Terry Harper wrote:
On Mon, 5 Jun 2006 07:43:05 +0100, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:

In article , Chris
Johns writes
The area is as people have already said a very busy area which
econmically is doing very well. The 207 are jammed full most of the day.
Why replace it then? If they are jammed most of the day, then some more
busses might be in order.
There's a limit to how many buses per hour you can run on a route. The
same number of trams per hour carry far more people.

But can you run the same number of trams per hour as you can buses per
hour? I suspect not. Remember that buses can overtake each other.
Trams cannot.

True, but you can couple trams together and carry several hundred
passengers using a single driver (where you might need four drivers to
carry those people with buses).

In any case, the ability of buses to overtake is only useful when they
can avoid stopping at every stop, or when the infrastructure is
specifically designed to allow easy overtaking and multiple buses per
stop - something which would involve as much disruption to traffic as
the tram, if not more. For a super-high-capacity bus rapid transit
system, you'd essentially need to close most of the Uxbridge Road to
private traffic.

The reason trams were chosen for the Cross River scheme was that "only"
40 services were needed to meet peak hour demand, whereas 80 buses per
hour would have been needed. Even 40vph is pushing the limits at the key
junctions on the CRT route (Euston Road and High Holborn). Raising bus
frequencies to very high levels on the Uxbridge Road would also have
throughput implications at major junctions (e.g. North Circular).

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London