The Bus Lobby Uses the SkyTrain Lobby’s Tacticts

A bus jam in Ottawa. One modern tram would be as efficient as 6 buses.

If there is any doubt that the bus lobby misrepresents the truth, the following will dispel it immediately.

The Vancouver Observer ran an item by Eric Doherty entitled, Humble trolley bus reborn as climate superhero, which the truth is so distorted that it leaves the reader with the impression that modern LRT is all but obsolete. What is even more distressing, Doherty is advising the NDP on regional transit issues

Zwei takes great exception with the following excerpt,

The comparison to light rail vehicles is important when considering what routes are busy enough to justify the capital cost of building light rail. There is an overlap in the size of modern trams (streetcars and light rail vehicles) and modern buses. Smaller trams have capacities of around 150 people, whereas the largest buses carry up to 200. There is a large potential labour saving in utilizing much larger rail vehicles carrying over 500 people on very busy routes. But on less busy routes there is now little or no labour cost saving to going to rail vehicles. Frequency of service is one of the most important factors in attracting transit riders, so running large light rail vehicles infrequently is not much of an option.

The modern tram has capacities of 200 to 350 people, the smaller trams mentioned are either heritage vehicles or operate on routes that demand a smaller vehicle. Today, the tram is made of modular construction and a smaller tram can economically ‘grow’ with ridership demands on a transit route, by adding a new module, something that is impossible for buses to do.

The three sectioned articulated buses mentioned in the piece are illegal to operate on Canadian streets unless they operate on a dedicated rights-of-ways or busways, which dramatically increase the cost of construction and operation.

http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/eric-chris-on-bi-articulated-buses-for-the-99-b/

The author makes an impression that trams can’t operate at close frequencies (which they can and more efficiently when headways are less than 60 seconds) and his larger bus compared to small tram is just dishonest.

But I will leave it with a German transit expert, Wolfgang Keller, to put things in a proper perceptive.

Ai??Quote; “In Europe, many transit agencies no longer differentiate between Bus Rapid Transit and Light Rail lines“

What?! BRT isn’t an issue in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. What is common, however, is that buses use reserved streetcar lanes as bus-lanes.

There is one BRT network I know of in the Netherlands and a few lines in France. I have no clue of the UK though.

A regular contributor to “Stadtverkehr” (Harry Hondius) has somewhat advocated BRT recently, based on the excessive cost per km (up to 60 mio EUR iirc) of some new networks in France. But that excessive cost was not really rail-related, since the municipal authorities charged a lot of “urban refurbishment” works on the streetcar budget.

The TVR/GLT was a total disaster and it’s no longer marketed by Bombardier, just like all previous attempt at guided buses (Translohr is a streetcar, legally, it’s bidirectional and can run in MU, besides units over 24m). Caen has decided to replace it with actual streetcars. Nancy has decided to refurbish the TVR trolleybuses for something like 750,000 EUR (!) per piece to allow them to live for another 10-15 years, since they have never been really “fit for service”. There were not only numerous derailments, but also safety issues with the electric isolation of the traction equipment (Bombardiers had never built trolleybuses before and the electric equipment of trolleybuses is pretty special for safety reasons).

The region Lorraine seems to have a taste for screwing up public transit imho, since Nancy’s neighbour city Metz is planning to build a “BRT” line with double-articulated hybrid buses at 855,000 EUR (!) per piece (not including VAT). *gasp*

There’s also been an EU-funded research project about “future” BRT, but the results they presented were imho not actually new and don’t fundamentally change the fact that BRT is essentially the union of the (high) fixed (capital) cost of streetcars with the (high) variable (operation) cost of buses. I don’t see where there would be a “window
of opportunity” in the passenger volume vs. total cost diagram where BRT could reach a financial “break even” compared to streetcars.

If there were significant differences in construction cost per km in some french cities between streetcar and BRT infrastructure, that’s imho essentially due to different “scope of budget”.

TVR/GLT is technically already a mis-concept. The guiding system simply doesn’t work even half-reliably.

Quote: “Bus Rapid transit is typically a bit faster than light rail, and has about the same maximum capacity.“

Yet another “leader” who slept through his math classes in primary school.

Buses can at most be 24m in length in Europe, streetcars 75m (in Germany). The maximum frequency is the same, since both operate “on sight” and dwell time at stations are the limiting issue.

And so far, 24m buses have not really convinced the operators. They are not built by any of the major bus builders (Neoman, Evobus, Irisbus…), but by small “niche” manufacturers (Van Hool, Hess…). Thus, they are aliens in the fleets, expensive to maintain and due to their “swept envelope” they can’t go everyhwere within the street network.

With electric propulsion (a strolleybuses), they are not really significantly cheaper than streetcars, considering the lifespan.

Anyone who has not slept through their math classes in elementary school can easily draw up a comparison table for the capacity of streetcars vs. BRT:

“Front door only” boarding for buses for fare collection by the driver makes things even worse because then the dwell times are far longer and consequently the maximum frequency is far lower for buses, but that would be “unfair” imho, since I assert “all other conditions being equal”, i.e. POP for buses as for streetcars.

Does Vancouver or the province of BC have such an important car/bus/oil industry?

The last time I checked, the Canadian oil industry is located in Alberta, and Alberta happens to have two of the best urban transit systems in North America.

Sincerely,

Zwei would hope that the provincial NDP would consult with real transit experts and not bus lobby windbags, who, like their SkyTrain brethren cannot honestly debate transit issues and simply make it up as they go along.