Great comparison, except that the Sydney L2 and L3 mostly run in a special transport channel - don't really mix with the traffic which in the city has been mainly diverted to just one parallel street, Elizabeth St, but mostly, effectively excluded. The stops are also much further apart. Melbourne provides a much more accessible service - many stops and alternative routes - which go into the city. Regardless, you have provided a very interesting video together with a long conversation in Melbourne, which will be very interesting to those who understand. Sydney seems to have many more pedestrians with death wish.
Apart from the top end of Nicholson St and a tiny bit of Acland St, the 96 is also fully segregated. It has been for decades. Nevertheless the 96 has got slower and slower over the decades. When I drove it, at nights and Sunday mornings we did the round trip in 90 minutes. No problem. Much slower than that today even at midnight. Also in my time, drivers were trusted to drive Bourke St Mall at a speed they saw fit. Nobody got run over. Now deskbound experts set speed limits, including more and more in Melbourne, not to mention tin pot councils limiting streets. As I said in the video, until Melbourne gets traffic light priority it will be a second rate tramway. With priority, 96 would kill the L2 and L3. The number of intermediate stops is not important for anyone who just wants to get from A to B in the fastest time. The only reason I did the video was another YT commenter describing Sydney as slow. I think this video will shut them up. The Good Coast (and I expect Canberra) kills them both doing 11.5km in 32 minutes. (I’m riding Gold Coast tram 07 right now).
More intermediate stops beyond a certain point (Sydney has stop spacing about right on these lines and on its new Parramatta LR) means more wear on vehicles, more infrastructure to build or in Melbourne's case retrofit for wheelchair access, more amenities, more interaction with passengers so chance for delays etc. Stop spacing in Melbourne is way too close.
@kyletopfer7818 I think all the stops on the 96 are wheelchair accessible. I doubt if the lot in Melbourne will ever get done. A number of stops has been removed here and there in Melbourne but doing so will win no votes. As for Parramatta, I walked Rosehill to Westmead 2 weeks ago, wondering why no testing but that started last night so I will have to publish mine next week before it is stale.
@@tressteleg1 sure that is probably true regarding the route 96 stops being accessible, but there are a tonne of routes that aren't and to do them with the 200-300m stop spacing rather than 450-600m+ like more modern lines means dozens more to do and more pinch points. Melbourne's system lags way behind other comparable legacy systems that have modernised far better like Berlin or Zurich and to bring it into the 21st century without treading on some toes isn't realistic, but having such slow lines and so many stops means more drivers + trams needed to run services and lower frequency.
Best comparison for Syd is a metro line. The proposed metro through Moore Park and UNSW was binned by the Libs who prioritised a metro through their North Western Suburban stronghold. The substitute tram doesn’t cope well with cricket ground crowds. It’s ok when not overcrowded.
Well one way or the other, a Metro was not built there. Handling a massive sport exodus at the cricket ground can only provide a certain number of trams. For 60 years buses have had to handle the crowds, so I suppose they will just have to continue to supplement the trams.
Great video! I would say this was an excellent 96 run, for Melbourne standards. It's clear the main issue is the lack of traffic priority, my eyes were hurting after that 54-second wait on Nicholson St. Speaking of Nicholson St, I got what you meant on last video's comment. It's much different now than back in 2016 - for the better, thankfully. I reckon right hand side platforms are great design for narrow roads but could also adapt to the wider ones such as Nicholson. Hopefully there's a part 2 of the St Kilda run coming up soon to cover the section to St Kilda, would be interesting to compare average speeds for the two sections of the route (North and South from the CBD). Tks!
Thanks. The run was fairly average. The first attempt was around 3pm and slowed with school traffic so I did it again. With the end of original Ws which had doors on the right which the driver could not open, right side doors can now be used when preferable. I also recorded St Kilda to City which I will do in due course.
A clear road ahead and the Sydney Snail Rail does what it does best, crawl along at a pace slower than the passing traffic. If that exact stretch from Randwick existed in Melbourne, the old E class would have hit Central whilst our Sydney Snail rail hasn't topped out over 40kph. Not a fair comparison at all. Maybe you should have picked Route 75, a much better comparison.
Interesting. So arguably, there's not a lot in it. Based on the distance vs time (including stops), the L2 service had an average speed of 16km/h whereas 96 had an average speed of 14km/h.
From Randwick to Central it hits an average closer to 21kph, then the dogleg over to George Street to Chinatown costs 5 minutes and so the George St section from Central to Circular Quay is around 11kph. The old system had the Randwick and Kingsford lines using Elizabeth Street though of course they entered the City along Oxford St. George Street used to have the trams averaging 16kph back in the 1940s.
Thanks to both of you for your calculations. I do have an original Sydney tram timetable for La Perouse but can’t find it at the moment. Without bureaucrats dictating low speed limits, its average times my will have been better than what we see today.
that's because it's light rail and not a regular tram. a normal tram is essentially a bus on rails, it stops every few hundred metres to pick up passengers. light rail however is essentially a smaller train, it stops far less often, always has dedicated right-of-way, and the stops are more like full-blown stations
@TheLostProbe In case you have not noticed, apart from the 1st km or two the 96 is segregated from road traffic virtually as much as the L2 the main difference is the number of stops, although these are mostly conditional as you will have noticed several were passed without stopping. The greatest hindrance to Melbourne better performance is lack of immediate traffic light priority. Sydney’s is not perfect, but an awful lot better than Melbourne.
Interesting. Been to Melbourne many times. Didn't realise trams weren't given priority at lights. Couple more things. 1. 96 tram definately not hindered by turning corners. Only 3 in 8km!😳 2. So many stops in Melbourne and free zone. May discourage just walking.
Nope, no priority. Essentially just wait like all other traffic. The straight run gives the POTENTIAL for faster trips, but nothing improves. Free transport makes lazy and less fit people.
As I see it, Melbourne traffic light programmers have been perfecting the art of delaying trams as much as possible for over 80 years, and don’t intend changing anything any time soon.
@geoffreythorburn8030 Apart from the last kilometre or so of Nicholson Street and a block of Acland Street, Melbourne line is also segregated. The real problem is lack of traffic light priority in Melbourne.
If you mean thatMelbourne is slower in the city, as I said at the end, 2 1/2 minutes slower over the same distance. It’s the lack of traffic light priority that kills Melbourne everywhere.
I have material to cover the 96 and George Street lines in the opposite direction. Other Melbourne tram routes do not compare as they run in mixed traffic. I can also do the L1 in Sydney compared with the Gold Coast line.
syd had a bit of an unfair advantage. if you had started melbs POV on the st kilda right of way, it would’ve been a fairer comparison as both would’ve began around light rail tracks.
Maybe you did not look too closely. While the 96 has evolved from a Tramway, apart from the 1st km or two of Nicolson Street, the tramlines are segregated from normal road traffic putting it on a fairly even footing with the L2. Also if you looked more closely, you will see that I was only measuring the 96 over 8 .5 km, the same length as the L2. And the simple fact was, it took several minutes longer for the 96 to equal the 8.5 km of the L2. Actually I stopped recording about three minutes after the L2 had finished its run.
I'd assume that your camera settings were the same for both videos, but the Sydney "speeds" seem slower than the actual experience. But this might silence the naysayers who believe Sydney is much slower than Melbourne.
Thanks for your comment, Brian. In theory the camera zoom should be identical BUT… some drivers have the sunshade lower than others, and also the window pillars can intrude and I try to minimise these obstructions. Depth of the cab is also a factor. Also with the camera upside down (necessary using a suction cup) adjustment is not so easy. Actually the video was only inspired a few months ago by yet another commenter accusing the Sydney trams for being so slow. A quick check of the timetable showed the reality so I set out to prove the ‘theory’. Also the Sydney light priority has gradually improved over the years but this year saw little change from the past although George St into Alfred St and maybe Bridge St seemed a lot better even if Pitt St and entering George St were a lot worse than usual. If Melbourne had the priority of Sydney, it would be a clear winner. However at this stage both are poor cousins to Gold Coast even on its slower northbound trip which does 11.5 km in 32 minutes. I don’t expect to hear from too many Melburnians, apart from angry ones.
@@tressteleg1interestingly I saw the same comment as you about Sydney L2/L3 being slow, so being a nerd I then went and looked at the EIS documentation for the project. The current timetabled speeds for L2/L3 of 31min end to end is actually 3 minutes faster for L2 and 7 minutes faster for L3 than the target journey times stated in the documentation, mind you they had an extra stop at World Square between Chinatown and Town Hall that got cut in Project Modification 1 during construction. And you could easily imagine journey time being even a bit quicker overall especially with swivelling bogey trams.
@kyletopfer7818 I suspect that the pessimistic running times in planning had more to do with no confidence in getting traffic light priority. In my mind the traffic light programmers have been dragged kicking and screaming into giving the L2 and L3 any priority at all. Even so Anzac Pde on the L3 could do with a lot of tidying up, but resistance to do so seems strong. On this run, Pitt St and entering George St were much worse than in recent times. High St on the L2 is still pretty hopeless. Without even better priority Sydney could not be much faster. Some drivers are not assertive enough and once I was told they were instructed to take it easy. Swivelling bogies, comparatively rare on low floor trams, would only save a few seconds here and there. Maximum speeds which appear to be determined by people who have never driven a tram do not help. Incidentally both lines get 32 minute inbound, 31 mins outbound only.
@@tressteleg1 I will have to defer to your knowledge on this one but I live in Europe at the moment and there are tonnes of swivelling bogie trams here (Czech, Scandinavia, Poland, Germany etc) that are much much faster around corners and across junctions & points than any of the trams in Australia. You really think it would only be seconds saved?
@@tressteleg1 unfair comparison and you know it. Have done the ride to Randwick, enough to make me want to.scream at how slow it is. Awful to say the least.
@@harrygoldun5779 There is no other comparison to make in Melbourne. Sounds like you have not been to Melbourne and spent minute after minute in a tram stopped at traffic lights. And of course you could always wait for a bus in Sydney. Not that they prove to be that much faster for the same reason as Melbourne trams.
Melbourne's network is bigger but Sydney's is properly seperated with proper tram stops a lot of the stops in Melbourne aren't like in the vid but are just on the road with cars and trams sharing space.
I realise that the 96 is not typical of other Melbourne routes, but I chose it because it has most of the properties of what is called light rail in that road traffic does not often run along the tram lines.
Great comparison, except that the Sydney L2 and L3 mostly run in a special transport channel - don't really mix with the traffic which in the city has been mainly diverted to just one parallel street, Elizabeth St, but mostly, effectively excluded. The stops are also much further apart. Melbourne provides a much more accessible service - many stops and alternative routes - which go into the city. Regardless, you have provided a very interesting video together with a long conversation in Melbourne, which will be very interesting to those who understand. Sydney seems to have many more pedestrians with death wish.
Apart from the top end of Nicholson St and a tiny bit of Acland St, the 96 is also fully segregated. It has been for decades. Nevertheless the 96 has got slower and slower over the decades. When I drove it, at nights and Sunday mornings we did the round trip in 90 minutes. No problem. Much slower than that today even at midnight. Also in my time, drivers were trusted to drive Bourke St Mall at a speed they saw fit. Nobody got run over. Now deskbound experts set speed limits, including more and more in Melbourne, not to mention tin pot councils limiting streets. As I said in the video, until Melbourne gets traffic light priority it will be a second rate tramway. With priority, 96 would kill the L2 and L3. The number of intermediate stops is not important for anyone who just wants to get from A to B in the fastest time. The only reason I did the video was another YT commenter describing Sydney as slow. I think this video will shut them up. The Good Coast (and I expect Canberra) kills them both doing 11.5km in 32 minutes. (I’m riding Gold Coast tram 07 right now).
More intermediate stops beyond a certain point (Sydney has stop spacing about right on these lines and on its new Parramatta LR) means more wear on vehicles, more infrastructure to build or in Melbourne's case retrofit for wheelchair access, more amenities, more interaction with passengers so chance for delays etc. Stop spacing in Melbourne is way too close.
@kyletopfer7818 I think all the stops on the 96 are wheelchair accessible. I doubt if the lot in Melbourne will ever get done. A number of stops has been removed here and there in Melbourne but doing so will win no votes. As for Parramatta, I walked Rosehill to Westmead 2 weeks ago, wondering why no testing but that started last night so I will have to publish mine next week before it is stale.
@@tressteleg1 sure that is probably true regarding the route 96 stops being accessible, but there are a tonne of routes that aren't and to do them with the 200-300m stop spacing rather than 450-600m+ like more modern lines means dozens more to do and more pinch points. Melbourne's system lags way behind other comparable legacy systems that have modernised far better like Berlin or Zurich and to bring it into the 21st century without treading on some toes isn't realistic, but having such slow lines and so many stops means more drivers + trams needed to run services and lower frequency.
@@BigBlueMan118 As I stated at the end, Melbourne is a second rate Tramway. Just because it’s the biggest doesn’t make it the best.
Best comparison for Syd is a metro line. The proposed metro through Moore Park and UNSW was binned by the Libs who prioritised a metro through their North Western Suburban stronghold. The substitute tram doesn’t cope well with cricket ground crowds. It’s ok when not overcrowded.
Well one way or the other, a Metro was not built there. Handling a massive sport exodus at the cricket ground can only provide a certain number of trams. For 60 years buses have had to handle the crowds, so I suppose they will just have to continue to supplement the trams.
Great video! I would say this was an excellent 96 run, for Melbourne standards. It's clear the main issue is the lack of traffic priority, my eyes were hurting after that 54-second wait on Nicholson St.
Speaking of Nicholson St, I got what you meant on last video's comment. It's much different now than back in 2016 - for the better, thankfully. I reckon right hand side platforms are great design for narrow roads but could also adapt to the wider ones such as Nicholson. Hopefully there's a part 2 of the St Kilda run coming up soon to cover the section to St Kilda, would be interesting to compare average speeds for the two sections of the route (North and South from the CBD). Tks!
Thanks. The run was fairly average. The first attempt was around 3pm and slowed with school traffic so I did it again.
With the end of original Ws which had doors on the right which the driver could not open, right side doors can now be used when preferable.
I also recorded St Kilda to City which I will do in due course.
A clear road ahead and the Sydney Snail Rail does what it does best, crawl along at a pace slower than the passing traffic. If that exact stretch from Randwick existed in Melbourne, the old E class would have hit Central whilst our Sydney Snail rail hasn't topped out over 40kph. Not a fair comparison at all. Maybe you should have picked Route 75, a much better comparison.
it bafffles me that there still is no commitment to increase tram priority in melbourne its so frustrating
I suspect that traffic light programmers are vehemently opposed to any priority to trams. Nothing will change until the state government forces that.
Interesting. So arguably, there's not a lot in it. Based on the distance vs time (including stops), the L2 service had an average speed of 16km/h whereas 96 had an average speed of 14km/h.
From Randwick to Central it hits an average closer to 21kph, then the dogleg over to George Street to Chinatown costs 5 minutes and so the George St section from Central to Circular Quay is around 11kph. The old system had the Randwick and Kingsford lines using Elizabeth Street though of course they entered the City along Oxford St. George Street used to have the trams averaging 16kph back in the 1940s.
Thanks to both of you for your calculations. I do have an original Sydney tram timetable for La Perouse but can’t find it at the moment. Without bureaucrats dictating low speed limits, its average times my will have been better than what we see today.
For me the real difference is the number of stops or lack thereof in Sydney
The real difference is NO traffic light priority in Melbourne. Didn’t you notice?
that's because it's light rail and not a regular tram. a normal tram is essentially a bus on rails, it stops every few hundred metres to pick up passengers. light rail however is essentially a smaller train, it stops far less often, always has dedicated right-of-way, and the stops are more like full-blown stations
@TheLostProbe In case you have not noticed, apart from the 1st km or two the 96 is segregated from road traffic virtually as much as the L2 the main difference is the number of stops, although these are mostly conditional as you will have noticed several were passed without stopping. The greatest hindrance to Melbourne better performance is lack of immediate traffic light priority. Sydney’s is not perfect, but an awful lot better than Melbourne.
Interesting. Been to Melbourne many times. Didn't realise trams weren't given priority at lights.
Couple more things. 1. 96 tram definately not hindered by turning corners. Only 3 in 8km!😳 2. So many stops in Melbourne and free zone. May discourage just walking.
Nope, no priority. Essentially just wait like all other traffic. The straight run gives the POTENTIAL for faster trips, but nothing improves. Free transport makes lazy and less fit people.
I’m really surprised the trams in Melbourne don’t have better traffic light priority. Sydney does this quite well.
As I see it, Melbourne traffic light programmers have been perfecting the art of delaying trams as much as possible for over 80 years, and don’t intend changing anything any time soon.
How could this be an comparison , when Sydney trams are running separate to local traffic.
@geoffreythorburn8030 Apart from the last kilometre or so of Nicholson Street and a block of Acland Street, Melbourne line is also segregated. The real problem is lack of traffic light priority in Melbourne.
That's a hard one......in the CBD itself I would have to say Melbourne but outside the CBD confines they are on par.
If you mean thatMelbourne is slower in the city, as I said at the end, 2 1/2 minutes slower over the same distance. It’s the lack of traffic light priority that kills Melbourne everywhere.
Can you compare other lines?
I have material to cover the 96 and George Street lines in the opposite direction. Other Melbourne tram routes do not compare as they run in mixed traffic.
I can also do the L1 in Sydney compared with the Gold Coast line.
Would be a closer comparison if it went from acland st but Melbourne trams normally just run on roads with shit lights
I also recorded Acland St into the city with L2 the other direction and L3 both ways. I will do some combination in due course.
syd had a bit of an unfair advantage. if you had started melbs POV on the st kilda right of way, it would’ve been a fairer comparison as both would’ve began around light rail tracks.
I also recorded a run from the Saint Kilda end and that will be compared in due course.
Interesting comparison. Melbourne is slowest. Tnanks tressteleg1💚👍
Yes, not what the Victorians would like to have heard.
It's not fair as sydney has light rails and that the L2 is shorter than the 96
Maybe you did not look too closely. While the 96 has evolved from a Tramway, apart from the 1st km or two of Nicolson Street, the tramlines are segregated from normal road traffic putting it on a fairly even footing with the L2. Also if you looked more closely, you will see that I was only measuring the 96 over 8 .5 km, the same length as the L2. And the simple fact was, it took several minutes longer for the 96 to equal the 8.5 km of the L2. Actually I stopped recording about three minutes after the L2 had finished its run.
I'd assume that your camera settings were the same for both videos, but the Sydney "speeds" seem slower than the actual experience. But this might silence the naysayers who believe Sydney is much slower than Melbourne.
Thanks for your comment, Brian. In theory the camera zoom should be identical BUT… some drivers have the sunshade lower than others, and also the window pillars can intrude and I try to minimise these obstructions. Depth of the cab is also a factor. Also with the camera upside down (necessary using a suction cup) adjustment is not so easy.
Actually the video was only inspired a few months ago by yet another commenter accusing the Sydney trams for being so slow. A quick check of the timetable showed the reality so I set out to prove the ‘theory’. Also the Sydney light priority has gradually improved over the years but this year saw little change from the past although George St into Alfred St and maybe Bridge St seemed a lot better even if Pitt St and entering George St were a lot worse than usual. If Melbourne had the priority of Sydney, it would be a clear winner. However at this stage both are poor cousins to Gold Coast even on its slower northbound trip which does 11.5 km in 32 minutes. I don’t expect to hear from too many Melburnians, apart from angry ones.
@@tressteleg1interestingly I saw the same comment as you about Sydney L2/L3 being slow, so being a nerd I then went and looked at the EIS documentation for the project. The current timetabled speeds for L2/L3 of 31min end to end is actually 3 minutes faster for L2 and 7 minutes faster for L3 than the target journey times stated in the documentation, mind you they had an extra stop at World Square between Chinatown and Town Hall that got cut in Project Modification 1 during construction. And you could easily imagine journey time being even a bit quicker overall especially with swivelling bogey trams.
@kyletopfer7818 I suspect that the pessimistic running times in planning had more to do with no confidence in getting traffic light priority. In my mind the traffic light programmers have been dragged kicking and screaming into giving the L2 and L3 any priority at all. Even so Anzac Pde on the L3 could do with a lot of tidying up, but resistance to do so seems strong. On this run, Pitt St and entering George St were much worse than in recent times. High St on the L2 is still pretty hopeless. Without even better priority Sydney could not be much faster. Some drivers are not assertive enough and once I was told they were instructed to take it easy. Swivelling bogies, comparatively rare on low floor trams, would only save a few seconds here and there. Maximum speeds which appear to be determined by people who have never driven a tram do not help. Incidentally both lines get 32 minute inbound, 31 mins outbound only.
@@tressteleg1 I will have to defer to your knowledge on this one but I live in Europe at the moment and there are tonnes of swivelling bogie trams here (Czech, Scandinavia, Poland, Germany etc) that are much much faster around corners and across junctions & points than any of the trams in Australia. You really think it would only be seconds saved?
Unfortunately for whatever reason, Trent was in the English-speaking world don’t seem to want to deal with tram makers in the former eastern bloc.
Melbourne win hand down 🎉
Wins for bring slower, of course 😆
@@tressteleg1 unfair comparison and you know it. Have done the ride to Randwick, enough to make me want to.scream at how slow it is. Awful to say the least.
@@harrygoldun5779 There is no other comparison to make in Melbourne. Sounds like you have not been to Melbourne and spent minute after minute in a tram stopped at traffic lights. And of course you could always wait for a bus in Sydney. Not that they prove to be that much faster for the same reason as Melbourne trams.
Melbourne's network is bigger but Sydney's is properly seperated with proper tram stops a lot of the stops in Melbourne aren't like in the vid but are just on the road with cars and trams sharing space.
I realise that the 96 is not typical of other Melbourne routes, but I chose it because it has most of the properties of what is called light rail in that road traffic does not often run along the tram lines.