The point I originally made is that Australian train passengers are not standing much more in the best single deck services because the maximum throughput of trains is greater than for a double deck service plus the journey is quicker, these factors combining to raise the seating capacity per hour to not far off that of a double decker service and reducing the length of time spent standing for those standing.

I'm not saying that trams should have more seats - in fact in their typical operational context they don't need to - but explaining why passengers can rate bus comfort higher than tram comfort. The 15T (which is actually in more cities now that it's in China as well) and ULF are examples at the best end of the low-floor design spectrum. Other unidirectional low-floors also have the same numbers of extra seats than a bidirectional and more forward-facing seats, but not as many of the latter as a 15T or ULF.

Buses also have more seats because they're unidirectional. If they had doors on both sides they would have seating capacity slaughtered as well. That's why, in the passenger's experience, a bus stacks up better in the comfort stakes than a bidirectional tram, considering that being seated offsets the disadvantage of the rougher ride compared to the other two modes. For sure, people prefer to be seated, but not at the cost of a longer journey.

I don't think Melbourne will go for cheaper trams. The typical Australian mentality appears to be that if you only have so much money, you buy less vehicles. It doesn't generally seem to occur to most agencies that they could shop around to stretch the money further.

Tony P
---InTramsDownUnder@..., <matthew@...> wrote :

On 15/08/17 09:28, prescottt@... mailto:prescottt@... [TramsDownUnder] wrote:
So it's OK for train passengers to have to stand due to lack of seating,
in order to pack more people in, but trams should have more seats
instead of being designed like the trains - 'tubes for people to stand in'.

And the Škoda 15T has a minuscule market share and only has been sold to
two cities - one outside the city it was designed for, (Most of Škoda
output is more 'conventional' fixed bogie designs) and the ULF was
pretty much the same and now dropped from it's manufactures product line
and Wien is looking at procuring 'bog standard' 2 rooms and a bath style
fixed bogie Flexitys now.

Also wonder how long Melbourne will keep buying those expensive E class
before a new tender is called and up front vehicle price will become the
overriding concern and the Melbourne F will be a fixed bogie track eater.