind a tram making frequent stops... leaving less cars blocking the next tram, and the next cars don't get stuck behind that tram that's waiting for the previous cars... etc.
The electronic tram timing point system should be connected to traffic lights. The timetabled timing locations should be at traffic lights and if the tram is running early then the tram should be held back with a red T light but if the tram is running late it should be given top priority at the intersection to help get it back on time. Car drivers couldn't complain because the system only kicks in when the tram is early or late. You always know when a tram stop is in a bad location when you constantly notice only one or two people getting on or off it, at a time.
It would be great if you could make a short video to inform people like me on why trams are better than buses. Countries with great public transport systems like Singapore use a lot of very long buses but no trams. I hear that buses are less energy efficient than trams. So, if buses can go completely electric will they be better than trams?
Faster teams sounds great…but less stops, especially less accessible stops means people with alt accessibility need to travel further to access transport. They may then need to take a cab, etc to the tram stop, which defeats the point. I think the solution is more dedicated tram lanes. It’s car traffic that hold trans up mostly.
Perth got rid of trams and trolley buses in the 1950s and 1960s because buses did the job better. That led to a world class bus network that was the envy of other states, and that's despite the urban sprawl and corridor planning along coastline. Four new rail lines have now moved into the corridors and highly effective, but the foundation of buses remain. Perth seriously considered trams in the 2000s. But the advantages didn't stack up and they're investigating extended buses or trackless trams in some councils, where a rail won't be going to.
Tram priority systems were incorporated into traffic signal operation in the 1980s... and thus, have been in operation for more than 40 years. These priority schemes allocate special amounts of green time to the tram movements alone... as well as provide time for trams to 'start early' or 'finish later' before/after the car movements; this is a reasonable way to incorporate special treatment for the trams without causing too much disruption to the flow of traffic... even IF! these schemes are often in conflict with the requirements of pedestrians, freight, taxis and the requirements of roadside businesses along tram routes ("don't take away car parking outside my shop"). Sure, the priority schemes could be improved... but who says a tram that is basically empty should be given higher priority than a bus that's carrying 50+ people... more than a platoon of cars that will move 200 people in a phase... more than 100 people waiting to cross the road... ? Managing competing demands is a major issue... and is not something that can really be solved in an equitable way - someone will always lose out when someone else is favoured. The only way to create more time for tram movements at present is to increase the cycle time, which is commonly already in excess of 160 seconds... So, would YOU like the delay you experience NOW when you miss the green light to be extended by ANOTHER 30 seconds for a largely empty tram? People complain NOW when they have to wait 10 seconds longer than they think is justified... It's only in the last 5-10 years that the tram systems have begun to actually collect 'occupancy' levels and 'set-down/pickup' times, let alone publish them or make them available to other authorities at all, let alone in realtime. When there is political will to address the issues properly... and the various authorities stop fighting about privacy issues and the costs involved and actually get all the vehicles fitted with transponders to allow trams to 'talk' to buses and set-up some intelligent infrastructure to also get the cars involved in the equation, attempts to make the priority schemes dynamically equitable will continue to be impossible. As far as the number of tram stops is concerned, again, it's a function of the population. Not everyone wants to (or is capable of) walking 500m or more to the next available tram stop (or bus stop, for that matter, if they were sensibly 'staggered' with the tram stops). The tram stops were located at (largely) 'reasonable' mid-block locations and close to intersections to allow for some form of 'modal interchange'. Also, the frequent stopping points can be seen as a safety measure, as trams that mix with cars, trucks, cyclists and pedestrians don't WANT to be travelling faster than 40 km/h or so anyway. Fair enough, the argument is different when the trams operate in their own part of the road... but while the trams mix with the other modes, they *shouldn't* be travelling faster than they do. The problems are just not easy to fix... and there are likely better ways to move people around, which is, after all, the objective.
I think the too frequent stops argument, while it is an issue in some spots, should be far less of a priority then lack of traffic light priority and dedicated lanes.
I feel like it would be something to implement should other measures not provide the results required - so a 'last resort' sort of thing. You don't have to remove 'every other' stop, either - only selected stops that seem a bit pointless given walkability.
you have a very balanced approach to this, but for others that have the silly gadgetbahn light rail thing in their heads, trams are meant to be slow. they shouldn't have be fast enough to compete with trains. Trams already have poor stopping distances, we have trains with dedicated rights of way to avoid that problem. Melbourne Zoo (58) is a neat exception, not good standard practice. giving priority is important though. Trams are more important than cars. and reducing amount of stopping would ease my motion sickness on them too
1: You are not going to get majority accessible. We can just forget that. Costs too much, not enough room. 2: There are plenty of tram priority traffic lights. 3: They still have to share road with cars and cars pay just as much as trams.
Tram/bus stops I've been saying for years to reduce. They could also reduce the amount of inner metro train stops too, north and west Richmond is a good example. This and speed the inner network up to 130kmh.
Thank you! I've felt for a long time: TOO MANY STOPS. If I can walk between stops in a minute, that's way too many. I'd say 200 m should be the minimum between stops, unless connecting with other transport
Not only too many stops (but do consider the effect of stop consolidation on passenger loads at stops and on dwell times) but too many request stops with no indication of whether the next stop is a request stop.
It astonishing me that Basel-Switzerland-200k does have light priorities since the 1980’s and Melbourne still don’t have it…The average speed is around 23km/h, and stops are in average 4-500 meters apart. I live now in Mulhouse-France-80k and the trams are slow too-15km/h, and stops every 5-600meters. Greetings from the home of the Bumblebees - C2 series…👋 P.S.: I would love to see them every once in a while…🙏
The low cost solution is to replace the tram lines with trolley buses, faster acceleration, The best fast public transport system is heavy rail but is costs lots to build.
Melbourne is still held back a lot by car brain. The public transport is excellent compared to other cities in Australia but as you said, cars always get priority at the expense of people.
As others have stated the end of the 75 is very different to the 96 route. The key is tram priority at traffic lights. VicRoads will not interrupt traffic flow for a tram to receive priority. Trams, buses and pedestrians are all less important than single people in cars, sad to say. Btw, someone mentioned 70 km/h on Burwood Highway, 75. Yarra Trams' top speed limit is 60 km/h everywhere.
In the city centre and on route 96, passenger loads at stops are often also to heavy and dwell times too long. We also have too many request stops and not indication of whether the next stop is a request stop.
Ah ah ah. Finally someone willing to admit the praise of Melbourne's trams is not quite justified, no matter how much the locals are proud of them. I was shocked at how slow and ineffective they were when I visited the city and that was coming from Brisbane, which does not exactly have world beating transit systems.
6:50 I think this is an unfair comparison, you are comparing a section of route 96 that is only a few kilometres from the CBD to the outermost part of route 75 which is, what like 20km away from the CBD. Of course there will be more stops on the section of route 96 because there is more of a need for it. However, i still do agree with your idea of less frequent tram stops.
I think it's really important to understand the purpose a tram network is supposed to serve, versus the role a heavy rail network is supposed to serve. Trams work best for shorter trips in more dense areas, while trains are better for longer trips including lower-density areas (like a suburbs-to-CBD commute). So this idea that the tram network should have grown to match Melbourne's sprawl (or should in future) doesn't really make sense IMO. Absolutely we should be doing what we can to speed trams up, with dedicated lanes and traffic light priority where feasible, but even if we did that, they would be poorly suited to long suburbs-to-CBD commutes. Short extensions like the one you mention to Route 5 absolutely make sense, and there's certainly some scope for more trams in the west. But a wholesale expansion into suburbia? Nah.
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry? I live in an inner/ middle suburb so I often use the trains and trams and leave my car at home. I’ve never felt that anything was slow because I’m so relaxed to be not tackling the traffic etc. I just pop in the earplugs and enjoy looking out the window and before I know it I’m at my local station or tram stop.
One thing you didnt touch on here, many of the roads where trams and cars are sharing also have on-street parking. It leads to chaos as cars swerve between lanes to avoid being trapped behind frequently stopping trams. Things would flow better for the trams and cars if this was permanent clearway!
We have too much on-street parking in too many places anyway. Does parking in garages and parking lots seem preferable where available regardless? According to an old British common law, the King's Highway is not to be used as a stableyard.
@@WanderingBabs Remind me, do the upside down Brits 🦘🐊🐨🕷️ drive on the left or the right? Because I was slightly confused by right hand turns being the problem until I considered that they might drive on the left 😂
Tram stops should also be at traffic lights. There are so many times where a tram stops at a red light, then goes through the intersection only to stop at the tram stop on the far side of that intersection.
Melbourne's trams in general are slow by world standards, mainly due to having to travel with other traffic, stops being quite close, (just like many suburban train stations, so higher speeds are impossible), too many traffic lights to allow smooth flowing travel. If we look at places like the Netherlands, they basically got it right the first time. Most tram routes are the same as they were decades ago, and inner city train lines the same as before electrification even commenced, with low speed curves and tracks having the same alignment as in the early 20th century. Sandringham line is a prime example.Too late to do anything about it now, although to be fair, increased services both in the peak and off peak is a small consolation.
Melbourne does not have too many tram stops, it has too many intersections. Plus, eliminating on-street parking (on tram routes) during peak times would massively improve tram journey times.
The easy solution is to come to Sydney and realise just how much slower they could be. That will make you feel better. Our trams don’t get traffic light priority either despite the fact that we FUCKING INVENTED TRAFFIC LIGHT PRIORITY.
The big problem with Melbourne trams are the timetables. Even when they introduce priority trials, or abolish a tram stop, they don't take minutes out of the timetables. The trams still have to dawdle. They aren't allowed to run early.
Wait, you compare an almost uninterrupted tram line in the middle of a highway to one on a city street with about a thousand stop lights? 🙄. They removed many of the stops in the city, yet the teams there are skirt than ever, and way less convenient.
Hey a good thing to do is have tram signal priority
Ummm they do many places already.
@@xr6ladThen that's not enough, as far as I can see. We can always use more of a good thing.
they do, on the light rail segments.
He already covered tram signal priority in the video
@@fishofgold6553Agreed! We need more tram signal priority. It's 2024 - traffic lights should know when a tram is approaching and give them the green light so they don't even have to slow down.
I’m Japanese and have visited Melbourne twice. I am impressed with Melbourne’s tram network and enjoyed travelling with them.
You have good points of views. Stops every 200-300 metres are too much and trams should be prioritised in traffic controls.
Other than them, city’s tram network is so outstanding. It’s more eco friendly and trams carry more people than buses.
PS: I reckon Melburnians talk about footy more than tram networks 😂
Vast sprawl of a city I guess and flat.
Yes, we are obsessed with footy in Melbourne ha ha
@@jdillon8360 lmao 😂 I follow AFL!
@@yoshiimagawakiwi which team? I am a Western Bulldogs supporter. I liked the colours as a child, that's why I picked them.
@@jdillon8360 St Kilda mate. And your Bulldogs are my soft spot.
6:45 You're missing a very important point here - Route 96 serves areas of the city that are much more densely populated than in Vermont South. Therefore, stops are closer to serve more people. If you tried removing some, the remaining ones would get very crowded during peak as passengers previously spread across multiple stops all crowd into one. Traffic light priority is the much biggest issue facing this part of the network.
Run skip stop problem solved
@@qjtvaddictthat halves service frequency at stops.. this solution is not common for good reason
Yeah, Melbourne tram stops get really small. They aren't big like lightrail stops
@@hobog A couple of years ago they upgraded the Nicholson St section of the Number 96 tram to have massive island platforms with large shelters with the tracks being rebuilt to goo around them. It must have cost a fortune. That sort of thing is being extended throughout the city, but it will cost more and take longer than if they did more modest stop upgrades.
They did remove some stops in this process, but it is a large number of people, and they did add priority lanes, but these need to be policed (traffic cameras?)
I think the lack of traffic light priority is easily the biggest factor slowing down the trams. I think I spend more time stopped at traffic lights than I do at tram stops. Having dedicated trams lanes barely makes a difference if all the cars you passed get to go through the lights before you.
In terms of accessibility, I also think they need to give much better priority to pedestrian crossings around big tram stops. Eg the St Kilda / Toorak Rd intersection. It can sometimes take up to 5 mins waiting to cross 2 tiny pieces of road to get to the tram stop. While the raised tram stops are much nicer and safer, they remove the concept of “when a tram stops, you stop”, meaning my tram can pull in to the stop but I’m stuck waiting for a bunch of drivers who have the green light to drive past.
And another thing that would be cool and could reduce unnecessary stops, is a stop request button at the tram stops. Eg you push a button for the number tram you want to catch, then a sign lights up for that route indicating that the driver needs to stop. Rather than drivers having to guess if someones standing at a stop wants to catch that tram, they go on the reliable information from the lit up sign (or a hand wave if the sign is faulty).
Something else that would be useful would be to re-purpose the Authorised Offiers. They simply make they journey feel uncomfortable, even for regular paying travelers. These people should instead be used to issue fines to drivers who block tramways and pedestrian crossings. I see drivers in this position every day I walk anywhere in the CBD. It seems to be a pandemic that drivers can’t judge when it is okay to go into an intersection. And they continue to do it because there is no enforcement. Give those Authorised Officers a more meaningful purpose and put the fines toward the PT budget. I am certain they will make a lot more money from fining drivers than tram passengers.
In the interest of safety however, I still think we should have some Authorised Officers on trams, especially at night times, however they should only be there to keep an eye on passenger safety and preventing vandelism, and should never be checking MyKi tickets. Even passengers who don’t pay for PT are doing a service by not driving a car. Every passenger should be valued for their contribution even if they aren’t doing so monetarily.
Traffic light priority is crucial. In Stockholm the PriBuss system has been running since 1992. Giving priority in intersections whenever a bus is behind schedule. Saving 10-20 seconds per traffic light is super effective.
I also forgot to mention how badly we need a couple of East-West tram lines across north Melbourne. It’s silly that I have to travel into the city just to go back out on a different line, turning what should be a 10 min journey into 40. In those cases it’s just as easy to walk.
all of these suggestions are really good. i think your point about the AOs is really good - enforcing drivers in the CBD to make PT easier and more accessible is sorely needed.
The trams has PLENTY of traffic light priority. Not sure where everyone is thinking they don’t. 🤦♀️
@@xr6lad Maybe what needs to be clarified is that it isn’t just about prioritising Tram lights over car lights, but also about timing the Tram lights a lot better, and actively responding to an oncoming Tram.
I think it's worth pointing out that the problems with Melbourne's trams were in fact, a big part of why other cities closed tramways down.
Trams in the 50s and 60s were slow, didn't cover anywhere near enough of their rapidly growing cities, and they lacked the passing loops and on time consistency to run express services. For these reasons most cities began experimenting with diesel or trolley buses. Cities that flirted with buses generally wound up going all in.
Melbourne, for reasons you outlined, opted (initially) for a hybrid system with trams where they already existed and buses elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, the tram routes Melbourne kept still exhibit the same problems today that put them at serious risk of closure in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Since then, cities have embarked on programs of building modern light rail. This looks a lot like legacy trams, but it (mostly) designs out the problems that legacy systems had. Melbourne is no different, building modern light rail over the top of legacy trams or shorter heavy rail lines, and down main road medians. Interestingly, Melbourne arguably hasn't built that much more modern LRT than Sydney (which was starting from zero). I expect that this is because building modern light rail is politically fraught, whether you already have trams or not.
Or using common sense - your not going to be able to build light rail on most lines. I really wish people would look at the actual landscape before making plans. Many trams run down narrow roads - and they are major roads. Those roads will not be closing for trams.
However 24/7 clearways will certainly help and before the shop keepers complain studies have show vast majority of those shops get the majority of their customers by tram, cycling or on foot and if they drive they often park hundreds of metres away normally in side streets. If your business is mostly online or has few walk in customer are you in the best cost effective location most likely it isn't when a suburban office park or light industrial area would suit these business better.
You raise a point with politics - even if the system isn't as efficient as it could be, by virtue of the fact that the tramways are there at all relieves a lot of issues that other cities are having in even getting construction projects started at all. Better to have a less-than-ideal system than no system
buses and trackless trams make more sense.
Exactly, and trams or at grade lrt should mainly be a replacement for high capacity bus routes, not trying to make a metro systems
As a wheelchair user it's even worse than the fact there's only 30% level access tram stops, because only approx 40% of the tram fleet are accessible low floor trams. And the routes with level access stops are not necessarily served by low floor trams (e.g. a large portion of the 75 route near burwood/vermont is level access stops yet it's fleet is exclusively high floor trams). Because of this, when you factor in the requirement for both accessible tram and tram stop, the overall accessibility of the network is actually a disappointing 15-20%. From personal experience only the route 96 is 100% accessible stops and trams.
It's terrible. And there are no plans to fix it properly.
I think they are ordering more low floor trams for some routes which arrive in a year or two, as well modifying some stops to be level access but it's extremely slow progress. Like I think they did less than 5 level access stops during the 2 year period of covid lockdowns. It may be after my lifetime that the whole network is accessible, though tbf I appreciate any small improvements, even if slow. @@Secretlyanothername
If they'd bought trams with ramps or lifts, every stop would be accessible. Instead, they chose to delay the process by decades, spending billions of dollars, screwing up traffic and removing vast amounts of parking areas.
I'm not sure if I imagined it, but I think I remember reading, how trams themselves, will have a feature built in to have a drop down platform, making each stop accessible. But I hope I'm remembering that right. But it'd be lovely
some trams over in Europe have this feature so the technology does exist. Will be cool if they bring it here too @@wildwombat
Thanks for the video. Excellent as usual. Very good points. Another option would be closing some streets to cars. A less controversial option is removing the side parking and making these lanes for cars or turning lanes. This would greatly improve traffic flow as one person parallel parking can slow traffic a lot, plus the middle lanes could then become dedicated tram lanes. Another is smart traffic lights that act more like a police person would (e.g. let more cars through, change immediately after the last car goes through, and never go red when nobody is waiting). Another good option is no right turn. This holds up traffic all the time. If people were forced to pick smarter routes then they wouldn’t hold up traffic all the time. If we both greatly improved traffic flow, made trams a priority, removed excessive tram stops, as you suggest, then I believe this would make a huge improvement to tram speed.
I’m also going to keep mentioning that trams pollute less than electric buses (due to no tyre dust, and more efficiency) until I hear it mentioned by more than just me :)
YES to getting rid of on street parking that holds them up
YES to getting rid of pretty much all right turns in front of trams!
I can't remember which company it was...maybe UPS, in the US they found that it was actually faster for their drivers to make a series of right turns rather than a left turn (mindful of driving on the right there). Restricting turns during peak times would definitely help, and I'm also in favour of restricting parking on main roads - keep that to side streets and car parks.
However, it must be noted that street parking actually has SOME benefits to the street scene in that you have one less lane of moving traffic, and a buffer is provided between pedestrians and moving traffic - but of course, this needs to be balanced - so perhaps a simple way to calm traffic while clearways are in operation? Variable speed limits in urban areas is a difficult thing to instruct, however.
great video. i've been living in melbourne for 2 years but in the southeast suburbs where there's no tram service (or train near me...) i'm about to move to an area with a tram stop within a 5 minute walking distance and i'm really looking forward to riding on trams more often and experiencing all of the pros and cons of this kind of PT
Melbourne trams are slow? Oh boy, you better not visit Toronto...
I'm from the UK and visited Melbourne on holiday this time last year. Used the tram (and train) network extensively and I can only say you're absolutely spot on with everything you've highlighted and suggested here.
Off topic for this video, but it's fair to say that commuter train speeds in Melbourne (and Sydney where I've also previously visited) are also very slow in comparison to other countries. It is frustrating how long it takes to get somewhere - on what it is an affordable, extensive and good quality public transport network - compared to the UK.
Have you noticed how common it is for trams and especially buses to skip stops in many suburbs.
I think a huge issue holding back the Melbourne tram network is privatisation
You are so right! The government did not impose penalties upon itself for late running and trams being turned short of destinations to keep the service running on time. All penalties written into the privatization contract should be revoked to allow the current operator to adjust the trams as necessary to keep the trams running on time. The trams will never run as they did when the trams were shorter, had a conductor on board and there were no super stops stealing precious road space from other road users.
Only the day to day running is privatised, all decisions come from the DOT
My mum always said that the problem with Melbourne roads is that there's one lane for parking, and one lane for trams, and the cars just have to switch between the two. Ideally all trams should be light rail, but at the least have their own designated lane, otherwise any major arterial roads that have both cars and trams should ban on-street parking. Also all tram stops on roads that are wide enough should automatically be on a platform in the middle of the road at a traffic light intersection, so that passengers can cross with the pedestrian lights, and the cars don't have to randomly stop whenever the tram stops to let people off.
Many places don’t have dedicated tram lines because of the outer lanes on those roads being filled with parked cars so they would also have to have clear ways enforced while those peak period tram lines are active.
Victoria can't do that. Parked cars are more important than anything else, obviously.
@@Secretlyanothername
If only they would prioritise public transport more in those areas! :)
Tram priority, both at intersections and exclusive lanes free from cars, should take priority.. Removal of stops can be considered after that. Trams have a lot of value in their convenience for relatively short trips, which would be diminished with the removal of stops. Longer distant commuting is better served by the rail network when it exists.The larger distance between stops along the newer extensions (like 86 and 75) reflect the inefficient car-oriented urban development in the outer suburbs into which they extend.
Some stops are far too close together.
Exclusive lanes and stop removal should be done at the same time. It reduces line closures and costs of having to dig up bits of the road twice.
Good point, I agree. I hadn't really thought that far and wanted to highlight the points about priority over cars and that in the more central areas, the a greater distance between stops would not be appropriate.@@itechcircle9410
Agreed. @@Secretlyanothername
@@mudelta4068 Intersection priority can definitely be done without touching the stops (It's just reprogramming the lights or adding sensors). Stop distance needs careful consideration, some are uselessly close together but a general balance needs to be maintained to ensure adequate coverage.
I've watched the many videos of Melbourne trams (driver POV) from two loyal contributors, and I can see some of the problems. There are many intersections where the tram sits at a traffic light for quite a length of time, and inserting a quick 10-second tram interval into the sequence wouldn't seriously impede car traffic. Investing in sensors and sophisticated traffic signal programming wouldn't be that expensive and could be spread out over time.
On some streets there isn't room for a dedicated right of way, though a small part of the solution would be if the city actively promoted off-street parking and parking on parallel streets behind the stores in some areas. That would free up two lanes where cars presently park.
There are at least two or three lines that could be extended to metro stations.
You're right about the traffic lights, and I just don't understand why every city I have ever visited still uses the really dumb logic systems for traffic lights that have been around for decades. You can run games on your smartphone now that would have required a high end PC 20 years ago, the technology is cheap and abundant. I just don't understand why intersections in urban areas aren't monitored by cameras which are smart enough to figure out how many pedestrians, cars, buses and trams are waiting in each street, and how to manipulate the sequence accordingly. It's near-enough passive, you don't need to energize induction loops, it's cheap, the technology is there.
When you travel in Melbourne's trams, you stop at traffic lights, you stop behind the tram that is stuck ahead and sometimes behind cars too. Some journeys you are spending a greater amount of time being stationary than moving. It's like a worse version of the bus, totally defeats the purpose of of using public transit. The ones in Adelaide run much better.
You have to remember that most tram stops are on the arrival side, not the departure side. There is actually a lot of hidden traffic light priority - where the traffic signal is held at green, or it triggers the right turn arrow to remove any turning traffic as the tram stops, to give it priority after finishing passenger embarking / disembarking. It is not commonly seen, and without it, the trams would be even slower!
True, but I think stops should be on the intersection departure side. Trams should get a preemptive green and then only need to slow down and stop if passengers are embarking/disembarking.
it doesn't really matter if most stops are arrival side because it still slows the trip down. whether there's extra walking before or after (or both) the transit trip, the whole journey will still be faster with less stops
@@zen1647great point
@@zen1647 If they are left where they are, priority could be improved by allowing closure of doors by drivers to trigger signal priority.
With long enough stop spacing and high enough patronage, stop skipping would get very rare, as on many European systems, many of which also have request stopping. For example, Gothenburg has a handful of little used stops but apart from that, stop skipping is mostly done late at night.
@@Myrtone Great ideas! I love the idea of closing of tram doors to trigger traffic lights.
I think you've put together an excellent video. Your voice over is clear and very easy to listen to. Well done! You've brought up a topic that makes a dedicated corner of the internet want to rise out of their chair and comment. :-) I definitely think the accessibility problems with trams is far greater than the speed problem. I recently had to help a young mother try to get her tram on a B Class Tram and boy... that's a bugger!
As per the comments in this thread, I think there are a few issues to consider:
(1) the assumption made in this video is that one takes a tram from one end of the line to the other. Or from the city to the end of the line. Many commuters will take the tram to the nearest train station and them resume their journey.
(2) the increased number of stops is important for accessibility, so that there isn't massive walking distances to houses and other places. Reducing the number of stops then turns the tram into a half-assed train, which then has no point of difference.
(3) the speed is often not that much of a problem. I know from my home it takes ~35 minutes via the tram to get to the city. Therefore I plan accordingly around it. If I was in a hurry, I would get a tram to a train station and change. I think "speed" is only questioned when comparing other systems. For example, yes, Melbourne is far slower than, say, the Tube. However, dare I say: the speed is something you just get used to?
Tram priority at traffic lights is a must and the same applies to buses. Reducing tram stops doesn't mean quicker running times especially a long higher density routes. We need to remember a tram is to move large number of people between stops, wider spaced tram stops like 400-500 mtrs is good for lower density outer suburban routes and stops 700/800 mtrs apart on dedicated right of way/reserved track like on the former St Kilda and Port Melbourne rail corridors on the Airport West route from Footscray. We need to encourage people to use PT not discourage people with reduce stops which also applies to buses.
They run red lights anyway..
I don't think reducing the amount of stops won't make much difference. The problem is where trams share the road with other traffic, rather than having a dedicated lane. And in places like Victoria Parade, can't be really be improved.
Hilariously, yes the trams are slow, but when Tram routes are closed and replaced with busses?
It's *INFINITELY WORSE*
In 1961 2 routes in Melbourne’s Western suburbs were closed down permanently, one replaced by a MMTB bus, the other not. A tram line down Footscray rd to Footscray and then to Brooklyn and North Altona would be a nice start.
I agree with your idea about tram priority, in that sharing the road with cars, slow the trams down big time. With the 86 outbound crawling on both Smith St, and later High Street both for kilometres.
I agree completely with the points made here. The aforementioned 96 is my local tram and it's horrendously slow, taking much longer to get to the city than driving or even cycling, and being only slightly faster than walking. There are far too many stops, I'd happily walk another 5 minutes to a more distant stop if it saved 10 minutes of sitting around in a stalled tram.
We also need to get parked cars off of roads with trams, as these force moving cars into the tram lane, frequently delaying the trams, as well as getting in the way of boarding passengers, and causing a hazard by reducing visibility.
the 96 is slow because of poor priority - not a too many stops! Plus, in every single case it is much faster to take the tram than walk.
The 96 is definitely faster than walking, sometimes faster than riding, and depending on where you’re going it can be faster than driving. Only the northern section is really fast though, through the city and the southern section is pretty slow. I used to live near the northern end of the line and it was quicker for me to get to school on the other side of the city on the 96 than by car. During peak hour riding can be faster, but otherwise the tram is.
Now I need to get to work on Fitzroy St in St Kilda, the 96 from Southern Cross is quite slow. The issue isn’t tram stop distance though, Batman Park is the only stop too close to others, but it’s used to interchange with the 35/70/75 and for trams to terminate/turn around. The real issue is traffic light priority, not enough frequent trams so it takes 3-4 minutes for people to squeeze onto the tram, poorly maintained light rail bridges where the tram has to slow down, and no train station at the Exhibition & Convention Centre/Crown so people take the tram from Southern Cross as it’s not a journey designed for walking. More frequency smaller trams, such as if the 12 went down Spencer St from LaTrobe St, will help take the load of people who aren’t Melbourne locals and don’t realise they can walk to the Collins St stop to get a 12/109 to Crown or a convention. Infrastructure improvements to the bridges are definitely needed. Or ideally turning the 96 southern section back into a train line (ideally direct from Southern Cross with a stop at the Convention Centre), in which case you could remove a couple stops like Fraser St.
how is the 96 slow? the St Kilda section of it is separated from road traffic and a huge portion of it runs along a former railway line. it's only somewhat slow going up Fitzroy St because the stops are 10 meters apart
@@QazzyTransport As the stops on route 96 are hardly ever skipped, stop consolidation would increase passenger loads and thus lengthen dwell time at each stop.
Don’t knock Melbourne!
Best coffee on the planet!
Cheers from Sydney.
Having ridden buses and trams, and driving around Melbourne recently - I got to say that you're definitely right on the traffic lights. Whether or not they have priority systems built into them already - the lights in Melbourne are almost spiteful. They're pretty dumb, sitting with a green phase for nothing approaching on that side, and then only allowing a few vehicles through on each sequence before going back to red for a stupidly long time. Smarter traffic lights would certainly help with this issue - I believe Google is dabbling in trying to help solve this using traffic and pedestrian movement data in lieu of cameras.
I think you are definitely correct regarding stop density - in this day and age, trams simply do not serve this purpose. Localized transit is normally served by buses, with trams in most cities providing the 'heavy lifting' in between buses and commuter rail. Perhaps the intermediate stops, rather than being removed, could be downgraded to halts with minimal services to reduce maintenance, and are request stops only at certain times? Service is maintained in that situation, but you speed up the service and lower cost.
I don't know how downgrading intermediate stops at certain times would work. Outside of the city centre, trams only stop on request anyway. It's just that there's usually a request at every stop, at least during busy times. Perhaps certain stops could be made "non able-bodied" only, whereby those with a disability or travelling with small children could request the stop via the Tramtracker app. Not sure exactly how this would work.
Thanks for an interesting video. One thing that Melbourne does have in its favour with the tram stops is that the tram only have to stop at many of them when passengers actually want to get on or get off and they don't have compulsory stopping at every stop, which was a major problem with Sydney's original tram system. I definitely agree that there should be more dedicated tramway lanes free of other road traffic blocking the trams where it is possible.
The thing is that we stop on demand at nearly all intermediate stops, even at ones so busy they are almost never skipped, in which case, requesting them might seem pointless.
On the Glenelg tramline in Adelaide, they only stop on demand on the off-street section, the stop announcements actually indicating that. They have compulsory stopping on the street running sections, the stop announcements simply stating what the next stop is. This sounds like a better system if the compulsory stops are busy enough and the request stops less so.
Many European tram systems also have request stopping but stop skipping is often less common. For example, Gothenburg has a handful of little used stops and apart from these, stop skipping in Gothenburg is mostly done late at night.
In Prague, trams only stop on demand at a few stops, and when the next stop is one of these stops, a bell icon appears where the next stop is displayed.
The CBD and very inner suburbs do benefit from the slower speeds and closer stops, keeping the paths clear for pedestrians, but it does make sense to remove a few stops in the mid and outer suburbs. But, the general consensus of the network is that it was built to cover a city that doesn't really exist anymore, now only serving as a rapid network within it that's best used for shorter trips. If you can use trains to get the long distance, it will always be better to ride them and use the trams to get you within walking distance than get the tram all the way
In the city centre and a lot of inner suburbs, passenger loads at stops are often quite heavy and so stop consolidation won't help.
Good video and it’s great to see robust and respectful conversation in the comments. I live in the inner south east so we are well served by the network but I appreciate your point about a lack of services in the west. With the amount of new suburbs I wonder if an opportunity to boot a network that doesn’t come into the CBD but instead connects to the rail network has already been missed. Secondly, I believe the network was deliberately built to not connect with rail back in the day. You mentioned the 5 and Darling station but the 3 is also not connected to Malvern East station, literally just 950m away at the end of the same road it terminates on (and would link the Glen Waverley and Pakenham/Cranbourne and Frankston lines by tram from Caulfield. Madness these small extensions don’t happen.
Excellent video! I 100% agree on everything!
Another thing I could see helping is an express line on St Kilda Rd - city bound in the morning and opposite direction in the afternoon.
How to fix easy 1. get rid of the budget operator 2. BAN PARKED CARS!!!! Melbourne is a mess and it's all to do with greed and money... Imagine how quick the trams would be with NO parked cars everywhere
Agree. Fewer stops. Better tram stops. More lines in the west. And an orbital line from Moonee Ponds to Clifton Hill along Brunswick Road
However, stop consolidation can increase passenger loads at each stop, meaning longer dwell times at each stop. It is going to be most beneficial where stop skipping is currently most common.
Come visit Toronto, where we have the world's second largest tram network, and once you've ridden ours, Melbourne's will feel much faster.
They should remove at least half of the stops outside of the city core. There's no reason to have 200 meter stop spacing, even in the city center, let alone the suburbs. Ideally, there should be one tram stop per suburban arterial, as they're generally 800 meters long, and it only takes 5-8 minutes minutes to walk 400 meters. Next, they should give some healthy road diets to assure that there's much greater dedicated lanes or track, especially closer to the city core. It might also be worth it to look at the busiest routes and see if it's worth it to bring them up to modern LRT standards. Also, it would be nice to see more orbital tram routes going through the central suburbs and connecting to major rail hubs.
Stop consolidation will actually work best where stop skipping is most common and is really ineffective where passenger loads at existing stops are much greater and dwell times longer.
I wish we had trams out west. There is that one that goes to Footscray, but out further there is nothing. There used to be a tram that ran down the princes hwy past Seddon and Yarraville and Kingsville. I wish that was still there. I can imagine it still being used. I also think a tram way out in Hoppers Crossing and Werribee would be great, not necessarily coming into the city but to get people around out there from Werribee plaza to the train stations for instance. That part of metro Melbourne is so chock a block with cars
Good video. I agree that traffic light priority and sharing lanes with cars are the biggest issues. I'm not so keen on removing stops from high-density areas. Also, it wasn't just cars that killed trams in many cities, it was also busses.
There's a *PERFECTLY VALID REASON* for Melbourne's trams to run slow: *PUBLIC SAFETY!!!* Trams share street space with other types of vehicular traffic(cars, buses, motorbikes, lorries, bicycles) but above all, the trams share space with *PEDESTRIANS!* It is only where the tram may have a reserved track area secluded from the rest of traffic where the tram may run at a faster speed. So, @CityMoose, your question is rather ridiculous.
I like to ride a bicycle in Melbourne, and racing with trams is something I often do. From my testing, they tend to max out at around 35km/h, but since they stop quite often, their average speed on Swanston street factoring in stops is more like 12 km/h.
Great video! The tram network should also be viewed in the context of the accompanying train system which serves the outer suburbs of Melbourne more efficiently than a very long tram route ever could. I'd like to see more quick local tram routes that link up with nearby train stations.
Yet we have only three cross-suburban tram routes, all others serve the city centre.
Great video, thanks for sharing.
I don't think anyone would disagree that providing tram priority through signalised intersections is preferred.
It's then how do you manage residual risks to all other forms of users
- vehicles queuing unsafety in areas of high risk
- pedestrian crossing intervals
- pedestrian / cycling refuge storage in and around the intersection
- phasing of the signals (how will it remember which phase it was ment to jump to next) etc.
Food for thought
Frankly, the biggest advantage to the tram system IS that the stops are close. Hopping on and off trams for short trips is what made Melbourne's tram system incredibly convenient, especially in the city centre (before they screwed them up by making the now-accessible stops further apart). If you're going on a really long trip, most of us go by train. Alternately, just enjoy your book if you like going on long tram rides.
Also,
i) Melbourne trams DO trigger traffic-light priorities, and
ii) Most shared tram-lines have yellow lane markings:
a) solid line means cars can't drive on the tram lane during peak hours, and
b) broken lines mean cars can drive on them but must get out of the way of trams and definitely don't hold them up doing a turn from that lane.
Dedicated tram line runs through the Springvale Road would be great!
The tram stop issue is definitely one I've noticed. I used to go on the route 75 tram and the stops at Koyoongkoot road and Berkeley st (stops 33/34) are ridiculous. They're only around 120m from each other.
And how common is stop skipping on the section of route 75 that you mean?
There are several tram corridors that should remove car traffic entirely. Chapel Street is an obvious one. Driving on Chapel Street is slower than walking, and there is nowhere near enough parking to support cars. Cars should be banned on streets like this to prioritise trams, and to allow the retail businesses to generate more profit. It's already at the point where everyone avoids driving down Chapel if they can, so the City Council needs to pull the pin and remove cars entirely from that corridor. Brunswick Street is in a similar situation.
Re-routing the 75 through the Hawthorn section Burwood Road and down Camberwell Road would reduce congestion on Riversdale and serve all of the businesses, residents, the university, and the train stations far better than what currently exists.
Most traffic lights appear to operate an anti-priority system. About 5 seconds before the tram arrives, regardless of whether it is stopping to pick up/put down passengers, the light will turn red - to the point that on my bike I know to try to accelerate to keep 100m clear in front of the approaching (from front or rear) tram so I don't miss the green light - once I'm clear 1 light cycle in front of a tram, I've got a clear way all the way into work before all the cars are stuck behind the tram.
The justification will be simple - to get the red light out of the way while the tram is stopped for passengers, and give the traffic no reason to try to jump the tram and potentially run over alighting passengers (no point being impatient when the lights are red anyway, not that that ever stopped a F150 driver). But the red light cycle is too long, and unconditional on passenger loading, so the tram sits at the front of the queue, unable to move, for far too long, at every single controlled intersection.
It seems so deliberately bad to me that I almost think they've accidentally inverted a logic flag in SCATS, and no-one's noticed because everyone's stuck in traffic unable to see around themselves and doesn't get a broad view of the network. Maybe traffic engineers need to have a compulsory 6 year stint riding bicycles before they're allowed to design road control systems.
Definitely - the status of a traffic light ahead makes absolutely no difference to a tram that's boarding. It would be very easy to change the design of newer T lights that they recognise when a tram actually WANTS to cross (pressure sensor, transponder, etc).
I always feel like it needs to be said in these discussion on the 'removal of tram networks across the globe' that while there was certainly political interference going on, when you consider the context of the time, and anticipated planning needs of the next few decades, trams no longer stacked up, and for most cities merely maintaining the existing networks would have resulted in rapidly depreciating returns while failing to provide service for newer developed suburbs.
The removal of trams across the road was predicated off 2 decades of decline in their relevance. When street trollies ruled the urban landscape they were basically the only way to rapidly travel an urban area without a horse. As gasoline powered vehicles became more and more practical, the need for street trollies declined. With the emergence of affordable private vehicles and busses that could adequality perform the main role of street trollies without the limitation of the required infrastructure, scaling back and (in most cases) removing tram networks was sensible.
In most jurisdictions it's only 40-50 years later that the urban environment conditions have swung back in favour of public transport investment as the best practice option. It's not that you can't predict this swing. We had cities with massive populations around the world already, and congestion is an issue that predates the motor-vehicle. The real issue is that you can't reasonably plan for such a long timeline, nor can you be expected to spend significant amounts of public money on something the public views as not being useful to them in the now. To keep tram networks would have been a gamble on providing the best possible service for residents 50 years in the future rather then providing the best possible service for residents in the immediate future. It's a difficult sell to the voting public, to spend the transport budget on something that isn't able to adequality serve the full public, for the sake of people who wont be born for 4 or 5 decades. In this context Melbourne really is anomalous in their decision to stick with the trams, and there are various factors at play that helped that outcome succeed (I believe the Melbourne network was more up to 'modern' standards in 1960 then most of the Australian networks, and required less immediate investment to maintain acceptable standards, that an a huge wave of public support for the trams).
It also really must be emphasised, without reservation, that the trams removed around the world really aren't the equivalent of the tram systems being built today. That is why I have been using the term 'street trolley' rather then light rail. Modern light rail systems almost universally feature dedicated right of ways, lanes free of car traffic, signal priority, high quality high capacity rollingstock and a higher quality standard for stops. A street trolley system from the 1940-60s really isn't much more then a modern bus service. I often see people complain about how they use to be able to catch a tram from one specific location in Brisbane to another, completely ignoring the fact that there is a modern bus route that almost identically replicates the old tram route they're talking about. As you highlight in this video, the portions of the Melbourne network that haven't received real investment over the past decades have really fallen off, and I'd argue that in that undeveloped form, they really aren't much better then a bus. Don't get me wrong, they are 'better' then a bus, not not so much so that you'd have gone out of your way to build it from scratch. You wouldn't spend millions to have a slightly better bus, you'd spend millions to have a significantly better bus.
I do think the complete removal of trams in cities across the world was short-sighted to some degree. Generally speaking I think the best option for most cities would have been to retrain a core network of a few key routes to be modernised, while shedding external, lower utilised routes. In my home town of Brisbane, there are a couple of the old tram routes that I think could well have been preserved and upgraded overtime to provide what would have been an invaluable service today. Likewise, there are many routes that I think wouldn't have been worth keeping. The problem with this though is that a lot of urban planning is strategically driven. The 'right' answer is heavily based on your overall objectives. The dominate planning perspective at the time was that inner-city suburbs would have little development while outer city expansion would be the prime mover of the next few decades. With that in mind there is just very little incentive to dedicated additional resources for the inner city areas you aren't planning to push growth in, particularly when there is no reason to believe they'll actually be necessary in the next few decades.
Despite being a massive train fanboy, I really don't think there was anything unreasonable about the removal of tram networks across the globe in the 40s-60s, and I don't think it's a given that we'd be better off today if they hadn't removed them.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Although there was a lot of skullduggery with the auto industry (like buying up tram lines then shutting them down), as well as campaigns to sway public opinion - I think the same would have probably happened regardless. You can't really blame people for making decisions which were what they considered best at the time - who knows what sort of decisions we are making these days which would be considered disastrous in 50 years.
In some ways, tearing up the tram lines 70 years ago may not necessarily have been all that bad, as it means that more efficient light rail systems are able to be installed to replace them. The problems with cost and politics is a fault of the system, not of the tram. If we actually prioritized our public spending with a view to long term benefits, most cities ought to have a decent light rail system by now.
I am sorry but I struggle to find the benefits of light rail. Heavy rail has some major benefit. It has a dedicated corridor and speeds can easily reach 110km or more (depending on rolling stock and network). They do not need to worry about traffic. Trams do not have that. They are more like a bus on tracks and have all the short coming of a bus. That means you could place an articulated bus (bendy bus) on a tram route and provide a similar service with the existing roads. No need to invest billions on infrastructure. We better off investing in heavy rail and using buses when heavy rail is not suitable.
Rotterdam tram in the Netherlands are also very slow due to some tramlines shares the streets with cars in the older districts. But also the lack of priority and the rolling stock is just not suitable for tight curves. So they manouvre curves very slowly...
Does Rotterdam have request stopping. I have looked up how to use Rotterdam's trams but could not find information on that. I know Amsterdam has request stopping but I don't know how common stop skipping is there.
@@Myrtone Yes they do
While I think you've made some great points on accessibility, increasing the prevalnce of dedicated tram lanes, and improving interchange connections, comparing the back end of route 75 (one of the longest tram lines in the world) to an inner suburbs line like the 96 without talking at very least talking about density is really missing the mark here...
#1 issue I see is the route 12. It runs along Collins St along with the 11, 48 & 109. All of these trams are newer models (with the exception of the occasional 48 but that is still a full size tram)
The 12 is an old class that is half the size of the rest, people constantly crowd the doorways and it takes 2-3 times longer for people to disembark and embark the tram which holds up the rest of the trams behind it.
To make matters worse it’s almost a guarantee that if there’s a 10 minute gap in trams the first one to arrive is always a 12 and 100 people try to cram into it.
Relevant to the current high number of tram stops is that in the cable tram days, trams often didn't stop, but just slowed down and men at least simply jumped on. My granddad, who came to Melbourne in 1917, said that if a tram actually stopped for a man (by himself), it was a bit of an insult. Old trams also had no doors, so there was no time spent opening and closing them. And even in the days of the Ws, (which had either no doors or doors that could be opened before stopping, and only one step) it was much quicker for (most) single passengers to get off the tram and the tram to go again, which meant less time per stop, especially in the evening. The current stop layout was clearly designed for a different era.
The final point is definitely wrong. The 96 travels along one of the busiest roads (the same if not busier than lygon street and sydney road) with little to no tram priority, the 75 is along a much less used street with about double the tram priority.
A better example would be the 59, which accross the past 40 hears or so has seen a reduction to just over half the number of stops, but only an increase of ~2 minutes of speed over ~70 years (based off city to moonee ponds distance)
3:22 The route 5 was meant to serve the suburb of Malvern, though it terminates in east Malvern. Darling is not a suburb and is in East Malvern, that makes 2 routes to east Malvern. Additionally darling is in a neighbourhood block and you have to go through side streets to get through, it would be nice to have a connection though.
Agree with all points. It's about time there was a big transformation to fix Melbourne's car problem. Fixing the trams should be a part of that process (as well as implementing other strategies like prioritising walking and cycling) to reclaim our streets.
Speaking of points, another thing slowing down our trams is compulsory stopping at most facing points, and until recently *all* facing points. There are now some with a speed restriction through them but apparently drivers have to check the points are set correctly themselves.
Facing points at busy junctions should be operated and visually checked by personnel other than drivers, those being the personnel who would check the points are set correctly before the trams get there.
Where there are driver operated points, they should work on the principle that one tram on a junction at a time cannot run into another even if the points are wrongly set unless that tram had to stop behind them anyway, such as places where and times when the points can be checked during dwell time. So, for example, if there are tram priority signals, only one tram would get signal priority at a time unless it has to stop right behind the points and won't, upon proceeding, pass another tram going over any other facing points non-stop.
The section on the 96 was opened in 1955. Only 50 years before the 75 extension.
SO SLOW and ASTRINOMOCAL are a bit extreme. You don't want huge heavy trams at race car speeds amongst cars and pedestrians
I think it's good to remember that there are a lot of disabled, elderly and otherwise physically less capable people using transit. Removing tram stops could make transit use harder for those kinds of people. For me, an increase of 200 meters to closest tram stop would not be a problem at all, but for someone else, it very much could be a deal breaker, forcing them to rely on taxis and such. One of my mom's co workers, for example, takes train to Helsinki city center and a bus from there to her workplace, instead of walking 800 meters from previous train station, adding at least 20 minutes to her journey. Here in Finland, we do see extreme cold, snow, and ice, which during certain times of the year, makes being outside very unpleasant. Okay, enough of this.
Another thing I'm quite surprised you didn't touch, is that Melbourne is large, perhaps even too large for its population base. Most of Melbourne is composed of single family homes and have a density of just 500-3000 people per km2. Helsinki has a land area of 220 km2 (660,000 pop), while Melbourne has a land area 2500 km2 (5,000,000 pop). Both have roughly the same area dedicated to nature (15-20%). However, if Melbourne were to have the same level of density as Helsinki, which isn't that dense to begin with, Melbourne should have 7,7 million people.
So, here are some solutions to Melbourne's tram problem:
Short term:
1. Removing cars from tram tracks on most sections. In order to achieve this, some narrower streets would likely be converted to pedestrian only (excluding service vehicles) and have parking spots removed. (The more I look at Melbourne's tram tracks, the more monumental this task looks like, but I'll keep it here because in reality, it is possible to close vast number of streets from cars just like that. It's a political choice.)
2. Tram priority at all points of the journey. Signaling etc..
3. Tram stop distance adjusting. Some are simply too close to each other, but I don't think every stop should be 500-600 meters apart. That's too much. Since many parts have practically no tram stop infrastructure at all, this should be pretty easy.
Mid term:
1. Platforms. There are many places where there are no platforms at all, just a sign on a sidewalk telling that trams do stop here. Those kinds of "stops" slows down service needlessly.
2. Increased service frequency. If a tram comes every 10 minutes, an average person waits 5 minutes. If that is reduced to 5 minutes, an average person waits 2.5 minutes. Higher tram frequencies can also make trams faster due to fewer stops per run. Likely not during rush hour, but certainly during other times.
Long term:
1. Better connectivity to other lines, extensions and new lines to underserved areas (west), as you mentioned in the video.
2. More focused land use around transit stops. Single family homes along transit stops should be slowly upgraded to higher density low and midrise buildings. Furthermore, external expansion should be axed entirely.
These are just my thoughts, maybe they're good ones, maybe not. Anyway, thank you for reading and have a nice day!
Regarding what you mentioned at the start regarding accessible transit - do you think that there is a market for a new type of paratransit in urban areas for those groups? We have new vehicle technologies which would be able to provide a taxi-like service using small electric scooters (or whatever) which could be paid for or heavily subsidized by the city. Users with extra requirements could get the additional support they require whilst not being under any sort of pressure to hurry onto a tram, or have anxiety about finding a space. The downside I can immediately see with this is that it smells a bit like segregation, and would remove some impetus to make trams and buses accessible throughout.
Malvern Road is the stopper for extending the 5 to Darling Station, it's too narrow without imposing a 24/7 Clearway. The plan that's been on the boards for longer is extending the 6 to Glen Iris Station and potentially further.
One thing you did not mention is the exorbitant amount Vicroads charges the government to change the sequence of traffic lights and install "T Lights"
4:45 history repeats itself
trams were removed in the first place because of cars getting in the way and causing traffic which slowed down trams(which ofcourse people took as 'the trams are slow and are causing traffic')
yet again cars get in the way and caused trams to be slow which people blame on the trams themselves
Melbourne's network is only the biggest because they kept most of it in place whilst other cities experimented with diesel motor buses. It should be clearly noted that Melbourne never BUILT the biggest network. Sydney's former system had an extra 100km or so of track and around 1,600 trams at its peak and there were times when trams would be stabled next door to special events (such as the 1930 Sydney Cup at Royal Randwick) and used to take travellers to strategic locations to join other lines for the trip home. The racecourse had a six-platform tram stop and the stabling area could hold 400 trams, which were then used to ferry punters away from the racecourse. There is a video elsewhere on RUclips that shows this great example of mass transit at work.
I commend Melbourne for keeping most of its network but one of the compelling reasons was not to preserve history, it was because Melbourne had no freeways at the time other cities were becoming more car-centric.
Yes I agree that a 10% reduction in stops is required, which that are doing with the upgrades (Latrobe St, RT30 4 out of 11 stops are closing, I would say one every 600m, at the moment I am in a wheelchair to travel on PT and have to travel over 2k for my nearest accessible stop, despite 2 lines being within 100m of home. and yes traffic priority is a must,
Stop reduction should mostly be done where stop skipping is most common, actually. The reason has to do with passenger loadings at stops.
I was in Melbourne recently. The trams are rougher than I remembered. Some of the tracks need some work.
Like the idea of signal priority and reducing stops, just wondering how the linking of the 2 routes near the Vic Market wound help??
In that case, how about also linking the Abbotsford street track with that in Royal Park?
I think generally for trams the journey time of 25 to 30 minutes of the major trip attractor, in the case of Melbourne trams that would be the Melbourne CBD, is more or less the limit. I would make an exception for up to 40 minutes for a city, the size of Melbourne (or San Francisco). Beyond that you just get diminishing returns the further out you get. You get fewer and fewer riders who want to spend that amount of time on a tram ride and then ironically, you're just adding to crowding conditions for the passengers who are boarding closer to the center. Otherwise, yes, I completely agree. 400m between stops should be a minimum. Outside of the CBD it should be more like 600 to 800 m. Combine that with signal priority and exclusive lanes and you can easily double speeds.
I wonder if tram lanes can be added to highways and trams can run at high speeds on said highways?
trams have a limit of 80km/h, so rapid buses with dedicated bus lanes are better for this scenario.
Other cities have run light rail down highways, it’s not a perfect solution but can definitely help with speed!
The issue with this is that you'd end up with transit stops on or near highways, which are absolutely awful places to be. There's a youtube video about one in LA, the person who made the video recorded ambient noise volumes and found it was dangerous to health. High speed suburban routes with limited stops are probably best served by commuter rail or express bus for places lacking rail lines.
For tram speed i think that some parts of the gold coast g link are good examples
More tram lanes and stops that aren't shared with cars would be a win for trams and cars alike. Would help trams stuck behind car congestion, and cars stuck behind a tram making frequent stops... leaving less cars blocking the next tram, and the next cars don't get stuck behind that tram that's waiting for the previous cars... etc.
The electronic tram timing point system should be connected to traffic lights. The timetabled timing locations should be at traffic lights and if the tram is running early then the tram should be held back with a red T light but if the tram is running late it should be given top priority at the intersection to help get it back on time. Car drivers couldn't complain because the system only kicks in when the tram is early or late. You always know when a tram stop is in a bad location when you constantly notice only one or two people getting on or off it, at a time.
It would be great if you could make a short video to inform people like me on why trams are better than buses. Countries with great public transport systems like Singapore use a lot of very long buses but no trams. I hear that buses are less energy efficient than trams. So, if buses can go completely electric will they be better than trams?
Faster teams sounds great…but less stops, especially less accessible stops means people with alt accessibility need to travel further to access transport. They may then need to take a cab, etc to the tram stop, which defeats the point.
I think the solution is more dedicated tram lanes. It’s car traffic that hold trans up mostly.
Perth got rid of trams and trolley buses in the 1950s and 1960s because buses did the job better. That led to a world class bus network that was the envy of other states, and that's despite the urban sprawl and corridor planning along coastline. Four new rail lines have now moved into the corridors and highly effective, but the foundation of buses remain. Perth seriously considered trams in the 2000s. But the advantages didn't stack up and they're investigating extended buses or trackless trams in some councils, where a rail won't be going to.
Tram priority systems were incorporated into traffic signal operation in the 1980s... and thus, have been in operation for more than 40 years. These priority schemes allocate special amounts of green time to the tram movements alone... as well as provide time for trams to 'start early' or 'finish later' before/after the car movements; this is a reasonable way to incorporate special treatment for the trams without causing too much disruption to the flow of traffic... even IF! these schemes are often in conflict with the requirements of pedestrians, freight, taxis and the requirements of roadside businesses along tram routes ("don't take away car parking outside my shop").
Sure, the priority schemes could be improved... but who says a tram that is basically empty should be given higher priority than a bus that's carrying 50+ people... more than a platoon of cars that will move 200 people in a phase... more than 100 people waiting to cross the road... ? Managing competing demands is a major issue... and is not something that can really be solved in an equitable way - someone will always lose out when someone else is favoured. The only way to create more time for tram movements at present is to increase the cycle time, which is commonly already in excess of 160 seconds... So, would YOU like the delay you experience NOW when you miss the green light to be extended by ANOTHER 30 seconds for a largely empty tram? People complain NOW when they have to wait 10 seconds longer than they think is justified...
It's only in the last 5-10 years that the tram systems have begun to actually collect 'occupancy' levels and 'set-down/pickup' times, let alone publish them or make them available to other authorities at all, let alone in realtime. When there is political will to address the issues properly... and the various authorities stop fighting about privacy issues and the costs involved and actually get all the vehicles fitted with transponders to allow trams to 'talk' to buses and set-up some intelligent infrastructure to also get the cars involved in the equation, attempts to make the priority schemes dynamically equitable will continue to be impossible.
As far as the number of tram stops is concerned, again, it's a function of the population. Not everyone wants to (or is capable of) walking 500m or more to the next available tram stop (or bus stop, for that matter, if they were sensibly 'staggered' with the tram stops). The tram stops were located at (largely) 'reasonable' mid-block locations and close to intersections to allow for some form of 'modal interchange'. Also, the frequent stopping points can be seen as a safety measure, as trams that mix with cars, trucks, cyclists and pedestrians don't WANT to be travelling faster than 40 km/h or so anyway. Fair enough, the argument is different when the trams operate in their own part of the road... but while the trams mix with the other modes, they *shouldn't* be travelling faster than they do.
The problems are just not easy to fix... and there are likely better ways to move people around, which is, after all, the objective.
I think the too frequent stops argument, while it is an issue in some spots, should be far less of a priority then lack of traffic light priority and dedicated lanes.
I feel like it would be something to implement should other measures not provide the results required - so a 'last resort' sort of thing. You don't have to remove 'every other' stop, either - only selected stops that seem a bit pointless given walkability.
you have a very balanced approach to this, but for others that have the silly gadgetbahn light rail thing in their heads, trams are meant to be slow. they shouldn't have be fast enough to compete with trains. Trams already have poor stopping distances, we have trains with dedicated rights of way to avoid that problem. Melbourne Zoo (58) is a neat exception, not good standard practice.
giving priority is important though. Trams are more important than cars. and reducing amount of stopping would ease my motion sickness on them too
Trams aren't meant to be fast, but if it takes twice as long to travel into down on a tram than it does to drive, then why would anyone use the tram?
1: You are not going to get majority accessible. We can just forget that. Costs too much, not enough room. 2: There are plenty of tram priority traffic lights. 3: They still have to share road with cars and cars pay just as much as trams.
Accessibility is an issue, and the government is now in breach on the legislation, all stops required to be accessible by Dec 2022
Tram/bus stops I've been saying for years to reduce.
They could also reduce the amount of inner metro train stops too, north and west Richmond is a good example. This and speed the inner network up to 130kmh.
Thank you! I've felt for a long time: TOO MANY STOPS. If I can walk between stops in a minute, that's way too many. I'd say 200 m should be the minimum between stops, unless connecting with other transport
Not only too many stops (but do consider the effect of stop consolidation on passenger loads at stops and on dwell times) but too many request stops with no indication of whether the next stop is a request stop.
It astonishing me that Basel-Switzerland-200k does have light priorities since the 1980’s and Melbourne still don’t have it…The average speed is around 23km/h, and stops are in average 4-500 meters apart.
I live now in Mulhouse-France-80k and the trams are slow too-15km/h, and stops every 5-600meters.
Greetings from the home of the Bumblebees - C2 series…👋
P.S.: I would love to see them every once in a while…🙏
Mulhouse also has a stopping-all-stations style service and musical themes for each stop.
@@Myrtone
And an other design on every tram….
By the way, does Basel have request stopping? I know Zürich does.
@@Myrtone
No , they don’t have any requests stops.
Melb is famous for trams 😅
@6.45 NICHOLSON STREET not road FYI.
The low cost solution is to replace the tram lines with trolley buses, faster acceleration, The best fast public transport system is heavy rail but is costs lots to build.
Melbourne is still held back a lot by car brain. The public transport is excellent compared to other cities in Australia but as you said, cars always get priority at the expense of people.
As others have stated the end of the 75 is very different to the 96 route. The key is tram priority at traffic lights. VicRoads will not interrupt traffic flow for a tram to receive priority. Trams, buses and pedestrians are all less important than single people in cars, sad to say. Btw, someone mentioned 70 km/h on Burwood Highway, 75. Yarra Trams' top speed limit is 60 km/h everywhere.
Absolutely agree that Melbourne’s tram network has far too many tram stops, it’s actually very frustrating and I wish they’d remove a fair few.
In the city centre and on route 96, passenger loads at stops are often also to heavy and dwell times too long.
We also have too many request stops and not indication of whether the next stop is a request stop.
Ah ah ah. Finally someone willing to admit the praise of Melbourne's trams is not quite justified, no matter how much the locals are proud of them. I was shocked at how slow and ineffective they were when I visited the city and that was coming from Brisbane, which does not exactly have world beating transit systems.
6:50 I think this is an unfair comparison, you are comparing a section of route 96 that is only a few kilometres from the CBD to the outermost part of route 75 which is, what like 20km away from the CBD. Of course there will be more stops on the section of route 96 because there is more of a need for it.
However, i still do agree with your idea of less frequent tram stops.
I think it's really important to understand the purpose a tram network is supposed to serve, versus the role a heavy rail network is supposed to serve. Trams work best for shorter trips in more dense areas, while trains are better for longer trips including lower-density areas (like a suburbs-to-CBD commute). So this idea that the tram network should have grown to match Melbourne's sprawl (or should in future) doesn't really make sense IMO.
Absolutely we should be doing what we can to speed trams up, with dedicated lanes and traffic light priority where feasible, but even if we did that, they would be poorly suited to long suburbs-to-CBD commutes. Short extensions like the one you mention to Route 5 absolutely make sense, and there's certainly some scope for more trams in the west. But a wholesale expansion into suburbia? Nah.
A solution could be to introduce a system where trams stop every second stop each tram alternating so all stops are served.
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry? I live in an inner/ middle suburb so I often use the trains and trams and leave my car at home. I’ve never felt that anything was slow because I’m so relaxed to be not tackling the traffic etc. I just pop in the earplugs and enjoy looking out the window and before I know it I’m at my local station or tram stop.
One thing you didnt touch on here, many of the roads where trams and cars are sharing also have on-street parking.
It leads to chaos as cars swerve between lanes to avoid being trapped behind frequently stopping trams.
Things would flow better for the trams and cars if this was permanent clearway!
We have too much on-street parking in too many places anyway. Does parking in garages and parking lots seem preferable where available regardless?
According to an old British common law, the King's Highway is not to be used as a stableyard.
Put up more fences around them? Block off intersections, so that you have a protected lane for trams and two t-junctions for cars?
So build sky trains done
@@qjtvaddict That would cost more.
Another possibility is to ban some right hand turns to minor streets, and make the rest "Hook turns"
@@WanderingBabs Remind me, do the upside down Brits 🦘🐊🐨🕷️ drive on the left or the right? Because I was slightly confused by right hand turns being the problem until I considered that they might drive on the left 😂
@@placeholdername0000 What do the brits have to do with this, Australia drives on the left.
Tram stops should also be at traffic lights. There are so many times where a tram stops at a red light, then goes through the intersection only to stop at the tram stop on the far side of that intersection.
Melbourne's trams in general are slow by world standards, mainly due to having to travel with other traffic, stops being quite close, (just like many suburban train stations, so higher speeds are impossible), too many traffic lights to allow smooth flowing travel. If we look at places like the Netherlands, they basically got it right the first time. Most tram routes are the same as they were decades ago, and inner city train lines the same as before electrification even commenced, with low speed curves and tracks having the same alignment as in the early 20th century. Sandringham line is a prime example.Too late to do anything about it now, although to be fair, increased services both in the peak and off peak is a small consolation.
Melbourne does not have too many tram stops, it has too many intersections. Plus, eliminating on-street parking (on tram routes) during peak times would massively improve tram journey times.
The easy solution is to come to Sydney and realise just how much slower they could be. That will make you feel better. Our trams don’t get traffic light priority either despite the fact that we FUCKING INVENTED TRAFFIC LIGHT PRIORITY.
*Nicholson Street
Remove on street parking for goodness sake. That itself is already a 50% improvement
Not just along tram routes but generally.
is it just me or does some of the tram footage here look...off?
The big problem with Melbourne trams are the timetables. Even when they introduce priority trials, or abolish a tram stop, they don't take minutes out of the timetables. The trams still have to dawdle. They aren't allowed to run early.
There are also still a lot of tram stops (and especially bus stops) without real time vehicle information.
@@Myrtone Why does that matter? Everyone has Google maps on their phone.
@@PCLoadLetter No, not everyone does and why should people waiting at stops need to use their phones for that anyway?
@@Myrtone your phone probably isn't covered in urban graffiti.
They're about as slow here in Toronto
Wait, you compare an almost uninterrupted tram line in the middle of a highway to one on a city street with about a thousand stop lights? 🙄. They removed many of the stops in the city, yet the teams there are skirt than ever, and way less convenient.