Thank you for letting me feature, it was great! I really think some people just have messed up and outdated experiences about trams, and this video certainly proves that trams work. Come on Adelaide, get on with ADElink! #frequencyisfreedom
Yes, trams do work, however, trams/ light rail are nowhere near as good as a train/ heavy rail in terms of speed and capacity. At grade trams/ light rail are low capacity rail. Only fully grade separated trams like ones in Ottawa, Canada with no track sharing have high capacities per unit and per hour. The right of way and degree of grade separation for any mode guarantee consistent trip times on the vehicle, higher frequencies, faster journeys and adequate capacity. Also, the fundamental changes of PT such as station spacing, maximum speed between stations determines the vehicle's average speed and trip time. Big station spacing (2 km - 6 km) with high maximum speeds between stations equals faster average speed (50 km/h - 78 km/h). Conversely, small station spacing (200 m - 1.5 km) with low maximum speeds between stations equals slower average speed (11 km/h - 32 km/h). Ideal hierachy of public transport - Slow speed & low capacity modes for short distance trips - Medium speed & medium capacity modes for medium distance trips - High speed & high capacity modes for long distance trips - Buses to supplement the trains or other high capacity modes - Trams, monorails and busways are the middle capacity between buses - trains - Trains for backbone/ radial routes for high capacity
I agree that frequency is freedom. However, capacity, legibility, reliability and decent vehicle average speed for its distance served (short, medium and long) are extremely important too.
Forgot to mention: trams can also work on longer routes; Thus we have a couple of rural trams in Germany, literally going through the countryside; The longest tram lines (not the entire tram network, but the single tram line) in Germany have roughly twice the length of the Adelaide tram
There was a proposal in the 1970's to build a tram/ light rail on the existing Glenelg tram from Victoria Square to Tea Tree Plaza (TTP). However, the costs of a tram tunnel under Adelaide CBD cost $200 million and was consequently cancelled for the O'bahn guided busway (See link below). However, the O'bahn is a proprietary busway system which hasn't lived upto the hype of a fully direct and no transfer system. Passengers have to change buses in off peak and peak hours at the major busway stations of Klemzig, Paradise and TTP. A complex network like the Adelaide O'bahn with its open bus lines are difficult to understand. Each bus line on the O'bahn system usually branches from the busway stations and operates at extremely low frequencies of 20 - 40 mins. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway No city builds a guided busway as its similar to a steel railway built at a reasonable price per km. Buses are meant for flexibility; the idea of putting buses on a concrete guideway defeats the buses flexibility. Derek Scrafton was the Director General for transport when building the Adelaide O'bahn guided busway. However, the notion that the O'bahn being far more efficient than trains is bus industry propaganda (see link below). I must say that Derek Scrafton in UniSA has been blindfolded to why buses on high capacity radial routes will always fail. www.unisa.edu.au/Media-Centre/Releases/2020/adelaide-o-bahn-far-more-efficient-than-citys-rail-network/ What a public transport system needs is speed, reliability and capacity. Grade separated steel wheeled trains for high capacity (backbone) and massive stop spacing (1.5 km - 6 km), not buses or biarticulated buses. A transport expert, Peter Newman in Perth's Curtin University has understood why trains make sense for high capacity routes with massive stop spacing (see link below). search.curtin.edu.au/s/cache?collection=curtin-web&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsustainability.curtin.edu.au%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F31%2F2017%2F06%2FThe-Perth-Rail-Transformation-Some-political-lessons-learned.pdf&profile=_default
@@michaeleverett1479 I know the O-Bahn bus system too well ... never really got popular; They wanted to build one in my city as well, plans were pretty detailed already but they were canceled in the end and now the city still runs on plain normal city buses throughout the entire city area. Definetly was the right choice. Only two O-Bahn systems were built here, only one of them is still in use, ... and the only reason for it still being in use is the lack of cheap alternatives, otherwise they would have dropped and replaced the O-Bahn already "not buses or biarticulated buses" with stations 6 km apart we'd have one station in each far corner of the city lol, that's not what public transport is supposed to be about; with 1.5 km in between it still would be only 8 stations from one end to the other end of the city; It's simply not large enough for public transport being based on heavy rail, neither above ground nor as subway below ground; It's not even suitable for trams for other circumstances. The only (!) effective way to provide public transport in my city are buses. What's the problem about bi-articulated buses? Thought you mentioned the greater flexibility of the bus? Dpesn't need to be a diesel bus, can be electric one as well; Thus e.g. in Hamburg they had bi-articulated buses; Their subway system is seperated, either going below ground as actual subway, going on a seperated track at ground level or on an elevated track, not getting in touch with crossing roads at level crossings etc.; Still that's by far not enough to get people to move around the city, still takes a wide spread and much tighter bus network; Also in the city of Trondheim they run bi-articulated city buses, a grade seperated train covering public transport within the city just wouldn't make sense there; Also keep in mind an elevated track might often destroy the look of a city while a tunnel might be unaffordable or face some extreme cost-intensive difficulties. It makes sense to combine them all if the size of the city and available space in the city make it manageable: bus + tram + subway / elevated rail; But e.g. a subway can't provide the kind of public transport a bus can; Wouldn't be effective to cover all the outskirts, villages and low population desntiy neighborhoods or historic city centers via subway or elevated tracks lol
Well, the US once has electric streetcars in many cities. The tracks were often extended well outside the city limits and sometimes linked good sized towns together. When that was done, they were sometimes called "Inter-Urbans." After WWII the systems the "long range" systems were abandoned as were some larger city systems. But other cities continue "modernization" started in 1936 with the PCC cars. These cars were as functional aa any present day "tram." The Washington, DC operation (which was abandoned in 1961 by order of the democRAT congress) even had an air-conditioned car. The owner of the system was prohibited by installing AC in more than one car. The US cars mostly ran on "standard gauge" (4'8.5") but for some reason the Pittsburgh system had a slightly wider gauge. Pittsburgh still has most of it's pre-war system.
@@GilmerJohn 6:31 Meanwhile Singapore also removed its trams in the 1960s (overhead lines being more unsightly being 1 reason) but people were poorer then, & when they got richer the government introduced the world's 1st downtown road tolls (the Area Licensing Scheme in 1975, now replaced by the Electronic Road Pricing ;) so car congestion didn't increase as much I think & bus ridership is quite high (>4m daily just before CoViD-19)
lived in a regional town in australia with no public transport, nothing. 2 taxis. live in köln now and to me ubahn straßenbahn and the sbahn are like some kind of space ships to me.
I am from a middle big City in Austria and we have to tram axises, and they are great! They are dedicated and absolutely don't cause traffic congestion. I love them, they have a big capacity, and aren't as expensive as a metro network. We are around 250000 people so it's perfect for us!
I live in Linz (also an Austrian City for anyone who's unaware), and the trams are also very nice here. They have a frequency of 7-8mins. (on the lines 1 & 2) or a frequency of 15mins. (on the lines 3 & 4). For the most part though the lines 1 & 2 as well as the lines 3 & 4 share the track. In the city itself all lines run alongside each other which allows a frequency of up to 2mins. in the core section!
Awesome video, with some very good points made. Australia and its cities and larger towns have a rich history of tram networks. Melbourne is home to the world’s largest tram network, so it was a great thing that they did keep them. The original Sydney tram network was actually larger than Melbourne’s in its heyday. It is unfortunate that cities such as Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Newcastle, Hobart, Ballarat and Bendigo, to name a few, were all ripped up during the mid-20th century due to bad maintenance during WWII and declining patronage due to an increase in private car ownership. However, it’s good to see that new lines have been opened and/or reconstructed in Sydney and Newcastle, extended in Adelaide and even trams introduced in Canberra and the Gold Coast who have never had trams before. As well as the Glenelg tram line, it would be lovely if Adelaide had some new tram lines in the future. This is completely made up but based off of some proposed lines and ripped up lines from the past, here’s some hypothetical future tram lines for Adelaide’s tram network 👇 🔹 A new tram or train line along the O-Bahn route out to Tea Tree Plaza, if the O-Bahn was to be scrapped for whatever reason and replaced with a new tram or train line instead. 🔹 Two eastern suburbs lines: one along The Parade going through Norwood, Kensington Park, Kensington Gardens and finishing at Rosslyn Park, and the other along Magill Rd through Stepney, Trinity Gardens, St Morris, through Magill and terminating at the university. 🔹 A line from possibly Port Adelaide railway station to Semaphore via Glanville and along Semaphore Rd with stops at Exeter and Semaphore, as that was the old Semaphore railway line route 🔹 Two lines in Adelaide’s northern suburbs: one starting off along Torrens Rd and then going up Churchill Rd, serving the western parts of Fitzroy and Prospect, Devon Park, Dudley Park and Kilburn, and the second one also going through Fitzroy and Prospect, with this line running along Prospect Rd. Also serves Thorngate and Blair Athol. 🔹 Unley receiving a tram line along Unley Rd and going down to Mitcham, with the terminus a short walk from the railway station. Hyde Park, Malvern, Unley Park, Hawthorn and Kingswood would all be served by this line 🔹 A second line in Adelaide’s inner-southern suburbs running along West Tce and down Goodwood Rd to Colonel Light Gardens. People living in Millswood, Clarence Park, Kings Park, Cumberland Park, Westbourne Park and Daw Park, many suburbs ending with ‘park’, would use this route to get around 🔹 One or possibly two lines heading to Adelaide Airport. One would go along Henley Beach Rd and go through Brooklyn Park, Underdale, Torrensville and the northern part of Mile End and southern part of Thebarton, and the second line would Sir Donald Bradman Dr and serve West Richmond, Richmond and Mile End South 🔹 Adelaide’s northeastern suburbs having one along Payneham Rd and Lower North East Rd with a terminus at Paradise, stopping at various stops in St Peters, Evandale, Marden, Felixstow and Campbelltown 🔹 Adelaide’s southeast having a line to Glen Osmond going along Glen Osmond Rd, Eastwood, Frewville, Glenunga, Myrtle Bank and Glen Osmond all being served along this line. Possibly others, but many of these theoretical tram lines would take a long time or possibly never go ahead at all. It would take a lot of planning, time and construction, not to mention very costly.
Glad to live in a city, where trams are supreme (Prague).. The network is ideal, the Czech made trams are comfortable and reliable and it makes having a car in the city less of a priority + Prefer rams to Busses. We have as well Troley busses so kind of a hybrid between both concepts
The building of tram links are often controversial, particularly for services that run along main roads due to the disruption involved during construction. But in pretty much all cases once the first line gets built, ridership builds, their popularity increases and it usually leads to lines being extended and new lines being built as commuters and business start to see the benefits. That's certainly the case in Edinburgh, Scotland where a single line was built mired in huge controversy and cost over runs. However it has become so successful that the line is now being extended and proposals have been introduced for more lines to be built and so far there has been far less opposition to the proposals than for the original line.
As an expat South Australian living in Victoria, it makes me glad to see the post 2005 Glenelg line talked about in such a positive light. The initial upgrade and replacement of rolling stock had some initial teething problems, the original plan has been vindicated and we are enjoying the benefits now. The City West, Entertainment Centre, Botanic Gardens and Festival Plaza extensions have also been well designed from a technical point of view with proper lane segregation allowing for minimal traffic interface. The traffic light sequencing (as you have mentioned) needs a full revision though. Even with the complex ‘special workI’ at King William Street/North Terrace, the extensions also prove that you can build a modern tram/light rail system in the CBD for a fraction of the cost of the bloated Sydney project on a kilometre by kilometre basis. I do appreciate the dramatically different scales in size between the projects though. Also Flexity > Citadis! I know everyone likes the Citadis cars but from a technical perspective, they are no where near as good as the Flexity fleet! Rigid trucks versus pivoted ones, poorer articulation design and you don’t launch an upgrade program called the Adelaide Citadis Tram Modification Program to make operational conditions for the drivers better unless control layout was anything other than good! The E class in Mainline owe their existence not only to the Bombardier’s local presence in Melbourne but also in part to the successful 2007 trials of Flexity 111 around Melbourne proving the technical superiority of the design.
Great stuff...basically, if it runs on rails it must be good. Dunedin NZ had an excellent tram and cable car network....all gone by 1957..replaced by quick clean and quiet trolley buses which were perfect for the hills......they,ve gone, replaced by buses. Repeat for Wellington by 2019. I enjoyed your video but to a degree..and def the Melb segment.. it suffers from rushing the delivery. May i recommend listening to Jago Hazzard's London focussed videos. Now...more power to your pantograph😊
Indeed, Trams work. Two words says it all..."snow and ice". Anything with rubber tires just does not cut it in northern climes. Give us the climate controlled smooth ride of a Tram or street car or LRV. Cheers.
Hey, great video, but please consider the volume differences through the video. Your music is really loud compared to voice especially when you have headphones in. Keep it up
In the USA, this is known as a light railway. It runs along the road, but is usually barricaded from traffic and pedestrians, similar to the one in GTA 5. A tram usually runs along the roadway, with traffic, much like street trolleys in San Francisco. So technically, this is a light rail since i see it on tracks on the road with no fencing or elevation.
It is just a different term across the Atlantic. Be careful on using the term "light rail" when visiting London, since they will direct you to a smaller capacity version of metro and like metro, it never runs on the street. That, and London no longer have trams anymore.
@@dbclass4075 that is also light rail. Light rail is basically anything smaller than heavy rail it could be streetcar/tram with low or high levels platforms or just heavy rail metro train with smaller capacity.
What do you call a tram or train that runs partly in mixed trafic, partly on seperated tracks? For example, the "Straßenbahn" (I'd call it tram) in Vienna does this.
Many valid points which I agree with, I've been in Victoria for nearly 20 years. Here are a few reasons why they aren't - - Security is absolutely non-existent. You get beaten up or abused the driver will not help, there are no security and most people at best will pull their phone and record instead of helping. Cameras are only about 35% of the trams. The rare time you see security they are there to check that you have paid and fine you if you have not. Also their bullying tactics are disgusting. - Sand. All trams use sand in their breaking mechanism therefore where there are trams there is dust everywhere. Crossing the street as the tram passes? You'll get a face full of sand. Even the newest trams still use sand. - Myki in particularly the cost, poorly planned implementation and maintenance was a disaster. This could very easily be a 30 minute video in itself. But here goes... Delayed a further 6 years from projected implementation Plagued with confusion regarding ticketing for literally years 250 million over budget Myki on the NFS on your phone took 12 year to implement, so we all had to carry a sensitive $6 card and top up for a very very long time So that meant Myki is the world's only ticketing systems on which visitors and occasional users cannot buy a short-term ticket. Unused funds on cards or Myki android were not refundable or transferable Myki machines were highly susceptible to vandalism, rendering adding funds or tapping on impossible. Also I've been to dozens of countries around the world, Melbourne thus far is the most expensive. Although Sydney and Gold coast are up there too. - Tram lines are updated every decade or so, which meant that many lines would be full and others quite empty - Heavy bias and favouritism between lines. You live on the Collin st or Toorak road line? then you've have the newest cleanest trams with security cameras. Most lines are still crappy old ones with their chairs re-fabric and no air con. - For those living right in front of a tram line, good luck with the rumbling and dinging of the bells. - STILL NO DIRECT LINE TO THE AIRPORT by tram or train. This one is disgraceful. No direct public transport access and we need to pay a shuttle bus $38 return ticket for a 20 minute ride each way. I'm not totally hating on trams, I think that they are great just incredibly poorly run.
Oh come on, I've lived in Melbourne my entire life and use the trams frequently, I have never once had sand in my face or even really noticed it at all and I reckon if you surveyed regular tram commuters responses would range from it being a non-issue to not even realising trams use sand. On the issue of security I get that this can be an issue very late at night, but for most trips it would be very unlikely to actually be beaten up or abused. And I can't speak to your experience with authorised officers but I have never witnessed bullying tactics. I get that there are parts of Melbourne's trams and public transport network more broadly that need to be improved but I can't help but feel you're painting the picture a lot blacker than it really is.
Trams are great. I like trams too! If you don't like trams, feel free to sit in traffic all day long They're building a three line light rail system here in Tel Aviv and I can't wait (:
Suburban trains and metro systems would be entirely a better experience over a crappy tram carriage. Even if grade separation for trams and trains, trains easily outclass the tram/ light rail.
@@disappointingmarbleraces9028, In Adelaide, the Bombardier Flexity and Alstom Citadis trams are only 2.4 m wide with a low floor design. Sitting on the edge of Adelaide's trams in the transverse seating configuration is an uncomfortable experience due to the trams narrow carriages. When the seats of Adelaide's trams are full, it's impossible to walk through the aisle of the vehicle. The trams bogies with its narrow carriage design make it even harder to walk through the entire vehicle, especially when standing room is completely filled up. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Adelaide
Absolutely agree, trams are great. The nearest ones to us here are in Edinburgh, and it’s good to see that they are planning to build more routes in the future.
Nice video and I agree I like trams... or light rail - and yes, there can be a distinction since in many parts of the world, trams are generally referred to the older system that existed with light rail being the newer - and light rail more often than trams, runs on dedicated tracks (thinking of this Adelaide one)... but I digress... I'm still cool with trams for both... The real reason for my comment was the frequency bit. This is a special thing for Adelaide as frequency is completely independent of mode. Yes, your tram has a frequency of 10 minutes during the day and that's good, but it's not only trams that offer this. Generally speaking, any form of rapid transit should have a frequency greater than 4 trains/trams an hour. It is very common to reach Adelaide's 10 minute frequency or better it. Metro systems generally do this as well (as in metros, u-bahns, subways, the tube etc) London's Tube for instance has a frequency that can reach one train a minute in some sections, as does the Paris Metro. It's also not unheard of to have even buses beat the 10 minute frequency. Many UK cities have buses for instance with greater frequencies than every 10 minutes. Now grade separation is also not really a tram thing. Most traditional trams in the world share with road traffic and are quite slow. The modern ones tend to have a lot more grade separation. But this is still more of a metro or suburban rail thing. Grade separation is not a requirement of the tram, but a bonus for some. Grade separation however is an accepted requirement for metro systems. Thirdly, the length of a rail car has absolutely no effect on frequency or regularity. It just happens that your trams in Adelaide are shorter than suburban rail and have higher frequency. Again, most metros are longer than your trams (many longer than your suburban rail), yet generally have higher frequency. A great example of this is London's new Crossrail which when opening next year will have huge 200meter long trains and 2 and a half minute frequencies. Berlin's S-bahns are also suburban trains with some lines having 10 minute or better frequencies. It's also worth pointing out that Adelaide's trams have less capacity than some other trams because they are low floor ones. One disadvantage of this is that the door opening mechanism needs to take up space inside the cab to avoid the wheels, reducing internal space. High floor trams don't have this problem None of this is to disagree with your main point that Trams are better than buses. I agree with you there 100%. Just clarifying some things up. But... if we are saying that trams are great (and they are), Metro systems (metros, u-bahns, subways, tube etc) are even better. They are faster than trams, with full grade separation, higher frequencies and greater capacity :)
Great video! We are looking to get trams here in Auckland (probably most comparable to what Sydney has been building recently), so hopefully this progresses in the near future
I can only just remember the widespread if shabby and rundown tram and cablecar network in Dunedin....all gone by 1957.....the excellent trolleybus sysyem..perfect for the hills....that,too, gone. And what did Wellington do??.......
@@neville132bbk The real tragedy is that the Welly trolleys only went *very* recently (2017 I think?), long after everyone was already focused on sustainable transport, and no one except the govt wanted them gone. Absolute vandalism, especially when you look at how shockingly bad the diesel bus services are.
There's a tram/ light rail system in Frankfurt, Germany (1st link below) that operates in tunnels for the CBD, and at ground level with some level crossings for the outer sections (1st, 2nd & 3rd links below). The Frankfurt U-bahn (tram) system could be classed as light metro especially for its inner city sections and high frequency of 5 minutes in the peak with smaller rolling stock of up to 6 carriage consists. The Frankfurt U-bahn is one of the very few tram/ light rail systems in the world to have this sort of metro style operation (4th & 5th links below). It's strange to use a tram (high floor) for grade separation as it would be fully outclassed by a metro train (high floor). German cities in particular are crazy with their suburban trains, metros and trams/ light rail in regards to their branding, service pattern, stop spacing and route alignment. The trams on the Frankfurt U-bahn accelerate very fast from a standstill when leaving stations and are able to decelerate quickly when entering stations (1st, 2nd & 3rd links below). This high acceleration by trams on the Frankfurt U-bahn is something that many railway systems don't have. Frankfurt tram videos: ruclips.net/video/aDE8EzHRxo8/видео.html (U-Bahn Frankfurt am Main | Stadtbahn | Light rail | VGF) ruclips.net/video/3IdNUz--fv8/видео.html (The Metro/U-bahn in Frankfurt, Germany) ruclips.net/video/ho3fILH9lqM/видео.html (Br111 Fan: U Bahn Frankfurt Teil 4 (2016) C-Stammstrecke) About Frankfurt U-bahn and other strange tram/ light rail systems: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_U-Bahn en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbahn en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premetro
Tramways are Light Rail but in a different way... I grew up with tramways,I live next to a tram line actually. When I visit another town with trams I feel more comfortable , orientation is more easy with rails in the streets...especially while walking . Greetings from the original home of the bumblebees...!
The best thing about the Glenelg line is the free use in the CBD and the city of Glenelg. I can park in the outskirts of the Glenelg and instead of walking 20-30 minutes, I can catch a 5 minute tram to the jetty for free.
In NSW we love our light rail... so much so we rip up actual train lines running major intercity electrified services to replace them with crappy street-running light rail to a super inconvenient interchange in the middle of nowhere! Beat that :D
actually, it does have signal priority when the tram is late, if th tram is late then the traffic system will change accordingly to get it up to speed, it will also detect when it's approaching so that it can go on through when it reaches the intersection. But only when it's late, when it's not late, it's not needed.
@@AussieWirraway US streetcars died out because they had to share their lanes with cars. If they'd been given dedicated lanes, they'd still be thriving today!
The co operation of Car Manufacturers, Oil & Tire companies, aw to it that dedicated rights of way, or boarding platforms etc. NEVER happened. Research NATIONSL CITY LINES, owned by such companies for details.
@@Blaqjaqshellaq Most of Melboune's trams share the road with cars. We have a tram running past our home. It connects with two heavy rail suburban rail lines, plus many other tram lines and bus lines. Our tram takes passengers from its terminus through to the CBD and onto Melbourne University. It will connect with a third heavy line in a year or two when ANZAC underground station opens. It takes approx just under an hour to travel to the CBD, about half of the route it shares the road with cars. A train from our nearest rail station, about a kilometre away, takes about 15 mins to the CBD with trains running every 10 mins. Once the new underground section is complete trains will then run every few minutes, so they say.
It was such a stupid idea to drop the Eastern suburb extension to Magill. We will live to regret it for a long time. I was involved with the construction of Gold Goast tram, which was delayed and caused a few inconvenience to the neighbourhood merchants. But look at the impacts it has on the Games and the local economy before it was hit by Covid. Imagine how much more ridership the Eastlink would bring to the old and new stadiums and hospitals and the traffic freed up in the city.
I disagree. It's a great suggestion to drop the AdeLINK tram extension into Adelaide's inner and middle suburbs. Trams/ light rail are high cost, low capacity rail which does so little to tackle Adelaide's horrible road congestion even if trams/ light rail have traffic light piority and reserved right of way in their own lanes. There's no at grade tram system in the world that's able to properly operate at a frequency of 5 mins or less unless there's absolute grade separation. It's a matter of fact that steel wheeled vehicles like street trams brake much slower and perform far worse in mixed traffic (at grade) with stop and go operation than rubber tyred vehicles like buses. In contrast, at grade buses with the reserved right of way on their own lanes can easily operate at frequencies of 2.5 - 5 minutes as shown in many parts of the world. Buses in busway/ BRT systems can have train like platforms, off board fare collection and turnstiles to facilate a rapid turnover of passengers. Properly built busways/ BRT can imitate tram/ light rail at much lower costs for construction, operation and maintenance. The below video link by Neil Hamilton explains and why trams/ light rail in Adelaide don't make any sense. Brisbane & Perth have removed their tram networks, but they're still doing fine without trams. ruclips.net/video/2Xp3jeNKEWQ/видео.html
Trams (or streetcars to the yanks) and light rail are not the same thing. While the difference between the two can be quite blurry sometimes, there are significant differences. Most tram systems were built before the the dominance of the automobile and so therefore there was not a problem with Streetrunning (when the vehicles share the road with other traffic). The reaction to the rise of the private motor vehicle in most countries was to simply get rid of the trams, but in some places they decided to separate the corridor as much as possible. When some American planners were visiting Europe they noticed that those tram routes that performed the best were the routes that had the most grade separation (separation from other traffic). So the idea of light rail was created by using tram technology, but creating a purely grade-separated system with NO streetrunning. Therefore you will see light rail being built on abandoned heavy rail lines or on the grass verge between wide boulevards or avenues. There are some tram systems that are a mix of the two, like the one discussed in this video, that run on a tramway with grade separation for most of its route (like light rail), but once it gets to the CBD (downtown to the yanks) it starts streetrunning like a traditional tram system. Also some Americans have a weird nomenclature where light rail is a type of light rail, but not all light rail is light rail. Like how a (domestic) cat is a type of cat (feline), but not all cats (felines) are (domestic) cats. That just gets confusing fast, and made worse by them including smaller heavy rail diesel multiple units as light rail as well (think Metrorail in Austin Texas). The end result of the confusion is that you have something like what is happening in Auckland New Zealand, where the government wants to put street running trams down a congested narrow two lane road to the airport and think that it will have the capacity and frequency of a fully grade separated light rail system if they simply put "light rail" in the name.
Trams are just fine but I hope they never replace the Outer Harbor line with a tram. The worst was that I heard they were even planning to replace the Outer Harbor line without using the Commercial Road viaduct. They would instead use street running along Commercial Road, which is much slower than passing over the traffic on a viaduct.
l miss the ability to open the windows on a hot day, it used to add to the experience, now it's just another form of mass transit. l suppose there is still St Kilda historic for nostalgia :D oh and icymi Bendigo got an old green Melbourne tram running through their town now.
Newcastle's tram is useless. It goes from nowhere to nowhere, passing nowhere and is so short, if it wasn't there nobody would notice. The fast trains from Sydney & outer Newcastle/Hunter were fast, ending up just behind the beach, in the heart of Newcastle. Now it is cut short, breaking the journey so it takes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than it needs to. The tram could have run a useful loop around the real attractions in Newcastle, but the people who forced this expensive stupidity down the public's throat were only doing it to grab some waterfront real estate, and wouldn't be seen dead on the tram. They didn't use their money to stuff up the public transport, but the profit from the real estate is their's.
Trams are great, I live them but this one seems to go through very low density neighborhoods. What's the ridership? I don't usually see a tram in single family homes in my country. Busses have enough capacity to serve this kind of neighborhoods.
Ridership on this route is about 10 million a year, the route connects busy destinations and serves the suburbs in between well. This route definitely is good as a tram, as the tram attracts a lot of patronage from the area
@@AussieWirraway, Glenelg and Adelaide CBD are the two anchor destinations of generating patronage of the Glenelg tram. Most of the trams trip is done with free rides in Adelaide CBD.
@@AussieWirraway, The Glenelg tram takes 45 minutes to travel from Rundle Mall to Glenelg for only 10 km end to end. It's far too long especially in Adelaide CBD and Jetty Road in Glenelg due to a lack of traffic light priority for the trams. Trams in Canberra and Gold Coast in Australia have traffic light priority running throughout the system which results in higher average speed and reduced trip time.
The problem in the US with both trams and busses is the dispersal of cities. In the postwar period many city residents moved out to the suburbs where they could have a freestanding home and the layout of suburban housing subdivisions does not make any logical sense mapwise, i.e. locating on transit corridors or major road corridors ,and such like being near existing business centers, factories, or community downtowns. This was all facilitated by the automobile that allowed distances to be negated. Cities in the US responded to this population movement negatively, those moving out were replaced with new residents, generally of lower income and often folks of color. There was also a downward trend in the quality of school systems and of public services in general. Rent control schemes insured that investment in rental housing blocks avoided the city and of course investment in commercial centers turned to suburban shopping centers resulting in the closure of the downtown shopping, new industrial projects also avoided the cities building in suburban industrial parks instead. What is left of the downtowns is generally government centers and business offices of banks, insurance companies, and the like. This results in transit systems having high traffic loads during the morning and even rush periods but little or nothing at other times. The relatively high fares make it unattractive for family or group travel since if you fill the seats the car is significantly cheaper. Using the Washington, DC Metro as an example, traffic at a given suburban station can generally be estimated by the size of the available parking facility some of which can accommodate thousand of cars. The crowding on the system and lack of seating is offset by the relatively high speed resulting in short trip length in terms of time. There are feeder bus systems serving many of the major stations however these can be highly unreliable and increase overall travel time significantly. While trams have seen some success in the US, many lines do not live up to their promise, This is often caused by being too short and not reaching far enough into the residential zones to generate sufficient traffic, functioning more as a downtown circulator than as a home to work solution. Another practice is choosing a corridor because it has an existing abandoned or little used railway line situated on it ignoring it's traffic potential or lack of. In some cases this will work out in long terms as housing and business build along the new corridor but this will take a while, meanwhile there will be a lot of red ink on the systems books.
Situation mentioned by HENRY OSTMAN also planned to a degree by auto interests. For 1939 World Fair General Motors produced a film on city planning. Pushed spread out single family homes, but in way making transit (even bus) undoable. Example Madeline streets work many dead ends making routes impeachable, theses provided with trunk roadsnwith no foot crossings to a mile or two, also causing bus lines to go out ofcway to very. Overall stores in malls, central schools needing busing to, and even putting Religious buildings in districts miles from housing made everything a car trip. Main roads were designed with low overpasses, signs, streetlights set at 8 or 9bfoot impossible for busses to use
@@albertbenajam4751 In the NY region, planner Robert Moses designed the parkway system not for transit purposes but for recreational travel. He wanted to keep trucks and busses off his roads using tight turns on ramps and low bridges, Folks consider road and highway mainly for passenger transit and forget the immense role they play in goods movement, everything you have came by truck, one of the difficulties of old cities is streets that are too narrow for trucks and the lack of parking for trucks. A big problem for irregular bus service into NYC (charters) is where to park the bus while the charter party goes about its business, $50 won't park a car in Manhattan for a day and you want to park a 45' bus?? Another issue is goods delivery within the city, folks don't bring their own toilet paper, your 50 story office building needs lots of it and a lot of other things, it doesn't get their by magic, where do you park the truck during unloading? I have visited Singapore several times, they have answers to these problems. The answer for transit in larger cities is to assume that much of the 'final mile' will be by auto and build sufficient parking at stations to accommodate. Some day these auto might be bicycles or more likely golf carts or small electric cars. The urban 'SMART CAR'' with an electric motor would make a lot of sense.
I love trams; however one has to keep in mind that e.g. the longest bus sets have a comparable length and capacity like the shortest articulated tram sets; Bi-articulated buses for example are often 24m long, while e.g. the Aventio T2.7 tram, being an articulated one with only 2 cars, has a total length of 19m. Also buses can be operated on seperated lanes and roads just like trams. As much as I love trams they don't make sense and solve problems in every place; Thus in my home town of 200k inhabitants in southern Germany they want to re-establish a tram network, starting off with 2 lines; However they'd face problems which the buses don't have: there're some tight turns at intersections which the articulated buses are able to manage, while a tram wouldn't be able to do so; Also some rather narrow two-way roads, steep roads etc; However the greatest issue is that on the planned routes there's hardly any sections where the tram could run on a seperated track alongside the road or in between the lanes going both directions; Thus the track would be in the road most of the time and thus wouldn't help with the congestion at all; In fact it would rather bring along more congestion with trams being stuck in the traffic jam, as the tram can't compensate more than 20 bus lines serving the same bus stop; Some of these are 4 lane wide main roads, but you can't just take one lane from each direction and place a track there instead, as there are traffic issues with 4 lanes already ... would only be worse with 2 lanes, causing a traffic collapse in half of the city. There are some rather few sections where the track can be seperated, however these aren't on relevant routes for public transport via trams
@@woodliceworm4565 wasn't thinking about trolley buses to be honest; Hardly see them anywhere here, not to say I haven't seen any of them for more than a decade at all
@@EnjoyFirefighting The last system in the southern lands was scrapped in Wellington about three years ago and replaced with second hand 15 yo diesel buses. A great step towards emissions-less public transport that is a step backwards. The modern trolleys can move themselves if they have to for short distances and come as articulated units as well. Not a bad option for hilly cities. and for frequent routes, as they can carry significant loads and pulling away produces the most pollution from a ICE engine.
@@EnjoyFirefighting Pity apart from the overhead they are better energy-wise - not carrying the weight of batteries and easier to maintain. They have their place I guess they use to be widespread at one stage. I think San Fran in the US Canada and few places still have robust trolley networks.
Adelaide's AdeLINK tram extension into the inner suburbs is still on the Piority List by Infrastructure Australia. AdeLINK must be cancelled for improvements to buses and trains instead. Perth and Brisbane in Australia are doing fine without trams/ light rail. Bicycles with separate cycling infrastructure are much cheaper and far more practical than expanding Adelaide's tram network.
You would not believe that car love and parking spaces actually have higher priority over actual benefits and efficiency of trams... just look at Hamburg, the largest (non-capital) city in the EU without a Tram while holding the record for the busiest/most frequented bus line in the European Union (line 5j. And as a small kid (5-6y.) I traveled from Wiesbaden (no tram) to Mainz (yes Tram) to school with my mom and my little sister. My mom had a stroller and I remember the bus line that went over the river Rhine to connect the cities was so congested that my mom had to scream „we want to leave at this bus stop, please let us through!“ to leave with a kid (me) and a stroller with my little sister who was 2y. at the time. It angers me that the proposed tram line, which WOULD connect big suburbs, reactivate an old train line, go through Wiesbaden, replace the bus line I used, go over the River Rhine AND connect with the big tram system in neighboring city Mainz through an election to build it or nah with 30% of only the city population being allowed to participate. Just look it up on google, even writing this angers me so much. Thank you for reading my rant
@@MetroManMelbourne, I wonder if Melbourne should demolish their tram network and replace it with monorails?? Monorails have the advantages of higher capacity, frequency, reilability, consistency and higher average speed (station to station) over street trams due to the grade separation of fully elevated monorails. Proponents of trams frequently use the Sydney monorail to wrongly associate monorails as slow and lacking capacity. It doesn't matter if the monorail train has rubber tyres; what matters is the type of service, competitive door to door average speed and trip time against the car. A handful number of people in Melbourne take upto 90 minutes just for a 13 km door to door trip from Melbourne's outer suburbs into Melbourne's CBD. Evidence by Monorails Australia shows that the average speed of Melbourne's entire tram network is 16 km/h and drops down to a snails pace of 11 km/h in Melbourne's CBD (see link below). At grade tram/ light rail across the world can only safely move at maximum speeds of 50 km/h between stations. Trams regularly run into accidents more than buses as trams being stuck to the steel rails (without passing loops) can't serve around incoming traffic whereas buses which can instantly change direction at the driver's input of the steering wheel. The chance of accidents and derailment of monorails is almost impossible. There're high capacity monorail trains which have railway suspension, hydralics and bogies for a ride quality similar to a steel wheeled train. These proper monorail systems have rolling stock that are able to comfortably carry 100 people per carriage with maximum speeds of 80 km/h between stations. www.monorailsaustralia.com.au/
@@michaeleverett1479 Or we ignore everything you say and convert car lanes into tram only. Also the monorail association or whatever is pretty dumb, if they assume trams are rapid transit, as they are not. On the other hand monorail are fucking shit, if not used as rapid transit.
@@michaeleverett1479 also wtf, of course is a grade separated system more reliable than anything else. Melbournes tram does not fall into the rapid transit category, so your comparisson is wrong and poor.
Good content! Very informed. I'm fascinated with US' and Australia's resistance to sensible public transport. Just one caveat: your music is super loud compared to your voice which makes me crank up the volume to hear you only to have me blasted to the other side of the room by the music inserts.
To be fair, compared to the US, the Australian capitals all have pretty good transport - and I currently live in Europe so do have some framework for comparison with "real" cities. The big difference to Europe is when you get outside the main cities the transport options drop off *really* quickly. If you live anywhere outside Sydney/Newcastle/Wollongong, Melbourne/Geelong, Brissie/Gold Coast, Perth or Adelaide then you pretty much *have* to drive. But then to be fair, that does cover the overwhelming majority of the population. We've got family out in country NSW who don't drive due to medical reasons and they find it *really* hard.
Um, theAdelaide tram is not a typical tram! It is one example - with a dedicated line with all the advantages of priority over road traffic at level crossings. There are many other trams in the world where the line is within the road and trams stop at traffic lights like other traffic. They usually have parts of the route segregated, but often not in city centres. Trams are much more expensive to install than a bus line which only requires vehicles and not a new road, but the through-life operating costs of a tram are lower, and people prefer them over the bus. For the passenger the tram is usually faster and a bit more smooth and spacious than a bus; compared with an underground metro it is at street level (usually) so quicker and much easier to access; compared with a suburban railway it is more frequent with stops much closer together.
Thank you for sharing this video, I watched your feature of why 'Australian passenger services suck' and I thought it was and excellent production, however I don't think that this video is as good as your previous production. You spoke about the benefits of trams and discssued the importance of trams being given priority, but I think the assertions about trams being cheaper to operate than buses is unfair unless you can back your claims up with evidence. I happen to know that buses are considerably cheaper to operate than rail motors. In fact, even the operating cost of three buses is probably cheaper to operate than than a single bus (which would be about the same capacity). Reason: One bus consumes about 20L/100km and require one person to operate. Bus drivers are paid roughly 2/3 of the wages of train drivers. Buses do not have guards or conductors. Buses are constructed at much higher volumes than trains. Meanwhile, a rail motor consumes about 100L/100km. Hence, it would probably be cheaper to operate a bus service with a 10-minute frequency than a train service that operates every 30 minutes. (This does not take into account that trains are generally faster than buses). I do not have any actual figures comparing the operating costs of trams and buses, however, think about this: a bus weighs about 15 to 20 tonnes, a tram weighs approx 50 tonnes. I don't know all of the costs, but you must consider the construction and maintenance costs the vehicles themselves as well as road and rail infrastructure. That is where the costs of rail dramatically increase. E.G a kilometre of road versus a km of rail. I would recommend that you determine the breakdown costs of trams/buses/electric buses and trains prior to making such assertions about whether one is cheaper. Given this information could BRT be just as effective than LRT if the buses were electric? Maybe the big difference is that buses run on diesel and trams on electricity and so long as they are on a dedicated right of way, they'd be little difference. Is there something about tram travel that gives it an inherit advantage over buses, remember, try to be as objective as possible.A good case study to do would be the Glenelg tram Vs the O'bahn bus rapid transit service. What are the advantages and disadvantages of both? Consider advancements in electric bus technology. Then make another video, without trying to read your own opinions into your message. I'd be interested to know, because as I stated, I don't know the full costs of each of these modes of mass transit, perhaps you could find out? All the best!
I have liked your video's, but one thing always get's me, why do people think light rail (tram) and trunked electric rail is cheaper to operate, if you are just comparing fuel only costs yes marginally, SA government cost of operation public transport figures, O'Bahn guided busway with related road routes $0.45c per passenger Km, Bus road only routes $0.54c per passenger Km, Light rail tram Glenelg / City route $0.58c per passenger Km, Trunked rail Seford line electric $0.62 per passenger Km, (Gawler line figure before line closure) Trunked rail Gawler line diesel $0.60c per passenger Km, Light rail tram City routes $0.89c per passenger Km. Rail has a place in public transport and I'm a rail buff but rail is not always a cost effective service.
I have some perspectives of why trams/ light rail suck especially in Adelaide and other cities in Australia and around the world. Trams do have their place just like any other mode of public transport, however trams are not the high capacity backbone of the public transport system. Many European and some North American cities during winter have lots of snow where buses struggle to gain traction on the snowy bitumen (see links below). Buses stuck on snow: ruclips.net/video/eo6DZKenOPI/видео.html ruclips.net/video/hKxFY3B1WrA/видео.html Trams and trains with steel steels are not unaffected as much by the snow and can remain in motion unimpeded thanks to the guidance of the steel rails (see links below). Trams in snow: ruclips.net/video/AV1T82nCbYM/видео.html ruclips.net/video/83tOO23C1jk/видео.html ruclips.net/video/Z_6GmeHhXLQ/видео.html Australian cities don't have snow like those in Europe and North America; Hence trams/ light rail are an totally unnecessary especially in Adelaide. Also, a railway line either trams or trains are expensive in operating and maintenance costs when compared to normal busways (not the O'bahn). A tram/ light rail costs as much to operate as a train/ heavy rail. Railway lines should only be sparingly used for high patronage routes with high capacity requirements by careful planning, zoning and land use policies. In 2020, 80% of Adelaide's public transport patronage are served by buses where the bus lines operate in mixed traffic (on the road network) and the O'bahn guided busway (fully segregated). 20% are from Adelaide's rail network of suburban trains and trams (free and paid trips). Adelaide's public transport is a disjointed multi modal network where buses, trams and trains have poor connectivity between each other. Only the O'bahn busway has continued growth in patronage since 1980 due to the buses high average speed and large stop spacing. The rest of Adelaide's public transport network patronage is stagnating or declining. However, the O'bahn should be converted to a metro system (heavy rail) with the same stop spacing. The Gawler, Seaford and Outer Harbor train lines are useful and require service improvements. Grange and Flinder's spur train lines are hopeless and must be closed. Belair train should have a tunnel between Torrens Park to Belair (at new location), with an extension to Aberfoyle Park. Double tracks must be throughout entire Adelaide's train network. Adelaide's rail network also needs better connectivity to more frequent and direct cross city buses. The whole train network in Adelaide desperately needs station removals in order to speed up an all stations train service and level crossing removals to safely improve train frequency and relieve road, bicycle and pedestrian congestion. Public transport trips needs to be more competitive against the car in door to door average speed and door to door trip time. If public transport like in Adelaide is much slower than driving for an equivalent door to door trip, people simply won't use it.
At grade trams/ light rail are a waste of time and taxpayer money they're a form of high cost low capacity rail. Even busways/ BRT systems operating at grade work better over trams in every way (except for ride equality) for low to medium capacity applications. Extending Adelaide's tram network into the inner to middle suburbs doesn't significantly increase patronage as tram proponents claim, but trams take existing passengers out of buses. The high operating and maintenance costs of trams are so high (similar to trains/ heavy rail) which causes trams to severely diminish bus services. It's no wonder that trams were torn down for buses. Trams only belong in the transport museum, not on the modern public transport system. Rebuilding Adelaide's tram network to the 1950's network is simply not worth it. Improving Adelaide's bus network with frequent buses, busways/ BRT with connections to existing trains will give the biggest bang for your buck.
@@disappointingmarbleraces9028, Trams/ light rail (low or high floor) require a specialised maintenance depot, stabling yard, rail grinding machines and highly skilled personnel to maintain and repair the rolling stock, electronic signialling and steel track. At grade tram/ light rail has lots of expensive boom gates that require costly maintenance and have delicate electronic components along the line that are prone to vandals just like an at grade train/ heavy rail. Any steel wheeled vehicle rolling on the same section of track at the size of a small coin for 17 hours or more will place lots of stress on the steel wheels and steel track. The trams need to be put into the maintenance depot at regular intervals to grind the steel wheels. Capital expenditure, operating and maintenance costs of trams/ light rail are generally not much cheaper than trains/ heavy rail. Although, operating and maintenance costs greatly vary from country to country. Improvements in bus technology and design with larger biarticulated buses, full low floor design (for all buses), wider doors, more standing room, better suspension and electric propulsion can potentially make trams/ light rail obsolete. Busways for at grade operation are generally a better choice than trams/ light rail due to the buses cheaper operating and maintenance costs for lower capacity applications.
Why are you normal? Sorry but every South Australian I've met has been weird as heck - you're breaking the stereotype. Appreciate your video, good coverage of the reasoning why it's effective - Ade does it way better than Vic as well by having way less shared car/tram lanes.
The Glenelg Tram is a classic example of how NOT to design or run public transport. The tram has no priority and takes forever to go the few streets it crosses in the City, having to stop at every traffic light. Despite Adelaide is long and thin with an east west orientation, there is no loop tram because _that_ would be useful and would cut down the number of buses. There is NO East-West connection.The O Bahn should have been a tram and isn't. Nothing connects with anything or locates anywhere convenient. A Network designed by idiots. Melbourne got it mostly right. Their trams run where people want to go, down busy narrow streets lined with attractions, a quick hop from the curb. Their only problem is that where they could relieve congestion, like near the MCG, they are log jammed in by commuter car traffic, so _nobody_ can move.
around here in central Europe you'd differntiate between a tram and lightrail; Thus e.g. my state's capital city has a tram, subway, commuter rail etc but no light rail; In the state west of us the capital city has lightrail and commuter rail, but no subway and no tram
Trams/ light rail in North America are built heavy enough so that they can withstand multiple collisions. Light rail only refers to the capacity, and not the vehicle's mass. The term light rail in North America is a misnomer as the vehicles are heavier than small trains (high floor) in a heavy rail metro system. By mass, light rail is heavy rail and metro is light rail. Portland Max light rail in USA are actually low floor street trains with a different bodywork. Also, the Los Angeles light rail are high floor trains which run at grade similar to those in Portland. Link by Monorail Society www.monorails.org/tMspages/MonoVs.html I don't believe in the Monorails Society claim of monorails being magically profitable. Any mode of public transport works as long it can sustain its operating and maintenance costs by reasonably filling up the seats in the vehicle. Empty PT vehicles waste money, energy, resources and always must be avoided. Those frequent tram/ light rail collisions keep the vehicles in the repair shop for hours. Again, those ongoing repairs especially with trams/ light rail are great for the greedy railway contractors. At grade steel wheeled railway systems can never approach the safety, reliability, capacity and frequency of fully grade separated railway systems. Also, tram tracks embedded with concrete are disruptive, extremely expensive to construct, maintain and replace. Even fully elevated monorails outperform trams/ light rail with similar short stop spacing (200 m - 1 km). Although, monorails have to be fully elevated, or else they're bust. At least metro rail, any train line or busways gives options for various alignments such as elevated, at ground level or in tunnel.
@@michaeleverett1479 had to look some of them up, certainly have their similiarities and still are quite different; This e.g. would be a tram in my state's capital city: ruclips.net/video/xvcjpMmX1uE/видео.html This is the typical commuter train: ruclips.net/video/ClhPxm7sGDM/видео.html Subway: ruclips.net/video/4-sZsWqcoXY/видео.html And in the other state's capital city their light rail: ruclips.net/video/0hBuuFxcA1c/видео.html Here the light rail trains usually have a tram-like character but high floor and elevated platforms, while trams usually have the low floor and low platforms There are many cities here where trams or buses will have a priority signal, adapting an intersection's normal traffic light intervals as soon as a tram or bus is approaching or standing at a light; you can also interlace it with road traffic lights, e.g. not turning all traffic lights green, but when a tram is making a right turn at an intersections, right turning road traffic can get a green turn signal as well, and in the other direction you can do the same with left turning traffic; Thus they reduce the risk of crashes and keep down the time of stationary traffic. Also the less traffic you might have on a specific road the more trams and buses you're able to run there at the same time. I was indeed impressed with the downtown tram lines in Gothenburg, Sweden, with trams coming from all directions every few seconds: like here at central station: ruclips.net/video/m7pyRGd2Us4/видео.html or further down into the city center: ruclips.net/video/wXg6MT7--Ms/видео.html In the city where I grew up they had a tram line half a century ago, but it got replaced and the currently run 100% on buses; For some reason they want to re-establish a tram network, but it wouldn't make sense as some of the tight turns which the buses do manage the modern day larger trams can't manage; Also, even on main roads it won't be seperated from the actual road as you can't take one out of two driving lanes in each direction from a city's traffic bottleneck which already now has its traffic issues; Also the 2 planned tram lines won't be able to compensate the amount of passenger and buses, as one of the bus stops in between is served by more than 20 different bus lines
Streetcars were the original US term for them and the US also used a rail system - "Interurban rail" like big faster trams - single pick up like the old trams and not as heavy as passenger rail. The red cars in LA were of that type. before GM, Standard OIl and Firestone influenced things. The modern tram systems or light rail are an evolution of the street running tram system.
@@AussieWirraway, Sydney's new tram/ light rail Alstom XO5 rolling stock uses electrical power third rail in the middle of the tracks. Some areas of the L2 & L3 lines use the pantograph. nswtrains.fandom.com/wiki/Alstom_Citadis_X05 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_Sydney
@@EnjoyFirefighting, There's a tram line in Istanbul, Turkey known as the T5 which runs on entirely electrified third rail in the middle of the tracks. ruclips.net/video/EH-kjn5Eeu4/видео.html
![Yeat & Summrs - GO2WORK [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NEFEwfPcXRA/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you for letting me feature, it was great! I really think some people just have messed up and outdated experiences about trams, and this video certainly proves that trams work. Come on Adelaide, get on with ADElink! #frequencyisfreedom
Yes, trams do work, however, trams/ light rail are nowhere near as good as a train/ heavy rail in terms of speed and capacity. At grade trams/ light rail are low capacity rail. Only fully grade separated trams like ones in Ottawa, Canada with no track sharing have high capacities per unit and per hour. The right of way and degree of grade separation for any mode guarantee consistent trip times on the vehicle, higher frequencies, faster journeys and adequate capacity. Also, the fundamental changes of PT such as station spacing, maximum speed between stations determines the vehicle's average speed and trip time. Big station spacing (2 km - 6 km) with high maximum speeds between stations equals faster average speed (50 km/h - 78 km/h). Conversely, small station spacing (200 m - 1.5 km) with low maximum speeds between stations equals slower average speed (11 km/h - 32 km/h).
Ideal hierachy of public transport
- Slow speed & low capacity modes for short distance trips
- Medium speed & medium capacity modes for medium distance trips
- High speed & high capacity modes for long distance trips
- Buses to supplement the trains or other high capacity modes
- Trams, monorails and busways are the middle capacity between buses - trains
- Trains for backbone/ radial routes for high capacity
I agree that frequency is freedom. However, capacity, legibility, reliability and decent vehicle average speed for its distance served (short, medium and long) are extremely important too.
we americans call them streetcars for the older designs
Been there done that, loved it 😊
Forgot to mention: trams can also work on longer routes; Thus we have a couple of rural trams in Germany, literally going through the countryside; The longest tram lines (not the entire tram network, but the single tram line) in Germany have roughly twice the length of the Adelaide tram
There was a proposal in the 1970's to build a tram/ light rail on the existing Glenelg tram from Victoria Square to Tea Tree Plaza (TTP). However, the costs of a tram tunnel under Adelaide CBD cost $200 million and was consequently cancelled for the O'bahn guided busway (See link below). However, the O'bahn is a proprietary busway system which hasn't lived upto the hype of a fully direct and no transfer system. Passengers have to change buses in off peak and peak hours at the major busway stations of Klemzig, Paradise and TTP. A complex network like the Adelaide O'bahn with its open bus lines are difficult to understand. Each bus line on the O'bahn system usually branches from the busway stations and operates at extremely low frequencies of 20 - 40 mins.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway
No city builds a guided busway as its similar to a steel railway built at a reasonable price per km. Buses are meant for flexibility; the idea of putting buses on a concrete guideway defeats the buses flexibility.
Derek Scrafton was the Director General for transport when building the Adelaide O'bahn guided busway. However, the notion that the O'bahn being far more efficient than trains is bus industry propaganda (see link below). I must say that Derek Scrafton in UniSA has been blindfolded to why buses on high capacity radial routes will always fail.
www.unisa.edu.au/Media-Centre/Releases/2020/adelaide-o-bahn-far-more-efficient-than-citys-rail-network/
What a public transport system needs is speed, reliability and capacity. Grade separated steel wheeled trains for high capacity (backbone) and massive stop spacing (1.5 km - 6 km), not buses or biarticulated buses.
A transport expert, Peter Newman in Perth's Curtin University has understood why trains make sense for high capacity routes with massive stop spacing (see link below).
search.curtin.edu.au/s/cache?collection=curtin-web&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsustainability.curtin.edu.au%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F31%2F2017%2F06%2FThe-Perth-Rail-Transformation-Some-political-lessons-learned.pdf&profile=_default
@@michaeleverett1479 I know the O-Bahn bus system too well ... never really got popular; They wanted to build one in my city as well, plans were pretty detailed already but they were canceled in the end and now the city still runs on plain normal city buses throughout the entire city area. Definetly was the right choice. Only two O-Bahn systems were built here, only one of them is still in use, ... and the only reason for it still being in use is the lack of cheap alternatives, otherwise they would have dropped and replaced the O-Bahn already
"not buses or biarticulated buses" with stations 6 km apart we'd have one station in each far corner of the city lol, that's not what public transport is supposed to be about; with 1.5 km in between it still would be only 8 stations from one end to the other end of the city; It's simply not large enough for public transport being based on heavy rail, neither above ground nor as subway below ground; It's not even suitable for trams for other circumstances. The only (!) effective way to provide public transport in my city are buses.
What's the problem about bi-articulated buses? Thought you mentioned the greater flexibility of the bus? Dpesn't need to be a diesel bus, can be electric one as well; Thus e.g. in Hamburg they had bi-articulated buses; Their subway system is seperated, either going below ground as actual subway, going on a seperated track at ground level or on an elevated track, not getting in touch with crossing roads at level crossings etc.; Still that's by far not enough to get people to move around the city, still takes a wide spread and much tighter bus network; Also in the city of Trondheim they run bi-articulated city buses, a grade seperated train covering public transport within the city just wouldn't make sense there; Also keep in mind an elevated track might often destroy the look of a city while a tunnel might be unaffordable or face some extreme cost-intensive difficulties.
It makes sense to combine them all if the size of the city and available space in the city make it manageable: bus + tram + subway / elevated rail; But e.g. a subway can't provide the kind of public transport a bus can; Wouldn't be effective to cover all the outskirts, villages and low population desntiy neighborhoods or historic city centers via subway or elevated tracks lol
Well, the US once has electric streetcars in many cities. The tracks were often extended well outside the city limits and sometimes linked good sized towns together. When that was done, they were sometimes called "Inter-Urbans."
After WWII the systems the "long range" systems were abandoned as were some larger city systems. But other cities continue "modernization" started in 1936 with the PCC cars. These cars were as functional aa any present day "tram." The Washington, DC operation (which was abandoned in 1961 by order of the democRAT congress) even had an air-conditioned car. The owner of the system was prohibited by installing AC in more than one car.
The US cars mostly ran on "standard gauge" (4'8.5") but for some reason the Pittsburgh system had a slightly wider gauge. Pittsburgh still has most of it's pre-war system.
@@GilmerJohn 6:31 Meanwhile Singapore also removed its trams in the 1960s (overhead lines being more unsightly being 1 reason) but people were poorer then, & when they got richer the government introduced the world's 1st downtown road tolls (the Area Licensing Scheme in 1975, now replaced by the Electronic Road Pricing ;) so car congestion didn't increase as much I think & bus ridership is quite high (>4m daily just before CoViD-19)
lived in a regional town in australia with no public transport, nothing. 2 taxis. live in köln now and to me ubahn straßenbahn and the sbahn are like some kind of space ships to me.
ya really need to upzone all that single family housing along the tram route. What a waste of good tram infrastructure!
That's also true
I am from a middle big City in Austria and we have to tram axises, and they are great! They are dedicated and absolutely don't cause traffic congestion. I love them, they have a big capacity, and aren't as expensive as a metro network. We are around 250000 people so it's perfect for us!
I live in Linz (also an Austrian City for anyone who's unaware), and the trams are also very nice here. They have a frequency of 7-8mins. (on the lines 1 & 2) or a frequency of 15mins. (on the lines 3 & 4). For the most part though the lines 1 & 2 as well as the lines 3 & 4 share the track. In the city itself all lines run alongside each other which allows a frequency of up to 2mins. in the core section!
@@sqrtof81 Hahahaha, I meant Linz😂😂😂, I am from Linz too
@@simonmylak4112 Oh, nice. Me too.
I didn't think I would meet so many people from my city here in this comment section.
Awesome video, with some very good points made. Australia and its cities and larger towns have a rich history of tram networks. Melbourne is home to the world’s largest tram network, so it was a great thing that they did keep them. The original Sydney tram network was actually larger than Melbourne’s in its heyday. It is unfortunate that cities such as Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Newcastle, Hobart, Ballarat and Bendigo, to name a few, were all ripped up during the mid-20th century due to bad maintenance during WWII and declining patronage due to an increase in private car ownership. However, it’s good to see that new lines have been opened and/or reconstructed in Sydney and Newcastle, extended in Adelaide and even trams introduced in Canberra and the Gold Coast who have never had trams before.
As well as the Glenelg tram line, it would be lovely if Adelaide had some new tram lines in the future.
This is completely made up but based off of some proposed lines and ripped up lines from the past, here’s some hypothetical future tram lines for Adelaide’s tram network 👇
🔹 A new tram or train line along the O-Bahn route out to Tea Tree Plaza, if the O-Bahn was to be scrapped for whatever reason and replaced with a new tram or train line instead.
🔹 Two eastern suburbs lines: one along The Parade going through Norwood, Kensington Park, Kensington Gardens and finishing at Rosslyn Park, and the other along Magill Rd through Stepney, Trinity Gardens, St Morris, through Magill and terminating at the university.
🔹 A line from possibly Port Adelaide railway station to Semaphore via Glanville and along Semaphore Rd with stops at Exeter and Semaphore, as that was the old Semaphore railway line route
🔹 Two lines in Adelaide’s northern suburbs: one starting off along Torrens Rd and then going up Churchill Rd, serving the western parts of Fitzroy and Prospect, Devon Park, Dudley Park and Kilburn, and the second one also going through Fitzroy and Prospect, with this line running along Prospect Rd. Also serves Thorngate and Blair Athol.
🔹 Unley receiving a tram line along Unley Rd and going down to Mitcham, with the terminus a short walk from the railway station. Hyde Park, Malvern, Unley Park, Hawthorn and Kingswood would all be served by this line
🔹 A second line in Adelaide’s inner-southern suburbs running along West Tce and down Goodwood Rd to Colonel Light Gardens. People living in Millswood, Clarence Park, Kings Park, Cumberland Park, Westbourne Park and Daw Park, many suburbs ending with ‘park’, would use this route to get around
🔹 One or possibly two lines heading to Adelaide Airport. One would go along Henley Beach Rd and go through Brooklyn Park, Underdale, Torrensville and the northern part of Mile End and southern part of Thebarton, and the second line would Sir Donald Bradman Dr and serve West Richmond, Richmond and Mile End South
🔹 Adelaide’s northeastern suburbs having one along Payneham Rd and Lower North East Rd with a terminus at Paradise, stopping at various stops in St Peters, Evandale, Marden, Felixstow and Campbelltown
🔹 Adelaide’s southeast having a line to Glen Osmond going along Glen Osmond Rd, Eastwood, Frewville, Glenunga, Myrtle Bank and Glen Osmond all being served along this line.
Possibly others, but many of these theoretical tram lines would take a long time or possibly never go ahead at all. It would take a lot of planning, time and construction, not to mention very costly.
Keep up the good work. This will be a big channel in the future!
Thanks for believing mate
@@AussieWirraway, Your channel is great and I enjoy watching your content about Adelaide's public transport.
@@AussieWirraway tt g hg
Glad to live in a city, where trams are supreme (Prague).. The network is ideal, the Czech made trams are comfortable and reliable and it makes having a car in the city less of a priority + Prefer rams to Busses. We have as well Troley busses so kind of a hybrid between both concepts
@@ma-li3935 maipen rai .. krap :))))))
The building of tram links are often controversial, particularly for services that run along main roads due to the disruption involved during construction. But in pretty much all cases once the first line gets built, ridership builds, their popularity increases and it usually leads to lines being extended and new lines being built as commuters and business start to see the benefits. That's certainly the case in Edinburgh, Scotland where a single line was built mired in huge controversy and cost over runs. However it has become so successful that the line is now being extended and proposals have been introduced for more lines to be built and so far there has been far less opposition to the proposals than for the original line.
While staying for 10 days w our NZ son in Macclesfield in 2006 we travelled the 3 tram lines in Manchester...3.....look at the development since😊
As an expat South Australian living in Victoria, it makes me glad to see the post 2005 Glenelg line talked about in such a positive light. The initial upgrade and replacement of rolling stock had some initial teething problems, the original plan has been vindicated and we are enjoying the benefits now.
The City West, Entertainment Centre, Botanic Gardens and Festival Plaza extensions have also been well designed from a technical point of view with proper lane segregation allowing for minimal traffic interface. The traffic light sequencing (as you have mentioned) needs a full revision though. Even with the complex ‘special workI’ at King William Street/North Terrace, the extensions also prove that you can build a modern tram/light rail system in the CBD for a fraction of the cost of the bloated Sydney project on a kilometre by kilometre basis. I do appreciate the dramatically different scales in size between the projects though.
Also Flexity > Citadis! I know everyone likes the Citadis cars but from a technical perspective, they are no where near as good as the Flexity fleet! Rigid trucks versus pivoted ones, poorer articulation design and you don’t launch an upgrade program called the Adelaide Citadis Tram Modification Program to make operational conditions for the drivers better unless control layout was anything other than good! The E class in Mainline owe their existence not only to the Bombardier’s local presence in Melbourne but also in part to the successful 2007 trials of Flexity 111 around Melbourne proving the technical superiority of the design.
Great stuff...basically, if it runs on rails it must be good. Dunedin NZ had an excellent tram and cable car network....all gone by 1957..replaced by quick clean and quiet trolley buses which were perfect for the hills......they,ve gone, replaced by buses. Repeat for Wellington by 2019.
I enjoyed your video but to a degree..and def the Melb segment.. it suffers from rushing the delivery. May i recommend listening to Jago Hazzard's London focussed videos.
Now...more power to your pantograph😊
Trams are pretty great. Sometimes you just cbf walking in the CBD...
Great to see the channel growing lad
thank you, wouldn't be here without your support tbh. Not about to forget you
@@AussieWirraway cheers mate
Indeed, Trams work. Two words says it all..."snow and ice". Anything with rubber tires just does not cut it in northern climes. Give us the climate controlled smooth ride of a Tram or street car or LRV. Cheers.
Hey, great video, but please consider the volume differences through the video. Your music is really loud compared to voice especially when you have headphones in.
Keep it up
"Music" background Never adds to the quality of a video.
In the USA, this is known as a light railway. It runs along the road, but is usually barricaded from traffic and pedestrians, similar to the one in GTA 5. A tram usually runs along the roadway, with traffic, much like street trolleys in San Francisco. So technically, this is a light rail since i see it on tracks on the road with no fencing or elevation.
It is just a different term across the Atlantic. Be careful on using the term "light rail" when visiting London, since they will direct you to a smaller capacity version of metro and like metro, it never runs on the street. That, and London no longer have trams anymore.
@@dbclass4075 that is also light rail. Light rail is basically anything smaller than heavy rail it could be streetcar/tram with low or high levels platforms or just heavy rail metro train with smaller capacity.
What do you call a tram or train that runs partly in mixed trafic, partly on seperated tracks? For example, the "Straßenbahn" (I'd call it tram) in Vienna does this.
@@aaronwelther3536 We have those in San Francisco, they are called (street) trolleys.
@@aaronwelther3536 trolleys or streetcars
so glad youtube had this on my home page, this was great! glad to see you're blowing up a bit lately because you have cool content!
Many valid points which I agree with, I've been in Victoria for nearly 20 years. Here are a few reasons why they aren't -
- Security is absolutely non-existent. You get beaten up or abused the driver will not help, there are no security and most people at best will pull their phone and record instead of helping. Cameras are only about 35% of the trams. The rare time you see security they are there to check that you have paid and fine you if you have not. Also their bullying tactics are disgusting.
- Sand. All trams use sand in their breaking mechanism therefore where there are trams there is dust everywhere. Crossing the street as the tram passes? You'll get a face full of sand. Even the newest trams still use sand.
- Myki in particularly the cost, poorly planned implementation and maintenance was a disaster. This could very easily be a 30 minute video in itself. But here goes...
Delayed a further 6 years from projected implementation
Plagued with confusion regarding ticketing for literally years
250 million over budget
Myki on the NFS on your phone took 12 year to implement, so we all had to carry a sensitive $6 card and top up for a very very long time
So that meant Myki is the world's only ticketing systems on which visitors and occasional users cannot buy a short-term ticket.
Unused funds on cards or Myki android were not refundable or transferable
Myki machines were highly susceptible to vandalism, rendering adding funds or tapping on impossible.
Also I've been to dozens of countries around the world, Melbourne thus far is the most expensive. Although Sydney and Gold coast are up there too.
- Tram lines are updated every decade or so, which meant that many lines would be full and others quite empty
- Heavy bias and favouritism between lines. You live on the Collin st or Toorak road line? then you've have the newest cleanest trams with security cameras. Most lines are still crappy old ones with their chairs re-fabric and no air con.
- For those living right in front of a tram line, good luck with the rumbling and dinging of the bells.
- STILL NO DIRECT LINE TO THE AIRPORT by tram or train. This one is disgraceful. No direct public transport access and we need to pay a shuttle bus $38 return ticket for a 20 minute ride each way.
I'm not totally hating on trams, I think that they are great just incredibly poorly run.
Oh come on, I've lived in Melbourne my entire life and use the trams frequently, I have never once had sand in my face or even really noticed it at all and I reckon if you surveyed regular tram commuters responses would range from it being a non-issue to not even realising trams use sand.
On the issue of security I get that this can be an issue very late at night, but for most trips it would be very unlikely to actually be beaten up or abused. And I can't speak to your experience with authorised officers but I have never witnessed bullying tactics.
I get that there are parts of Melbourne's trams and public transport network more broadly that need to be improved but I can't help but feel you're painting the picture a lot blacker than it really is.
Trams are great. I like trams too! If you don't like trams, feel free to sit in traffic all day long
They're building a three line light rail system here in Tel Aviv and I can't wait (:
cool!
Suburban trains and metro systems would be entirely a better experience over a crappy tram carriage. Even if grade separation for trams and trains, trains easily outclass the tram/ light rail.
@@disappointingmarbleraces9028, In Adelaide, the Bombardier Flexity and Alstom Citadis trams are only 2.4 m wide with a low floor design. Sitting on the edge of Adelaide's trams in the transverse seating configuration is an uncomfortable experience due to the trams narrow carriages. When the seats of Adelaide's trams are full, it's impossible to walk through the aisle of the vehicle. The trams bogies with its narrow carriage design make it even harder to walk through the entire vehicle, especially when standing room is completely filled up.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Adelaide
Absolutely agree, trams are great. The nearest ones to us here are in Edinburgh, and it’s good to see that they are planning to build more routes in the future.
Great video, keep on creating! Love seeing local content by local producers, especially on transport matters.
thanks, Most definitely!
I live in Zürich and I agree: trams rule. very versatile mode. good video.
I love how the designers in Zurich lay the tracks in the streets then sow grass in-between so it is all attractively green and pleasant
Nice video and I agree I like trams... or light rail - and yes, there can be a distinction since in many parts of the world, trams are generally referred to the older system that existed with light rail being the newer - and light rail more often than trams, runs on dedicated tracks (thinking of this Adelaide one)... but I digress... I'm still cool with trams for both...
The real reason for my comment was the frequency bit. This is a special thing for Adelaide as frequency is completely independent of mode. Yes, your tram has a frequency of 10 minutes during the day and that's good, but it's not only trams that offer this.
Generally speaking, any form of rapid transit should have a frequency greater than 4 trains/trams an hour. It is very common to reach Adelaide's 10 minute frequency or better it. Metro systems generally do this as well (as in metros, u-bahns, subways, the tube etc) London's Tube for instance has a frequency that can reach one train a minute in some sections, as does the Paris Metro.
It's also not unheard of to have even buses beat the 10 minute frequency. Many UK cities have buses for instance with greater frequencies than every 10 minutes.
Now grade separation is also not really a tram thing. Most traditional trams in the world share with road traffic and are quite slow. The modern ones tend to have a lot more grade separation. But this is still more of a metro or suburban rail thing. Grade separation is not a requirement of the tram, but a bonus for some. Grade separation however is an accepted requirement for metro systems.
Thirdly, the length of a rail car has absolutely no effect on frequency or regularity. It just happens that your trams in Adelaide are shorter than suburban rail and have higher frequency. Again, most metros are longer than your trams (many longer than your suburban rail), yet generally have higher frequency. A great example of this is London's new Crossrail which when opening next year will have huge 200meter long trains and 2 and a half minute frequencies. Berlin's S-bahns are also suburban trains with some lines having 10 minute or better frequencies.
It's also worth pointing out that Adelaide's trams have less capacity than some other trams because they are low floor ones. One disadvantage of this is that the door opening mechanism needs to take up space inside the cab to avoid the wheels, reducing internal space. High floor trams don't have this problem
None of this is to disagree with your main point that Trams are better than buses. I agree with you there 100%. Just clarifying some things up.
But... if we are saying that trams are great (and they are), Metro systems (metros, u-bahns, subways, tube etc) are even better. They are faster than trams, with full grade separation, higher frequencies and greater capacity :)
Great video! We are looking to get trams here in Auckland (probably most comparable to what Sydney has been building recently), so hopefully this progresses in the near future
I can only just remember the widespread if shabby and rundown tram and cablecar network in Dunedin....all gone by 1957.....the excellent trolleybus sysyem..perfect for the hills....that,too, gone. And what did Wellington do??.......
@@neville132bbk The real tragedy is that the Welly trolleys only went *very* recently (2017 I think?), long after everyone was already focused on sustainable transport, and no one except the govt wanted them gone. Absolute vandalism, especially when you look at how shockingly bad the diesel bus services are.
"I like trams and you should like them too" Future merch idea?
I think getting a tram from semaphore through Westlakes and to the city would be so good!
Love the Glenelg Tram !
If you like trams, take a look at Prague (Czech Republic). It has one of the largest networks in the world. The same is for number of rolling stock.
There's a tram/ light rail system in Frankfurt, Germany (1st link below) that operates in tunnels for the CBD, and at ground level with some level crossings for the outer sections (1st, 2nd & 3rd links below). The Frankfurt U-bahn (tram) system could be classed as light metro especially for its inner city sections and high frequency of 5 minutes in the peak with smaller rolling stock of up to 6 carriage consists. The Frankfurt U-bahn is one of the very few tram/ light rail systems in the world to have this sort of metro style operation (4th & 5th links below). It's strange to use a tram (high floor) for grade separation as it would be fully outclassed by a metro train (high floor). German cities in particular are crazy with their suburban trains, metros and trams/ light rail in regards to their branding, service pattern, stop spacing and route alignment.
The trams on the Frankfurt U-bahn accelerate very fast from a standstill when leaving stations and are able to decelerate quickly when entering stations (1st, 2nd & 3rd links below). This high acceleration by trams on the Frankfurt U-bahn is something that many railway systems don't have.
Frankfurt tram videos:
ruclips.net/video/aDE8EzHRxo8/видео.html (U-Bahn Frankfurt am Main | Stadtbahn | Light rail | VGF)
ruclips.net/video/3IdNUz--fv8/видео.html (The Metro/U-bahn in Frankfurt, Germany)
ruclips.net/video/ho3fILH9lqM/видео.html (Br111 Fan: U Bahn Frankfurt Teil 4 (2016) C-Stammstrecke)
About Frankfurt U-bahn and other strange tram/ light rail systems:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_U-Bahn
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtbahn
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premetro
Tramways are Light Rail but in a different way...
I grew up with tramways,I live next to a tram line actually.
When I visit another town with trams I feel more comfortable , orientation is more easy with rails in the streets...especially while walking .
Greetings from the original home of the bumblebees...!
The best thing about the Glenelg line is the free use in the CBD and the city of Glenelg. I can park in the outskirts of the Glenelg and instead of walking 20-30 minutes, I can catch a 5 minute tram to the jetty for free.
in Vienna we have 225 km(140 Miles) Trams! People love it!
I need to visit Vienna then
Melbourne trams FTW!
Yhhhh they are good but not better than Europe trams unfortunately
In NSW we love our light rail... so much so we rip up actual train lines running major intercity electrified services to replace them with crappy street-running light rail to a super inconvenient interchange in the middle of nowhere! Beat that :D
I absolutely love trams. So I also love your great video.
actually, it does have signal priority when the tram is late, if th tram is late then the traffic system will change accordingly to get it up to speed, it will also detect when it's approaching so that it can go on through when it reaches the intersection.
But only when it's late, when it's not late, it's not needed.
This is great!
Melbourne trams for the win!
Nah mate, melbourne ones are done badly - instead of building dedicated lanes for them, they have to share bus/car/truck traffic lanes...
Absolutely amazing information given so thank you so very much for sharing your video's.
Here in Toronto I'm fortunate to live near a tram line. (We call them streetcars here.) It even has a dedicated lane with no cars to slow it down!
zooming past cars in transit vehicles is a great experience
@@AussieWirraway US streetcars died out because they had to share their lanes with cars. If they'd been given dedicated lanes, they'd still be thriving today!
The co operation of Car Manufacturers, Oil & Tire companies, aw to it that dedicated rights of way, or boarding platforms etc. NEVER happened. Research NATIONSL CITY LINES, owned by such companies for details.
@@Blaqjaqshellaq
Most of Melboune's trams share the road with cars.
We have a tram running past our home. It connects with two heavy rail suburban rail lines, plus many other tram lines and bus lines. Our tram takes passengers from its terminus through to the CBD and onto Melbourne University.
It will connect with a third heavy line in a year or two when ANZAC underground station opens. It takes approx just under an hour to travel to the CBD, about half of the route it shares the road with cars.
A train from our nearest rail station, about a kilometre away, takes about 15 mins to the CBD with trains running every 10 mins. Once the new underground section is complete trains will then run every few minutes, so they say.
It was such a stupid idea to drop the Eastern suburb extension to Magill. We will live to regret it for a long time. I was involved with the construction of Gold Goast tram, which was delayed and caused a few inconvenience to the neighbourhood merchants. But look at the impacts it has on the Games and the local economy before it was hit by Covid. Imagine how much more ridership the Eastlink would bring to the old and new stadiums and hospitals and the traffic freed up in the city.
I disagree. It's a great suggestion to drop the AdeLINK tram extension into Adelaide's inner and middle suburbs. Trams/ light rail are high cost, low capacity rail which does so little to tackle Adelaide's horrible road congestion even if trams/ light rail have traffic light piority and reserved right of way in their own lanes. There's no at grade tram system in the world that's able to properly operate at a frequency of 5 mins or less unless there's absolute grade separation. It's a matter of fact that steel wheeled vehicles like street trams brake much slower and perform far worse in mixed traffic (at grade) with stop and go operation than rubber tyred vehicles like buses. In contrast, at grade buses with the reserved right of way on their own lanes can easily operate at frequencies of 2.5 - 5 minutes as shown in many parts of the world. Buses in busway/ BRT systems can have train like platforms, off board fare collection and turnstiles to facilate a rapid turnover of passengers. Properly built busways/ BRT can imitate tram/ light rail at much lower costs for construction, operation and maintenance. The below video link by Neil Hamilton explains and why trams/ light rail in Adelaide don't make any sense. Brisbane & Perth have removed their tram networks, but they're still doing fine without trams.
ruclips.net/video/2Xp3jeNKEWQ/видео.html
Metroman Melbourne? yo nice there's two of them now
Great video! This is inspiring to me and what a futuristic solution telling!
Trams (or streetcars to the yanks) and light rail are not the same thing. While the difference between the two can be quite blurry sometimes, there are significant differences.
Most tram systems were built before the the dominance of the automobile and so therefore there was not a problem with Streetrunning (when the vehicles share the road with other traffic). The reaction to the rise of the private motor vehicle in most countries was to simply get rid of the trams, but in some places they decided to separate the corridor as much as possible. When some American planners were visiting Europe they noticed that those tram routes that performed the best were the routes that had the most grade separation (separation from other traffic). So the idea of light rail was created by using tram technology, but creating a purely grade-separated system with NO streetrunning. Therefore you will see light rail being built on abandoned heavy rail lines or on the grass verge between wide boulevards or avenues.
There are some tram systems that are a mix of the two, like the one discussed in this video, that run on a tramway with grade separation for most of its route (like light rail), but once it gets to the CBD (downtown to the yanks) it starts streetrunning like a traditional tram system.
Also some Americans have a weird nomenclature where light rail is a type of light rail, but not all light rail is light rail. Like how a (domestic) cat is a type of cat (feline), but not all cats (felines) are (domestic) cats. That just gets confusing fast, and made worse by them including smaller heavy rail diesel multiple units as light rail as well (think Metrorail in Austin Texas).
The end result of the confusion is that you have something like what is happening in Auckland New Zealand, where the government wants to put street running trams down a congested narrow two lane road to the airport and think that it will have the capacity and frequency of a fully grade separated light rail system if they simply put "light rail" in the name.
Trams are just fine but I hope they never replace the Outer Harbor line with a tram.
The worst was that I heard they were even planning to replace the Outer Harbor line without using the Commercial Road viaduct. They would instead use street running along Commercial Road, which is much slower than passing over the traffic on a viaduct.
We have the same in Frankfurt am Main 0:23 :D (Typ S)
Yeah there are many cities with these trams.
l miss the ability to open the windows on a hot day, it used to add to the experience, now it's just another form of mass transit. l suppose there is still St Kilda historic for nostalgia :D
oh and icymi Bendigo got an old green Melbourne tram running through their town now.
Right I'm from Australia too!
But I'm in New South Wales (NSW), I also do like trams, also new castle has trams (light rail).
Newcastle's tram is useless. It goes from nowhere to nowhere, passing nowhere and is so short, if it wasn't there nobody would notice.
The fast trains from Sydney & outer Newcastle/Hunter were fast, ending up just behind the beach, in the heart of Newcastle. Now it is cut short, breaking the journey so it takes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than it needs to.
The tram could have run a useful loop around the real attractions in Newcastle, but the people who forced this expensive stupidity down the public's throat were only doing it to grab some waterfront real estate, and wouldn't be seen dead on the tram.
They didn't use their money to stuff up the public transport, but the profit from the real estate is their's.
@@trashbeansoup2467 then tell the new South Wales government
@@trashbeansoup2467 bruh moment
TRAMS! Because the bus fucking sucks.
I like trams but the transit authority in Boston USA fears and loathes them,
and favors "BRT"
Banana
Republic
Transit
I grew up in Boston. I revisited in 2018. I was spoiled there. The T may have problems but many US cities have nothing near as good.
Because they can such bus vendors easily for commission and bribes
Trams are great, I live them but this one seems to go through very low density neighborhoods. What's the ridership? I don't usually see a tram in single family homes in my country. Busses have enough capacity to serve this kind of neighborhoods.
Ridership on this route is about 10 million a year, the route connects busy destinations and serves the suburbs in between well. This route definitely is good as a tram, as the tram attracts a lot of patronage from the area
thanks for explanations!
@@AussieWirraway, Glenelg and Adelaide CBD are the two anchor destinations of generating patronage of the Glenelg tram. Most of the trams trip is done with free rides in Adelaide CBD.
@@AussieWirraway, The Glenelg tram takes 45 minutes to travel from Rundle Mall to Glenelg for only 10 km end to end. It's far too long especially in Adelaide CBD and Jetty Road in Glenelg due to a lack of traffic light priority for the trams. Trams in Canberra and Gold Coast in Australia have traffic light priority running throughout the system which results in higher average speed and reduced trip time.
The problem in the US with both trams and busses is the dispersal of cities. In the postwar period many city residents moved out to the suburbs where they could have a freestanding home and the layout of suburban housing subdivisions does not make any logical sense mapwise, i.e. locating on transit corridors or major road corridors ,and such like being near existing business centers, factories, or community downtowns. This was all facilitated by the automobile that allowed distances to be negated. Cities in the US responded to this population movement negatively, those moving out were replaced with new residents, generally of lower income and often folks of color. There was also a downward trend in the quality of school systems and of public services in general. Rent control schemes insured that investment in rental housing blocks avoided the city and of course investment in commercial centers turned to suburban shopping centers resulting in the closure of the downtown shopping, new industrial projects also avoided the cities building in suburban industrial parks instead. What is left of the downtowns is generally government centers and business offices of banks, insurance companies, and the like. This results in transit systems having high traffic loads during the morning and even rush periods but little or nothing at other times. The relatively high fares make it unattractive for family or group travel since if you fill the seats the car is significantly cheaper. Using the Washington, DC Metro as an example, traffic at a given suburban station can generally be estimated by the size of the available parking facility some of which can accommodate thousand of cars. The crowding on the system and lack of seating is offset by the relatively high speed resulting in short trip length in terms of time. There are feeder bus systems serving many of the major stations however these can be highly unreliable and increase overall travel time significantly.
While trams have seen some success in the US, many lines do not live up to their promise, This is often caused by being too short and not reaching far enough into the residential zones to generate sufficient traffic, functioning more as a downtown circulator than as a home to work solution. Another practice is choosing a corridor because it has an existing abandoned or little used railway line situated on it ignoring it's traffic potential or lack of. In some cases this will work out in long terms as housing and business build along the new corridor but this will take a while, meanwhile there will be a lot of red ink on the systems books.
Situation mentioned by HENRY OSTMAN also planned to a degree by auto interests.
For 1939 World Fair General Motors produced a film on city planning. Pushed spread out single family homes, but in way making transit (even bus) undoable. Example Madeline streets work many dead ends making routes impeachable, theses provided with trunk roadsnwith no foot crossings to a mile or two, also causing bus lines to go out ofcway to very. Overall stores in malls, central schools needing busing to, and even putting Religious buildings in districts miles from housing made everything a car trip. Main roads were designed with low overpasses, signs, streetlights set at 8 or 9bfoot impossible for busses to use
@@albertbenajam4751 In the NY region, planner Robert Moses designed the parkway system not for transit purposes but for recreational travel. He wanted to keep trucks and busses off his roads using tight turns on ramps and low bridges, Folks consider road and highway mainly for passenger transit and forget the immense role they play in goods movement, everything you have came by truck, one of the difficulties of old cities is streets that are too narrow for trucks and the lack of parking for trucks. A big problem for irregular bus service into NYC (charters) is where to park the bus while the charter party goes about its business, $50 won't park a car in Manhattan for a day and you want to park a 45' bus?? Another issue is goods delivery within the city, folks don't bring their own toilet paper, your 50 story office building needs lots of it and a lot of other things, it doesn't get their by magic, where do you park the truck during unloading? I have visited Singapore several times, they have answers to these problems.
The answer for transit in larger cities is to assume that much of the 'final mile' will be by auto and build sufficient parking at stations to accommodate. Some day these auto might be bicycles or more likely golf carts or small electric cars. The urban 'SMART CAR'' with an electric motor would make a lot of sense.
I love trams; however one has to keep in mind that e.g. the longest bus sets have a comparable length and capacity like the shortest articulated tram sets; Bi-articulated buses for example are often 24m long, while e.g. the Aventio T2.7 tram, being an articulated one with only 2 cars, has a total length of 19m. Also buses can be operated on seperated lanes and roads just like trams.
As much as I love trams they don't make sense and solve problems in every place; Thus in my home town of 200k inhabitants in southern Germany they want to re-establish a tram network, starting off with 2 lines; However they'd face problems which the buses don't have: there're some tight turns at intersections which the articulated buses are able to manage, while a tram wouldn't be able to do so; Also some rather narrow two-way roads, steep roads etc; However the greatest issue is that on the planned routes there's hardly any sections where the tram could run on a seperated track alongside the road or in between the lanes going both directions; Thus the track would be in the road most of the time and thus wouldn't help with the congestion at all; In fact it would rather bring along more congestion with trams being stuck in the traffic jam, as the tram can't compensate more than 20 bus lines serving the same bus stop; Some of these are 4 lane wide main roads, but you can't just take one lane from each direction and place a track there instead, as there are traffic issues with 4 lanes already ... would only be worse with 2 lanes, causing a traffic collapse in half of the city.
There are some rather few sections where the track can be seperated, however these aren't on relevant routes for public transport via trams
Trolley bus system perhaps - offers many advantages of trams with flexibility and less pollution and noise.
@@woodliceworm4565 wasn't thinking about trolley buses to be honest; Hardly see them anywhere here, not to say I haven't seen any of them for more than a decade at all
@@EnjoyFirefighting The last system in the southern lands was scrapped in Wellington about three years ago and replaced with second hand 15 yo diesel buses. A great step towards emissions-less public transport that is a step backwards. The modern trolleys can move themselves if they have to for short distances and come as articulated units as well. Not a bad option for hilly cities. and for frequent routes, as they can carry significant loads and pulling away produces the most pollution from a ICE engine.
@@woodliceworm4565 don't see them here, rather other modes of alternative drive systems, like electric buses or CNG oder LNG powered buses
@@EnjoyFirefighting Pity apart from the overhead they are better energy-wise - not carrying the weight of batteries and easier to maintain. They have their place I guess they use to be widespread at one stage. I think San Fran in the US Canada and few places still have robust trolley networks.
Adelaide's AdeLINK tram extension into the inner suburbs is still on the Piority List by Infrastructure Australia. AdeLINK must be cancelled for improvements to buses and trains instead.
Perth and Brisbane in Australia are doing fine without trams/ light rail. Bicycles with separate cycling infrastructure are much cheaper and far more practical than expanding Adelaide's tram network.
Good job with this video 👍🏼
thank you!
1:04 wait you actually call this thing O-Bahn in Australia?
That specific line, which is in the city of adelaide, is called *the* O-Bahn, it's not like a general name for guided busways or something.
I like them too.
I love trams so much ;-;
Cries in Stadtbahn Hamburg and Citybahn Wiesbaden
You would not believe that car love and parking spaces actually have higher priority over actual benefits and efficiency of trams... just look at Hamburg, the largest (non-capital) city in the EU without a Tram while holding the record for the busiest/most frequented bus line in the European Union (line 5j.
And as a small kid (5-6y.) I traveled from Wiesbaden (no tram) to Mainz (yes Tram) to school with my mom and my little sister. My mom had a stroller and I remember the bus line that went over the river Rhine to connect the cities was so congested that my mom had to scream „we want to leave at this bus stop, please let us through!“ to leave with a kid (me) and a stroller with my little sister who was 2y. at the time.
It angers me that the proposed tram line, which WOULD connect big suburbs, reactivate an old train line, go through Wiesbaden, replace the bus line I used, go over the River Rhine AND connect with the big tram system in neighboring city Mainz through an election to build it or nah with 30% of only the city population being allowed to participate.
Just look it up on google, even writing this angers me so much.
Thank you for reading my rant
Great video. I agree, more tram
networks are needed. I wish Wollongong would invest in a tram network. How extensive was Adelaide’s past network?
~100km of lines and roughly 300 vehicles
@@MetroManMelbourne, I wonder if Melbourne should demolish their tram network and replace it with monorails?? Monorails have the advantages of higher capacity, frequency, reilability, consistency and higher average speed (station to station) over street trams due to the grade separation of fully elevated monorails. Proponents of trams frequently use the Sydney monorail to wrongly associate monorails as slow and lacking capacity. It doesn't matter if the monorail train has rubber tyres; what matters is the type of service, competitive door to door average speed and trip time against the car. A handful number of people in Melbourne take upto 90 minutes just for a 13 km door to door trip from Melbourne's outer suburbs into Melbourne's CBD. Evidence by Monorails Australia shows that the average speed of Melbourne's entire tram network is 16 km/h and drops down to a snails pace of 11 km/h in Melbourne's CBD (see link below). At grade tram/ light rail across the world can only safely move at maximum speeds of 50 km/h between stations. Trams regularly run into accidents more than buses as trams being stuck to the steel rails (without passing loops) can't serve around incoming traffic whereas buses which can instantly change direction at the driver's input of the steering wheel. The chance of accidents and derailment of monorails is almost impossible. There're high capacity monorail trains which have railway suspension, hydralics and bogies for a ride quality similar to a steel wheeled train. These proper monorail systems have rolling stock that are able to comfortably carry 100 people per carriage with maximum speeds of 80 km/h between stations.
www.monorailsaustralia.com.au/
@@michaeleverett1479 LMFAO you’ve gone crazy mate
@@michaeleverett1479 Or we ignore everything you say and convert car lanes into tram only. Also the monorail association or whatever is pretty dumb, if they assume trams are rapid transit, as they are not. On the other hand monorail are fucking shit, if not used as rapid transit.
@@michaeleverett1479 also wtf, of course is a grade separated system more reliable than anything else. Melbournes tram does not fall into the rapid transit category, so your comparisson is wrong and poor.
Need a tram from Adelaide Airport to the city and Glenelg
we need light rail in every city in city with a population over 100,000/ Brisbane needs a system to rival Melbourne's ASAP! were so far behind already
Nice video!
Quite a long time ago (2006)? Thats basicly new.
Like the video very much.Take care.
Thank you
Good content! Very informed. I'm fascinated with US' and Australia's resistance to sensible public transport. Just one caveat: your music is super loud compared to your voice which makes me crank up the volume to hear you only to have me blasted to the other side of the room by the music inserts.
To be fair, compared to the US, the Australian capitals all have pretty good transport - and I currently live in Europe so do have some framework for comparison with "real" cities. The big difference to Europe is when you get outside the main cities the transport options drop off *really* quickly. If you live anywhere outside Sydney/Newcastle/Wollongong, Melbourne/Geelong, Brissie/Gold Coast, Perth or Adelaide then you pretty much *have* to drive. But then to be fair, that does cover the overwhelming majority of the population. We've got family out in country NSW who don't drive due to medical reasons and they find it *really* hard.
Um, theAdelaide tram is not a typical tram! It is one example - with a dedicated line with all the advantages of priority over road traffic at level crossings. There are many other trams in the world where the line is within the road and trams stop at traffic lights like other traffic. They usually have parts of the route segregated, but often not in city centres. Trams are much more expensive to install than a bus line which only requires vehicles and not a new road, but the through-life operating costs of a tram are lower, and people prefer them over the bus. For the passenger the tram is usually faster and a bit more smooth and spacious than a bus; compared with an underground metro it is at street level (usually) so quicker and much easier to access; compared with a suburban railway it is more frequent with stops much closer together.
I'm a dedicated #96 man myself.
So this is how trams work... Nice video.... So a tram does not have to face signals unlike a car
Yes they do but not like traffic lights in the uk anyway. These are used when the tram has to enter roads
2:28 Can't agree with you more
Thank you for sharing this video, I watched your feature of why 'Australian passenger services suck' and I thought it was and excellent production, however I don't think that this video is as good as your previous production. You spoke about the benefits of trams and discssued the importance of trams being given priority, but I think the assertions about trams being cheaper to operate than buses is unfair unless you can back your claims up with evidence. I happen to know that buses are considerably cheaper to operate than rail motors. In fact, even the operating cost of three buses is probably cheaper to operate than than a single bus (which would be about the same capacity). Reason: One bus consumes about 20L/100km and require one person to operate. Bus drivers are paid roughly 2/3 of the wages of train drivers. Buses do not have guards or conductors. Buses are constructed at much higher volumes than trains. Meanwhile, a rail motor consumes about 100L/100km. Hence, it would probably be cheaper to operate a bus service with a 10-minute frequency than a train service that operates every 30 minutes. (This does not take into account that trains are generally faster than buses). I do not have any actual figures comparing the operating costs of trams and buses, however, think about this: a bus weighs about 15 to 20 tonnes, a tram weighs approx 50 tonnes. I don't know all of the costs, but you must consider the construction and maintenance costs the vehicles themselves as well as road and rail infrastructure. That is where the costs of rail dramatically increase. E.G a kilometre of road versus a km of rail. I would recommend that you determine the breakdown costs of trams/buses/electric buses and trains prior to making such assertions about whether one is cheaper. Given this information could BRT be just as effective than LRT if the buses were electric? Maybe the big difference is that buses run on diesel and trams on electricity and so long as they are on a dedicated right of way, they'd be little difference. Is there something about tram travel that gives it an inherit advantage over buses, remember, try to be as objective as possible.A good case study to do would be the Glenelg tram Vs the O'bahn bus rapid transit service. What are the advantages and disadvantages of both? Consider advancements in electric bus technology. Then make another video, without trying to read your own opinions into your message. I'd be interested to know, because as I stated, I don't know the full costs of each of these modes of mass transit, perhaps you could find out? All the best!
We need trams in Wales - not sure why they got rid of them
I have liked your video's, but one thing always get's me, why do people think light rail (tram) and trunked electric rail is cheaper to operate, if you are just comparing fuel only costs yes marginally, SA government cost of operation public transport figures, O'Bahn guided busway with related road routes $0.45c per passenger Km, Bus road only routes $0.54c per passenger Km, Light rail tram Glenelg / City route $0.58c per passenger Km, Trunked rail Seford line electric $0.62 per passenger Km, (Gawler line figure before line closure) Trunked rail Gawler line diesel $0.60c per passenger Km, Light rail tram City routes $0.89c per passenger Km.
Rail has a place in public transport and I'm a rail buff but rail is not always a cost effective service.
Great video, but your music is way too loud
In short-please don't have background noise at all.
I have some perspectives of why trams/ light rail suck especially in Adelaide and other cities in Australia and around the world. Trams do have their place just like any other mode of public transport, however trams are not the high capacity backbone of the public transport system. Many European and some North American cities during winter have lots of snow where buses struggle to gain traction on the snowy bitumen (see links below).
Buses stuck on snow:
ruclips.net/video/eo6DZKenOPI/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/hKxFY3B1WrA/видео.html
Trams and trains with steel steels are not unaffected as much by the snow and can remain in motion unimpeded thanks to the guidance of the steel rails (see links below).
Trams in snow:
ruclips.net/video/AV1T82nCbYM/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/83tOO23C1jk/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/Z_6GmeHhXLQ/видео.html
Australian cities don't have snow like those in Europe and North America; Hence trams/ light rail are an totally unnecessary especially in Adelaide. Also, a railway line either trams or trains are expensive in operating and maintenance costs when compared to normal busways (not the O'bahn). A tram/ light rail costs as much to operate as a train/ heavy rail. Railway lines should only be sparingly used for high patronage routes with high capacity requirements by careful planning, zoning and land use policies.
In 2020, 80% of Adelaide's public transport patronage are served by buses where the bus lines operate in mixed traffic (on the road network) and the O'bahn guided busway (fully segregated). 20% are from Adelaide's rail network of suburban trains and trams (free and paid trips). Adelaide's public transport is a disjointed multi modal network where buses, trams and trains have poor connectivity between each other. Only the O'bahn busway has continued growth in patronage since 1980 due to the buses high average speed and large stop spacing. The rest of Adelaide's public transport network patronage is stagnating or declining. However, the O'bahn should be converted to a metro system (heavy rail) with the same stop spacing.
The Gawler, Seaford and Outer Harbor train lines are useful and require service improvements. Grange and Flinder's spur train lines are hopeless and must be closed. Belair train should have a tunnel between Torrens Park to Belair (at new location), with an extension to Aberfoyle Park. Double tracks must be throughout entire Adelaide's train network.
Adelaide's rail network also needs better connectivity to more frequent and direct cross city buses. The whole train network in Adelaide desperately needs station removals in order to speed up an all stations train service and level crossing removals to safely improve train frequency and relieve road, bicycle and pedestrian congestion. Public transport trips needs to be more competitive against the car in door to door average speed and door to door trip time. If public transport like in Adelaide is much slower than driving for an equivalent door to door trip, people simply won't use it.
At grade trams/ light rail are a waste of time and taxpayer money they're a form of high cost low capacity rail. Even busways/ BRT systems operating at grade work better over trams in every way (except for ride equality) for low to medium capacity applications. Extending Adelaide's tram network into the inner to middle suburbs doesn't significantly increase patronage as tram proponents claim, but trams take existing passengers out of buses. The high operating and maintenance costs of trams are so high (similar to trains/ heavy rail) which causes trams to severely diminish bus services. It's no wonder that trams were torn down for buses. Trams only belong in the transport museum, not on the modern public transport system.
Rebuilding Adelaide's tram network to the 1950's network is simply not worth it. Improving Adelaide's bus network with frequent buses, busways/ BRT with connections to existing trains will give the biggest bang for your buck.
@@disappointingmarbleraces9028, Trams/ light rail (low or high floor) require a specialised maintenance depot, stabling yard, rail grinding machines and highly skilled personnel to maintain and repair the rolling stock, electronic signialling and steel track. At grade tram/ light rail has lots of expensive boom gates that require costly maintenance and have delicate electronic components along the line that are prone to vandals just like an at grade train/ heavy rail. Any steel wheeled vehicle rolling on the same section of track at the size of a small coin for 17 hours or more will place lots of stress on the steel wheels and steel track. The trams need to be put into the maintenance depot at regular intervals to grind the steel wheels. Capital expenditure, operating and maintenance costs of trams/ light rail are generally not much cheaper than trains/ heavy rail. Although, operating and maintenance costs greatly vary from country to country.
Improvements in bus technology and design with larger biarticulated buses, full low floor design (for all buses), wider doors, more standing room, better suspension and electric propulsion can potentially make trams/ light rail obsolete. Busways for at grade operation are generally a better choice than trams/ light rail due to the buses cheaper operating and maintenance costs for lower capacity applications.
Good video!
Are you using regular Google Earth? Cause, it's so high definition. Mine is not as good as yours.
Google Earth studio i believe
sorry it is a "lightrail" as most of it runs in it's own right of way just like trains
Only if they look like the ones in Nice, France.
If they look like the way they do in Oslo, Norway for example they're a huge fucking eye sore!
*comment for the algorithm gods*
It's not great it needs to be extended more east and further west on Port road
Why are you normal? Sorry but every South Australian I've met has been weird as heck - you're breaking the stereotype. Appreciate your video, good coverage of the reasoning why it's effective - Ade does it way better than Vic as well by having way less shared car/tram lanes.
I make videos about trains on the internet, no I am not normal :)
The Glenelg Tram is a classic example of how NOT to design or run public transport.
The tram has no priority and takes forever to go the few streets it crosses in the City, having to stop at every traffic light.
Despite Adelaide is long and thin with an east west orientation, there is no loop tram because _that_ would be useful and would cut down the number of buses. There is NO East-West connection.The O Bahn should have been a tram and isn't. Nothing connects with anything or locates anywhere convenient. A Network designed by idiots.
Melbourne got it mostly right. Their trams run where people want to go, down busy narrow streets lined with attractions, a quick hop from the curb. Their only problem is that where they could relieve congestion, like near the MCG, they are log jammed in by commuter car traffic, so _nobody_ can move.
Only issue I have is I get Car sick much easier with trams than any other vehicle.
I live in San Francisco and New York.
I been to France i just don't like Public Transit it sucks. Cars Rule.
Not tram, Not streetcar, not light rail. Only corect term is baby train
If you were here in the USA and called that a tram, people would look at you funny. Here we call them light rail trains.
I certainly have heard that term used an awful lot, we call them trams here. trams and light rail sorta have a distinction but not really
around here in central Europe you'd differntiate between a tram and lightrail; Thus e.g. my state's capital city has a tram, subway, commuter rail etc but no light rail; In the state west of us the capital city has lightrail and commuter rail, but no subway and no tram
Trams/ light rail in North America are built heavy enough so that they can withstand multiple collisions. Light rail only refers to the capacity, and not the vehicle's mass. The term light rail in North America is a misnomer as the vehicles are heavier than small trains (high floor) in a heavy rail metro system. By mass, light rail is heavy rail and metro is light rail. Portland Max light rail in USA are actually low floor street trains with a different bodywork. Also, the Los Angeles light rail are high floor trains which run at grade similar to those in Portland.
Link by Monorail Society
www.monorails.org/tMspages/MonoVs.html
I don't believe in the Monorails Society claim of monorails being magically profitable. Any mode of public transport works as long it can sustain its operating and maintenance costs by reasonably filling up the seats in the vehicle. Empty PT vehicles waste money, energy, resources and always must be avoided.
Those frequent tram/ light rail collisions keep the vehicles in the repair shop for hours. Again, those ongoing repairs especially with trams/ light rail are great for the greedy railway contractors. At grade steel wheeled railway systems can never approach the safety, reliability, capacity and frequency of fully grade separated railway systems. Also, tram tracks embedded with concrete are disruptive, extremely expensive to construct, maintain and replace.
Even fully elevated monorails outperform trams/ light rail with similar short stop spacing (200 m - 1 km). Although, monorails have to be fully elevated, or else they're bust. At least metro rail, any train line or busways gives options for various alignments such as elevated, at ground level or in tunnel.
@@michaeleverett1479 had to look some of them up, certainly have their similiarities and still are quite different; This e.g. would be a tram in my state's capital city: ruclips.net/video/xvcjpMmX1uE/видео.html
This is the typical commuter train: ruclips.net/video/ClhPxm7sGDM/видео.html
Subway: ruclips.net/video/4-sZsWqcoXY/видео.html
And in the other state's capital city their light rail: ruclips.net/video/0hBuuFxcA1c/видео.html
Here the light rail trains usually have a tram-like character but high floor and elevated platforms, while trams usually have the low floor and low platforms
There are many cities here where trams or buses will have a priority signal, adapting an intersection's normal traffic light intervals as soon as a tram or bus is approaching or standing at a light; you can also interlace it with road traffic lights, e.g. not turning all traffic lights green, but when a tram is making a right turn at an intersections, right turning road traffic can get a green turn signal as well, and in the other direction you can do the same with left turning traffic; Thus they reduce the risk of crashes and keep down the time of stationary traffic. Also the less traffic you might have on a specific road the more trams and buses you're able to run there at the same time. I was indeed impressed with the downtown tram lines in Gothenburg, Sweden, with trams coming from all directions every few seconds: like here at central station: ruclips.net/video/m7pyRGd2Us4/видео.html
or further down into the city center: ruclips.net/video/wXg6MT7--Ms/видео.html
In the city where I grew up they had a tram line half a century ago, but it got replaced and the currently run 100% on buses; For some reason they want to re-establish a tram network, but it wouldn't make sense as some of the tight turns which the buses do manage the modern day larger trams can't manage; Also, even on main roads it won't be seperated from the actual road as you can't take one out of two driving lanes in each direction from a city's traffic bottleneck which already now has its traffic issues; Also the 2 planned tram lines won't be able to compensate the amount of passenger and buses, as one of the bus stops in between is served by more than 20 different bus lines
Streetcars were the original US term for them and the US also used a rail system - "Interurban rail" like big faster trams - single pick up like the old trams and not as heavy as passenger rail. The red cars in LA were of that type. before GM, Standard OIl and Firestone influenced things. The modern tram systems or light rail are an evolution of the street running tram system.
Trams are electric and need no batteries.
Yes! makes them lighter and less resource intensive
in fact the tram they want to build in my city is supposed to partially run on batteries while passing the downtown area
@@AussieWirraway, Sydney's new tram/ light rail Alstom XO5 rolling stock uses electrical power third rail in the middle of the tracks. Some areas of the L2 & L3 lines use the pantograph.
nswtrains.fandom.com/wiki/Alstom_Citadis_X05
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_Sydney
@@EnjoyFirefighting, There's a tram line in Istanbul, Turkey known as the T5 which runs on entirely electrified third rail in the middle of the tracks.
ruclips.net/video/EH-kjn5Eeu4/видео.html
Flexity’s aren’t great.
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