Re: E class progress
  Greg Sutherland

Only true if you schedule trams for a specific passenger capacity along
the route.

Frequency is determined by the amount of money that is allocated by the
service provider (effectively the Government and their Treasury).

80% of the operational cost of a tram is the driver's wages/on costs
(superannuation-annual leave - insurance etc).  That is to say the
operational cost of a larger tram is not a significant issue when cost
allocations are made.  A major factor is the passenger lifting capacity
of the tram, the more passengers carried per driver the lower the cost
per passenger figure and when you are carrying millions of passengers
per annum this is a significant dollar figure.

This can be seen in bus operations where operators despite varying loads
across their networks effectively utilise only two basic bus sizes (the
city size bus and the articulated bus) with the latter being used on
high demand routes.  The articulated bus it should be noted represents
the maximum size that can meet national road regulations.

Thus for cities with heavy passenger demands the move to introducing and
growing system capability with trams/light rail is increasing passenger
capacity without increasing the congestion introduced by attempting to
place more vehicles in the operational corridors.  This is a win/win
situation as trams (provided they are optimally sized) can lower
operational costs and avoid over congestion of the corridor transit
space.  Sydney's George Street light rail is a typical example of this
approach, albeit not currently achieving all that it should due to
operational incompetence.

When a system purchases new trams care must be taken to project the
anticipated passenger demand for the next 30 years given the 30 year
vehicle life expected of the vehicle being purchased and allowing for
future technology developments.  Sticking to tram sizes which do not
offer a capacity much beyond the size of current buses is a recipe for a
limited future for many current tram systems and for public transport in
general.

It's not a question of just buying appropriate new trams but ensuring
that appropriate infrastructure  developments including depot capacity
take place concurrent with tram fleet improvements together with the
introduction of appropriate tram priorities.

Greg


On 5/07/2020 12:43 am, Mick Duncan wrote:
> Gday All

>

> The bigger the Tram, the longer the headway

>

> Cheers,   Mick

>

>