It's probably the load standard -- not the max capacity, but the
trigger at which a tram is deemed to be crowded, which should mean
action is taken to relieve it (eg more or bigger trams). Similar to
the 798 figure for Melbourne's suburban trains (which is well below
the actual capacity).

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 11:48 AM, Tony Prescott prescottt@...> wrote:
> You shouldn't need longitudinal seats. A 30m tram with 60-70 transverse seats will carry about 190 in total at 4 ppsm. With unidirectional trams, which have all transverse seating, you can even add about another 15 to that figure. These figures are "comfortable" and still well short of crush capacity.

>

> It's a silly thing to put in a contract if that's the case, I can't imagine what prompted it. But even in that case a figure of 140 pass for a 30 m tram is way below 4 ppsm. Someone is being very conservative about something, I don't know what, but they're doing a good job of undermining the case for trams.

>

> Tony P

>

> --- InTramsDownUnder@..., "rnveditor" <rodsmith@...> wrote:

>>

>> I put up a whole set of figures 2-3 years ago, and a diagram.

>> At the time I was looking at maximising capacity by running Zs with longitudinal seating, to intermediate terminuses (two trips per peak); and reseating the larger trams to 50% transverse and 50% longitinal for longer routes (one trip per peak).

>> AFAIK the contracts are written for four passengers per square metre, which is comfortable standing; however six is quite achievable; and seven was a long-standing standard.

>>

>> I haven't the time to search for the original posts, or to redo the calculations.  I put up a drawing at the time.

>>

>> Roderick B Smith

>> Rail News Victoria Editor

>>