On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:32:40 +0000 (UTC), "Piccadilly Pilot"
wrote:

David Bradley wrote:
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:32:29 +0100, "Solar Penguin"
wrote:


--- "PRAR" wrote:


227, London's favourite bus route.


And a very crowded bus route. Trams, with their higher
passenger-carrying capacity, would be an improvement.

How exactly? You can't get more people on a tram than you can a bus.
Each passenger requires a similar amount of space on either vehicle
and a tram with 300 people on board would be just as crowded as a bus.

Firstly the carrying capacity of most trams is greater than that of most
buses. Secondly it is possible to couple two (and possibly more) trams
together to increase the capacity and still only need one driver.


Your first statement is untrue, trams carry more passengers because
they are physically larger! One would expect a railed vehicle 35m
long to hold roughly twice as many passengers as an 18m-long
articulated single-deck bus, and this indeed turns out to be the case.
The capacity for the given space is not greater, only a saving in man
power.

Your second statement suggests vehicle lengths on the public highway
that would be totally unacceptable. Finding seggrated road space for
even part of the route of a tramway is very difficult, if not
impossible. Unless, of course, you make the former highway a no go
area for other modes of traffic.


If the passenger demand is there, then a more frequent bus service
would serve the travelling public much better than the not
inconsiderable expense, and construction disruption, of a tramway to
provide the same result.

You're overlooking one vital factor, people don't like buses. They are
perceived as a poor quality product.

Possibly so, but elsewhere in the EU, where modern trolleybus systems
have been created in the last few years [e.g. Athens] there has been a
significant model shift of passengers to rubber tyred trams which has
not been less than their steel vehicle cousins found elsewhere.

Here in the UK a visit to Sheffield shows that travellers prefer the
bus instead of the tram; explain that one away!

David Bradley