The tram has completely changed transportation within my city and this with only 1 line so far. The future expansion plans will make it a proper network. A tram is also perfect for small cities such as Luxembourg City where the density is high enough to warrant a tram but not enough for a metro.
I think it wouldn't be bad to build a metro as if you want to expand it outwards the tram would be slow and u would need another network... As well inducted demand ^^ (I'm from Berlin btw)
Agreed. They should run in their own dedicated lane that is fenced off preferably.. Even here in Edmonton, Alberta you can see the shockingly high crash rate between the 1-year old Valley LRT line that uses low-floor trams with no barriers between cars and the trains and the 46-year old Capital Line that uses high-floor Siemens pre-metro cars that can be arranged into 120m long rides that can carry over 1000 per trip during peak times like rush hour or Elks football matches or Oilers hockey games... I believe the ratio is like 16 vs 1 this year... Spend the money and make it separate especially in a city with snow and ice issues at least half the year...
@@stickynorth Well, I disagree. The best feature of a tram network, is that it is a pedestrian (i.e. the cargo that the tram exist for in the first place) friendly area. If there are so many cars that you need to fence your trams so they don't get destroyed, the problem is that you have to many cars for transit to make any sense in this area. I do not say that your suggestion makes no sense at all and should never be done, but you only want to do that on a few specific spots. Elsewhere, you want to remove cars. For instance, by adding a fence free median, and "protecting" this median with tree planters between angled parking, turning the place into a single lane one way for rubber tired motorized vehicles, and a suicide attempt for speeders. And around the _downtown_ tram stop, remove car traffic entirely, into a pedestrian plaza. This way you both increase the number of on street parking close to businesses, and remove collisions, because the tram basilicaly runs through a slow moving pedestrian friendly parking lot instead of a "highway".
I am from Melbourne Australia, and we have never got rid of our trams and that is why Melbourne Australia has the biggest tram network in the world. We have been vindicated in our decision to retain our trams, because Sydney got rid of their (Nice one Sydney!), and now they are rapidly re-introducing trams back into the city. You cannot think of Melbourne without thinking about our trams. Cities need trams!
Though Melbourne might lose its crown to Paris in the near future given the mass and speed of the Parisian tramway network's growth. They're already dethroning Budapest on ridership (or soon if it hasn't yet). With the T3's (circular lines T3a & T3b) carrying 500k to 700k daily. Right now, there are 186.6 km and 14 lines, 4 of which have opened between 2021 and 2023, and there are major extensions being built and planned, including more than doubling line T1's length. There's also a recurring push to convert a major 20km long BRT line into a tram by extending the recently opened T10 line to the East while its Northern extension is being planned to connect with Grand Paris Express' huge circular metro line 15. There's already about 50km more in construction and planning, potentially 70 or 80km. It should become the second largest network before 2030, then maybe overtake Melbourne in under a decade, unless Melbourne extend their network in the meantime. There's also quite a difference between modern tram alignements (Modern European Trams / Modern French Trams) and legacy ones. The modern ones are generally built in different locations and routes. Is Sydney rebuilding trams on the same routes with the same alignments?
@@hypercomms2001 Melbourne is a beautiful city from what I’ve seen of it online and it’s on my bucket list because it’s also Kylie Minogue’s home city as I worship Kylie 😍😍😍😍😍
@@KyrilPG no sydneys, adelaides, and gold coasts trams are LRT on different allignments. Melbourne's legacy tram network is really spectacular especially in the city centre but it needs work for sure. not so much on frequency but on traffic priority andseperation from cars outside the centre
In Rotterdam Netherlands they want to destroy the tram and replace them with busses while we want to keep it because of the tram bonus. Low floor acces, its friendly for your streets, helps to slow down car traffic and it looks nice. It also creates safer streets due it is predictable
Note that as far as i know, they want to remove the tram in a few places, dubbing it lines that are low ridership, or well connected via the metro or busses, and want to improve the busses in those areas... in the Netherlands youll also get the argument of cyclist safety comnonly. I dont really buy it, its i dont think the right way to go even if theyre lesser used lines with overlap with other tram lines or metro lines. Dropping them and replacing them with busses will just drop the tram bonus you have, and then youll get a bus service that likely will also get cut over time.
4:22 I just want to point out that this is the South Lake Union Streetcar in Seattle which was built alongside tech campuses and sees extremely low ridership because of the poor routing choice. On the other side of Downtown, we have the First Hill Streetcar, which IIRC sees the 2nd highest ridership of any streetcar in the states. You picked a poor example and then pondered why we would invest in a “slow and inefficient transportation” that sees 300 riders a day. One was designed well, the other wasn’t.
In my City (184.000 Inhabitants, so not exactly a Metropolis), Pollution and Capacity were the deciding Factor for building our new Tram. Apparently, they had their Bus Lines going at one digit Minute Frequencies which led to a deteriorating Air Quality.
It is so insane we don't use cargo trams more. Emisions within cities are so often created by trucks, that it could be a huge upgrade to airquality. More cargo-trams and cargo-subways please.
NZ has regressed with 2024 Govt defunding rail infrastructure by 97% and prioritising 1950’s highway madness with total road dependency ideology. This excessive roading will become a liability to eventually bankrupt the country. Fuel, oil and vehicles are all imported. NZ once had trams & trains and could again modernise using 21st Century Rail technologies-available off the shelf !
Very disheartening.. We should be encouraging as many rail projects as possible globally. Even the American tram ones show promise if they bothered to integrate them better with existing transit hubs or activity nodes rather than just real estate showpieces on an checklist in order to gentrify a neighbourhood...
This Bogotá issue is really a great example of why buses are insufficient, they aren't only building a metro system but also have 2 light rail projects showing not only how overcrowded the busses get, but also an additional benefit that light rail systems give such as intercity transportation (light rail in Bogotá will be extended to connect with other cities)
Luxtram is indeed the goat, and the future expansion plans that will turn it into a proper tram network and add a light rail portion look amazing for the city and country's future.
Maybe because 90 percent of the eus money goes into Luxembourg and it's got like no taxes so the rich actually pay taxes (by the way the 90 percent thing is called hyperbole before you complain)
@@Myguy2110What does that have to do with anything I said about the Luxtram network? Also if 90% the EUs taxes go to Luxembourg but Luxembourg has "got like no taxes", how is that beneficial to the country? The rich don't have their money here, they have it in on some island in the Caribbean or in the Netherlands.
@@ricardogens9834 I said hyperbole when I said 90 percent taxes and what I am saying is the eus taxes pay for this stuff (how else could you have such high quality free public transport)
@@Myguy2110”Myguy”, I don’t know what propaganda you have read, but Luxembourg receives so much EU funding because of the numerous European institutions located in Luxembourg. Also the “funds per capita” thing is completely unproportional because there are only 700k residents while the infrastructure needs to be built for 1M people because of the numerous cross-border workers. Free public transport also barely costs more than before. Everywhere in Europe it is heavily subsidized already. Roads are also tax-paid and free to use, so why not public transport?
@@Myguy2110 the EU is also funding other projects in the Union, I don't see the problem with that. Mostly National taxes are paying for all the transport infrastructure.
What I like most about trams is their ability to operate safely in pedestrian zones. What you didn't mention is that the pollutants in road vehicles come not only from the exhaust, but also from the tires and brakes. This is not a problem with metal tram wheels.
In Melbourne, trams have a design life of 50 years hence older Classes like the Z3, A's and B's still operating. If the track is laid or relayed using new track building techniques can hare a life of 20-25 years with the exception of major junctions of points and crossovers which usually have a life of 10-15 years depending on the number of tram movements.
A little clarification: I'm pretty sure that the first regular line is older than 1881 as in Italy (Turin to be precise) trams are in "regular" service since 1871 (not electrified till a few years later, though), and I'm pretty sure it isn't a first worldwide. Anyways interesting video!
19:11 - confidence in tram lines is a beautiful thing: in many cities the lines have not changed for 100 years or more (only getting extensions as the cities grew). I love this sense of consistency :) Cheers from Poland, not mentioned that often, but the tram network here is one of the biggest in the world, and it works pretty well with modernisations, new lanes constantly built and home-grown producers of trams (Pesa, Newag, also exporting). Trams were lucky in the 70s, that there was not enough money in communist Poland to get rid of trams, as many western countries did. I am happy to see the tram revival in many places! Oh, 20:00 my Kraków 🥰
sadly the cargo tram of Zurich is going be discontinued as the tram itself has reached it's end of life and the city wants to extend the offer of being able to discard bulky trash to more people thus using trucks which can go to more places
Especially REAL STEEL WHEEL trams vs fake trams like Translohr or Chinas ARRT which are just buses with fancy wheel skirts. Rubber tyre transit will never be as smooth by its very nature...
I agree, trams are great! I think the more interesting discussion is when do you need a tram, when to upgrade to metro or when is it better to improve your bus system. One drawback you did not mention is that trams are limited in average speed when compared to metro or regional rail (and comparable to BRT like systems, usually around 20km/h) Overall, a great tool for the right problem
4:45 some modern streetcars are actually designed to be useful. The Tempe Streetcar is designed to make the south/west side of the ASU campus more accessible to the light rail, with connections to off-campus housing east of campus.
The precise difference between the words "tram", "trolley", "streetcar", and "light rail" is extremely vague. The difference between that "streetcar" and the Phoenix area light rail is a good example of this in the same metro area; likewise, Salt Lake City has a "streetcar" and a "light rail" that even use the same equipment (just painted different colors).
When comparing the cost between trams and buses it's also worth mentioning that buses cause significant wear on the street (particularly if you need to run them with high frequency). This is often overlooked as it comes from a different budget, but nevertheless somebody has to cover the cost eventually (and that's ultimately always the taxpayer). Add to that the bigger number of drivers required (personnel is usually one of the biggest cost factors). Hence - depending on the layout of the city, the passenger numbers, distribution of passengers during the day, etc. - it's often actually _cheaper_ in the long term to invest into a tram system. Some calculations see the break-even at numbers as low as ~5000 pax/day under the right circumstances; but in general ~10,000 pax/day on a particular line seems to be a reasonable number where you should start thinking about a tram. The same is true for the other end of the spectrum: a metro/subway costs about 10x as much to build and (more importantly!) maintain, but typically offers only about 5-6x more capacity than a tram. So you should only build it on lines where you _really_ need that additional capacity. Some cities built metro lines with the anticipation that in 15, 20 years the capacity would be needed, but then the running costs of maintaining an under-utilized metro line alone can actually be far more expensive than building a tram first (thereby already reserving the alignment) and upgrading or even rebuilding it later (when/if the need actually arises, which might also be a few years later now, since the tram's capacity will also have some room for improvement). Also, after 20+ years the line will probably be in need of some refurbishment anyway, which in part offsets the cost of an upgrade from tram to metro. That brings us to the main conclusion: there is no "one right" system. Most cities require a multi-layer approach with buses for local distribution, trams for connections between city districts, and metro/rail for efficient travel across the city and beyond. Trams fit neatly in the middle and can (to some degree) also cover the functions of both buses and metro (and even interurban travel in the form of tram-trains), which makes them a good and versatile basis for a transit network.
I live in Penang, Malaysia. There isn't any public transit (except an unreliable and not punctual bus). Plans for LRT is always postponed. I hope they will plan a tram instead of a train as money wouldn't be a problem.
If your bus line became so much used that you have to run heavy articulated busses with less than 10 minutes interval, causing the vehicles to dig rails in the pavement, you better place down steel rails and call it a tram.
The Second Av Subway in NYC was built for over 1 bn dollars per kilometer. I don't think there has ever been a more expensive subway construction than that. Edit: wording
Bogota's Transmilenio was built because it was, and still being, cheaper than doing a Metro, yet I think it was a huge mistake, now Transmilenio is in its limit, besides of don't being able to successfully reach the demand of passengers that Bogota has. Also, Transmilenio is now the main basis of our public transportation system, and it will still be being it until Bogota has at least 3 Metro lines.
My city is a Tram-like Subway system that'd growing it's got two Disconnected lines right now they will soon be connected and Interlined together in 2025 or 2026 we also have two slightly older less successful lines also Disconnected from Eachother, expansions have been proposed however these plans have been swapped out for Subway lines and Bus Rapid Transit due to challenging Terrain
Thank you for this amazing video! I did not know about the possibility of cargo transportation by tram! Of course, drinking water is transported in this way in Mykolaiv, but this is a forced situation... I am glad to see that the cost of laying tram tracks in Lviv is so low, so there are good chances to continue the sixth route.
Nice video. Perfectly put together. Maybe the only thing that I would reproach is the comparison of trams to the metro at the end. I would maybe put more emphasis on describing that those two solutions fit different purposes in the overall city mobility. That trams can´t usually replace some kind of metro system and the other way around metro can´t replace trams (or buses, trolleybuses...). They meet different types of transit demand and they complement each other. For example, Prague thought so in the past that the metro would replace trams so they tore out some tram lines in the center, and that has been one of the worst decisions Prague has ever made in terms of public transport planning. Now they are trying to put at least some of them back.
Colombia mentioned! And yeah, I live in Bogotá and if something, the solution right now that the city is planning is apart from the 3 metro lines is to bring more buses...
10:06 When we talk about electric buses we also have to talk about charging stations cost (unless your city want to deal with diesel buses, which can become pretty expensive when they get older). Bus batteries either have to be very large for less charges per day but require very powerful chargers (something that can push 1MWh to charge 300kWh battery in reasonable time for example) or the battery will need to be small and require lot more charges per day. Or like the car maker Nio, someone can develop battery swap stations which honestly is a pretty good idea.
@@cityforall I used UA-cam search trying various keywords related to public transportation, but had to go through a lot of videos before I was able to see yours. I don't know why they were not shown above the others. Your work is so good! ☀😎 👍
In France the future tramway line 5 of Nice is gonna cost 50 million per kilometer (!!) while the upcoming metro line C of Toulouse is gonna cost 120 million per kilometer. That's quite a big contrast within a single country...
@@hobog no I'm talking about the future metro lince C currently under construction, which is actually a full-on heavy metro, with very wide carriages and steel wheels
Though I'm guessing that the line you're talking about in Nice runs along a complicated path? Are there bridges, river banks, over / underpasses? They've also probably included the entire urban renewal alongside the line into the overall cost.
@@KyrilPG yeah... the line indeed runs on a river bank for most of its route and there are bridges that allows it criss-cross the river 2 times or more (how did you guess it? Lol) and from the renders a substantial Metamorphosis of the street is envisaged, with widening of the embankment to give more riverside space to pedestrians & cyclists. And a 10 kilometer cycling path as well
@@Adrenaline_chaser There you have it. It's not a wild guess, it's just that these are usually the costliest locations, and given where there are already tram lines in Nice the guess was fairly easy. River banks often have to be reinforced or widened, bridges must be built, etc. But also, in France, they tend to include the urban renewal part into the overall cost. Whereas in the US or elsewhere it's more often separate. For example, the latest extension of T3b in Paris that opened earlier this year, had a higher cost per kilometer than usual. But that was due to the building of an "underground bridge" over the M3 line and filled up former road tunnels, plus the beautification of a few boulevards. So it wasn't just a regular tramway extension with surface works, and given the relative shortness of the extension (about 3.5km), the expensive parts were spread over a smaller number of kilometers, making the cost seem higher per kilometer. I'm pretty sure that for Nice line 5, if you take the bridges and embankment reinforcements / widenings out of the total, the cost of the surface works is pretty average for a tram in France.
While Dublin in my native Ireland has the LUAS tram network, which is very good at what it does and has become iconic since it was first launched, even more so than the DART trains, the network does need to be extended and expanded - I live in the U.K. and come home to Ireland on the ferries from Holyhead on SailRail, yet there is still no LUAS stop at the Irish Ferries or Stena passenger ferry Terminals, nor is there a LUAS line to Dublin Airport, which is a real hassle
From a North American perspective, a new tram/streetcar/light rail/whatever system should only be installed if one or both of the following situations exist: 1. The system is mostly separated from, or has priority over, car traffic. If it gets stuck behind red lights and behind car traffic it is just an expensive bus. 2. If #1 is not possible, but a bus route is extremely busy (busier than 99.9% of US bus routes) it might make sense to put in a tram anyways purely for the cost savings on the operation side; 1 driver per 500 passengers as opposed to 1 driver per 150; usage of cheap electricity over expensive diesel (or expensive batteries that wear out); equipment that lasts 50 years with minimal maintenance as opposed to equipment that lasts 20 years with tons of expensive maintenance.
10:35 Those are numbers for 7-8 standing passengers/m², which is totally unacceptable, if not even impossible. You should look for the 4-5 passengers/m² figure where available.
My city needs to become a real city and then get trams. We only need about another 200K Residents added to my small village (population 463 people) 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I'm a professional transportation planner and subscriber who likes your videos and supports transit. One criticism: The "auto companies killed the trams story" is a myth. Most tram systems in the US started as a means to support land development in less congested and polluted central city districts. (London's situation was similar.) Developers used the trams to make travel convenient to their new housing projects. They were not intended to make a profit solely on operation, they were for selling access to the new homes. It was a tremendously successful scheme and was copied in hundreds of American cities. After the developments filled up, the fares rose to cover the true expense. The riders didn't like that (obviously) and it was politically popular for the city government to take over the operations -- but at the old fare. This was increasingly economically infeasible over time. This process worked its way up through World War 2, when the money-losing systems were kept operating due to resource shortages and materials rationing. Afterwards, city governments shifted to buses (then being made in large numbers as factories shifted away from war production) for all the reasons you pointed out on the lower operating costs. No conspiracy, just economic reality.
Well there are two more parts to the story. 1. They could have increased the tram ticket prices back before cars were around, because people didn’t have the option to drive. The reason they didn’t is because it would reduce development, and once cars came about it then everyone would start choosing to drive 2. Some automotive companies did buy out some tram companies and replace them with buses. Yes they didn’t necessarily conspire to do it, but it did take out the government subsided competition. Also, yes trams can be expensive to run, but buses aren’t any cheaper - because roads also cost money. The difference between roads and rails is that the government subsidises roads, so you pretty much only pay for the vehicles, while if you run trams the government doesn’t pay for the tracks. Trams are a cheaper and more efficient for of transport if you take this into consideration. The economic reality is that cars and roads are a worse choice economically, but auto manufacturers did what they could to exploit the fact that in the short term, and in small scale cars and roads can be a more convenient and easier option. This has ended up having detrimental effects on society. Trams are beneficial to society when compared to walking, cars are beneficial to society when compared to walking, trams however are of a greater benefit holistically. I saw a news story the other day about the local council trying to lobby the state government for more money to do road maintenance on a road it built years ago- it made me wonder, isn’t it concerning that the local council managed to build more roads than it has the money to maintain? Wouldn’t it make more sense to close that road than it would to upgrade it? That is the economic reality of roads. All over the world we have spent millions and millions on infrastructure designed to last 60 to 100 years. We built most of that infrastructure in the last 60 years. We barely have enough money to build the infrastructure we needed 20 years ago, let alone maintain the last 60 years worth of bridges. This is not a problem we have faced ever before, not at this scale
Car gives us freedom (True). if only one on the road. but this only happen in the car paradise of the open road (aka Car Publicity) but car(s) (plurial) gives us Trafic Hell and Cars dependent environment is the 9th circle of Hell .
The city of Casablanca dragged its feet on building a Lille-style metro for 30 years and then in the late 2000s, they finally dropped the idea completely and instead built nearly 100Km of transit (4 tram lines and 2 BRT lines). Now yes I still think trams for a city of allegedly 3.4 million people (and probably a lot more in reality) are not nearly enough, but it has brought a higher standard of mobility to a very large portion of the population, and has massively improved the image of public transit as a whole which used to be catastrophic, when all there was were the old crummy, barely functioning buses. Here’s to hoping for more transit in Casablanca, and who knows maybe even a proper metro one of these days.
My hometown of Edmonton was the first in North America to relaunch modern LRT in 1978 after destroying their once extensive street railway which shuttered in 1951 and it wisely chose to build the most expensive part first which was a subway under downtown that was capable of using 5-car 120m long trains for peak demand period and as low as 1 24m car during Sunday and late night services unlike Calgary which is limited still to only 4-car trains and that's after rebuilding all their downtown stations to accommodate these larger trains... Either way steel-wheel trains with overhead power are still the way to get the masses moving safely and efficiently until proven otherwise...
trams are the most visible public transport, making immediately clear where it goes. You never know with buses or metros unless you stumble across a station.
It's all very well going on about how important to cut down on car use, but those of us who live in rural areas don't have a choice. Public transport is effectively non existent so it's car or nothing. If we want to go shopping parking is discouraged, so it's mail order or nothing (except lots of delivery vans). A more grown up, flexible approach is needed, we don't all want to live in overcrowded cities.
We need more images of Geneva's trams ;-) historically the first tram system in Switzerland and once the largest network in the world. Sadly much of it got dismantled but it has now reexpanded with modern standards following the trend that you describe (making it a hybrid between old and new systems) and has the particularity of being a cross-border tram network
The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system was first implemented in Curitiba, Brazil, in the 1970s, not Bogota, and its creation is largely credited to Jaime Lerner, the city's former mayor and an urban planner. Lerner, along with his team, introduced the concept as part of a broader urban planning effort to address the city’s transportation challenges and improve mobility for a growing population.
They started building a tram line, but changed their minds halfway through, dismantled the rails that had already been laid, and recently sold the trams they had already purchased to another Brazilian city.
What I hate is when trams are proposed for what should he a metro. People suggest trams for lines that would be over 10 km long, which is just too long because trams are frankly low.
@@cityforall The tram from Morsh Merkurstrasse to Yorckstrasse takes 23 minutes to go 9.5km, or 25 kmh. This is about the same speed as a bus, so most of the time you'd be better off building a rapid bus service as you'd achieve the same speed at a lower cost. My problem is when people suggest transregional systems as trams that go very slow.
Perhaps you have missed one further cost of trams, namely the need to retain vehicles and drivers for a replacement bus service when maintenance work is going on? These were needed for months when the tramline through Shudehill in Manchester was improved.
Trams should still be built in big cities as a complement to the metro system, especially since the last century metros have evolved from underground super trams into a makeshift of urban rapid transit railway of big dimensions. The older Paris Metro lines have stops which are very close to oneanother for that reason, the metro was a way to burry the tram bigger lines. Nowadays, metro stops on more modern lines are on average 1 to 1.5 km apart for greater speed and reach outside the city. Trams could replace the bigger bus lines.
why we need Trams, cause they are sexy... and why should we go the Luxembourg rout and make it free for all, cause free public transport is even more sexy than those sexy trams...
What i was missing is not only the City aspect but als the Regional aspect, Like Karlsruhe/Germany where Tram in city act sike Suburban Train in the outer Region or Zürich with the Forchbahn... sure there are more examples...
@@SirHeinzbond Well, that could be an idea for another video focusing more on these tram system variations like tram-train, LRT, Statdbahn, translohr, GLT, and so on.
@@geography_czek5699 yes something to think of, looking for Karlsruhe where the Tram is a multipurpose one, and Zürichs Forchbahn its a dual purpose one, the other ones i have to google... i guess it's an cheaper alternative to Subway or Suburban Trains, and has more capacity as Buses
I live in Seattle, and we once had a large amazing tram (and interurban/lightrail) system that was torn out in the 1950s... we are now spending millions/billions to rebuild both... (we also turned down fully federally finded metro systems in the 60s and 70s) you used footage of one of our street running trams as an example of bad design (it is) because it runs slowly in traffic.... this is due to the process for projects here... they make sure "everyone gets a voice" aka loud idiots scream and cry about giving up traffic lanes, etc... and the system get watered down until it becomes less effective then they complain about it not being effective and demand we stop building more trams... (this system also cost us a completely grade seperated metro because one neighborhood demanded the line go through their neighborhood (they said it would be racist if they didn't) then demanded it not be an elevated line through their neighborhood and since there wasnt money for underground in that spot... there is now one simgle section of the entire line at grade runjing in the middle of the street that slows the entire system down and makes it unreliable... it is incredibly frustrating and infuriating...
Edit: the idea below ignores how doors on high floor trams still are constrained by wheel arrangement. It might be better to have trams that are mostly high-floor, to reduce the low-floor compromise on interior capacity. This is something I like about the unique light rail vehicles of Dallas. It's more ideal to have an entirely high-floor high-platform system but we're trying to save on stations. The best tram vehicle is Vienna's ULV
On wider low-floor trams, the capacity is virtually the same given that passengers demand at least a minimum of proper seating. Plus, the weight difference is not negligible. Most, if not all, busiest tram lines in Europe are low-floor. (Paris T3's with 500 to 700k daily, T2 with 220-250k daily...).
come on dude. Self driving is a real game changer for light rail and will enable single tram units and therefore FREQUENT service, all these MULTI-trams are HISTORY! #RailTransit
My bet is that it will be decades before widespread implementation of self-driving. It has been "almost there" for, how long? A decade or so? And that is just not enough, given the legal challenges of having an autonomous vehicle operate in public road traffic. Systems with dedicated tracks already have self-driving units, but tram networks always have at least some overlap with public roads.
Don't 3 or 4 minutes frequency qualify as "frequent"? They do in my book. The "multi trams"are usually there for capacity (in Europe at least). Like on Paris line T2, which runs double consists of 5-segment trams to cope with the daily ridership of 220 to 250k passengers. Though T2 is a particular line where most passengers ride longer distances as it serves la Défense business district. On other super busy lines, they run wide 7-segment trams.
@@KyrilPG the point is to implement #RailTransit throughout society including in lies populated areas, and for this smaller more frequent services are VITAL.
I love trams... but the one downside you did not address is speed. Trams/light rail are so much slower than metro or other fully separated modes. This is a real drawback in lower density cities where distances are long.
I do not consider this a disadvantage. Technically, a modern tram can be as fast as a subway. The other thing is that in a dense urban environment, with a distance of 500 meters between stops, you really can't go very fast. But with longer runs, the tracks can be arranged so that the tram can travel at 60-80 km/h. The Karlsruhe tram-train on intercity sections can easily accelerate to 100 km/h.
@@cityforall That's fine if you are talking about short trips in dense cities. But for commuter trips e.g. for the new tramways in Sydney (L2, L3) the pedestrianised main streets etc are very nice but makes end to end journey times very long.
Each type of transportation is better suited for a particular situation. For what you have described, suburban rail or subway, or tram-train, for example, is really better suited.
Just putting it out there that using Kharkiv as an example of post Soviet city with poorly maintained public transport was very bold. I think they have bigger fish to fry at the moment what with Russia invading them maybe? Just my thoughts though XD
Edinburgh resident - trams suck Not faster than buses Costs more to get to the airport than the bus Lousy at moving large crowds to/from Murrayfield stadium Loses millions of pounds every year
Tram is best suited to large metropolises with many residents and many customers, i.e. users of the Tram network and which are located in wide flat areas. Majority of the Finnish cities are unsuitable for the Tram network, for example due to the hilliness of the terrain, and another problem is profitability, which is already testing whether there will even be local bus traffic in Finnish cities in the future, for example, because the number of passengers who can afford bus tickets is decreasing and forces to raise the price of bus tickets so that the buses don't make a financial loss.
You can even use single rail rubber-tyred trams for hilly terrain like Paris T6 or Medellin tram. What's your definition of a large metropolis and many residents?
@@KyrilPG Population more than 500 thousand. The total population of Helsinki is abou 664 thousand and it has been the only area where the tram network has been profitable in Finland (of course, Tampere with about 255 thousand inhabitants got its own express tram* line in 2021, but its operation has remained somewhat financially unprofitable and the biggest reason for this has been considered to be that there are not enough people living in Tampere and the city has planned to double its population by the end of the next decade (*express tram focuses on faster travel with fewer stops)).
@@danielmalinen6337 Your figure is nonsense. Many cities with just 200.000 or fewer inhabitants require trams because their bus networks can‘t stem the amount of ridership. Look at Freiburg or smaller French cities. A city of 500k should have a proper Light Rail network with tunnels and all that.
@@danielmalinen6337 500k inhabitants is already metro territory in France. Rennes, for example, has 220k inhabitants in the city and 470k inhabitants in the wider metropolitan area, and there's a 2-line automated metro network that carries more passengers daily than the city proper's population... There are cities with less than 50k inhabitants that have tramway lines... like Aubagne or Valenciennes, and several with less than 200k inhabitants. Toulouse, 505k inhabitants in the city proper and 800k to a million in the whole area, has an automated metro with 2 lines, a 3rd metro line currently being built, plus tramway lines, and even a gondola line and several BRT lines (and regular bus lines, of course). Strasbourg, 300k inhabitants proper, 515k inhabitants in the wider agglomeration including a German portion, has a large 6-line tramway network that moves roughly the equivalent of the city's population every day. There are many examples of cities well under 500k that have very successful tramway networks. Also, the point of public transportation is not to make a profit, just like roads aren't built to make a profit. It's there to offer a public transportation service. Sometimes, when a city builds a tramway line that doesn't have much ridership, it's better to continue developing the network because it is the lack of connections that caused the low ridership. Or the line is simply poorly designed, doesn't have enough transfers with busses, lacks park & ride garages, etc. But usually it can be improved. A tramway line is a "structuring transportation mode" that shapes the way people move around. In other words, it's a backbone for the city's mobility. Smaller cities can have successful tramways, they just need to be built the right way to really leverage their full potential.
Cheap and easy is an overstatement... Depots require major electrification systems to be able to recharge them ; busses still don't have a great lifespan for the battery, and the cost to operate is often higher than trams (not to be confused with cost to build). The cost of operation per 10,000 passengers is higher with electric buses than with trams. Paris, for example, is buying many electric busses to replace its massive fleet of combustion engine busses, and also several dozens of trambuses to operate BRT lines that feed the metro, RER, and tramway networks. (Similar to Brisbane's metro buses) But they very much continue to expand the tramway network, with several dozens of new trams ordered to renew and expand.
The tram has completely changed transportation within my city and this with only 1 line so far. The future expansion plans will make it a proper network.
A tram is also perfect for small cities such as Luxembourg City where the density is high enough to warrant a tram but not enough for a metro.
Which city are you from?
@@Adrenaline_chaser My bad, I’m from Luxembourg City
I think it wouldn't be bad to build a metro as if you want to expand it outwards the tram would be slow and u would need another network...
As well inducted demand ^^
(I'm from Berlin btw)
Adding to that public transport won't be profitable anyway...
@jpro6413 a metro for Luxembourg?? You're nuts
Drawbacks on trams: Obstacles on tracks SUCH AS CARS!!! One more reason to get rid of cars in cities...
In Morocco, trams always have their own dedicated tracks and are always a priority on intersection
Agreed. They should run in their own dedicated lane that is fenced off preferably.. Even here in Edmonton, Alberta you can see the shockingly high crash rate between the 1-year old Valley LRT line that uses low-floor trams with no barriers between cars and the trains and the 46-year old Capital Line that uses high-floor Siemens pre-metro cars that can be arranged into 120m long rides that can carry over 1000 per trip during peak times like rush hour or Elks football matches or Oilers hockey games... I believe the ratio is like 16 vs 1 this year... Spend the money and make it separate especially in a city with snow and ice issues at least half the year...
@@stickynorth Well, I disagree. The best feature of a tram network, is that it is a pedestrian (i.e. the cargo that the tram exist for in the first place) friendly area. If there are so many cars that you need to fence your trams so they don't get destroyed, the problem is that you have to many cars for transit to make any sense in this area.
I do not say that your suggestion makes no sense at all and should never be done, but you only want to do that on a few specific spots.
Elsewhere, you want to remove cars. For instance, by adding a fence free median, and "protecting" this median with tree planters between angled parking, turning the place into a single lane one way for rubber tired motorized vehicles, and a suicide attempt for speeders. And around the _downtown_ tram stop, remove car traffic entirely, into a pedestrian plaza.
This way you both increase the number of on street parking close to businesses, and remove collisions, because the tram basilicaly runs through a slow moving pedestrian friendly parking lot instead of a "highway".
I am from Melbourne Australia, and we have never got rid of our trams and that is why Melbourne Australia has the biggest tram network in the world. We have been vindicated in our decision to retain our trams, because Sydney got rid of their (Nice one Sydney!), and now they are rapidly re-introducing trams back into the city. You cannot think of Melbourne without thinking about our trams. Cities need trams!
Though Melbourne might lose its crown to Paris in the near future given the mass and speed of the Parisian tramway network's growth.
They're already dethroning Budapest on ridership (or soon if it hasn't yet). With the T3's (circular lines T3a & T3b) carrying 500k to 700k daily.
Right now, there are 186.6 km and 14 lines, 4 of which have opened between 2021 and 2023, and there are major extensions being built and planned, including more than doubling line T1's length.
There's also a recurring push to convert a major 20km long BRT line into a tram by extending the recently opened T10 line to the East while its Northern extension is being planned to connect with Grand Paris Express' huge circular metro line 15.
There's already about 50km more in construction and planning, potentially 70 or 80km.
It should become the second largest network before 2030, then maybe overtake Melbourne in under a decade, unless Melbourne extend their network in the meantime.
There's also quite a difference between modern tram alignements (Modern European Trams / Modern French Trams) and legacy ones. The modern ones are generally built in different locations and routes.
Is Sydney rebuilding trams on the same routes with the same alignments?
I will believe it when happens....as for Sydney.... I do not really care.... I am from Melbourne!
Yeah but aren't they expensive? With low frequency? Dirty? There is room for improvement.
@@hypercomms2001 Melbourne is a beautiful city from what I’ve seen of it online and it’s on my bucket list because it’s also Kylie Minogue’s home city as I worship Kylie 😍😍😍😍😍
@@KyrilPG no sydneys, adelaides, and gold coasts trams are LRT on different allignments. Melbourne's legacy tram network is really spectacular especially in the city centre but it needs work for sure. not so much on frequency but on traffic priority andseperation from cars outside the centre
In Rotterdam Netherlands they want to destroy the tram and replace them with busses while we want to keep it because of the tram bonus. Low floor acces, its friendly for your streets, helps to slow down car traffic and it looks nice. It also creates safer streets due it is predictable
Note that as far as i know, they want to remove the tram in a few places, dubbing it lines that are low ridership, or well connected via the metro or busses, and want to improve the busses in those areas... in the Netherlands youll also get the argument of cyclist safety comnonly.
I dont really buy it, its i dont think the right way to go even if theyre lesser used lines with overlap with other tram lines or metro lines. Dropping them and replacing them with busses will just drop the tram bonus you have, and then youll get a bus service that likely will also get cut over time.
Trams can also be build as ring lines around cities which can be used by tram-trains to connect surrounding areas with city centers
Ah oui Paris
4:22 I just want to point out that this is the South Lake Union Streetcar in Seattle which was built alongside tech campuses and sees extremely low ridership because of the poor routing choice.
On the other side of Downtown, we have the First Hill Streetcar, which IIRC sees the 2nd highest ridership of any streetcar in the states.
You picked a poor example and then pondered why we would invest in a “slow and inefficient transportation” that sees 300 riders a day.
One was designed well, the other wasn’t.
In my City (184.000 Inhabitants, so not exactly a Metropolis), Pollution and Capacity were the deciding Factor for building our new Tram. Apparently, they had their Bus Lines going at one digit Minute Frequencies which led to a deteriorating Air Quality.
It is so insane we don't use cargo trams more. Emisions within cities are so often created by trucks, that it could be a huge upgrade to airquality. More cargo-trams and cargo-subways please.
Meanwhile India is living in the 90s and going the American way of cars is freedom. Kolkata has decided to scrap the trams instead of improving it
How can India have an urbanist UA-cam bubble? How do you get public support against the madness?
What about starting a protest in Kolkata to develop the tram system?
@@ob_dowboosh Protest is actually going on in Kolkata
NZ has regressed with 2024 Govt defunding rail infrastructure by 97% and prioritising 1950’s highway madness with total road dependency ideology. This excessive roading will become a liability to eventually bankrupt the country. Fuel, oil and vehicles are all imported.
NZ once had trams & trains and could again modernise using 21st Century Rail technologies-available off the shelf !
Very disheartening.. We should be encouraging as many rail projects as possible globally. Even the American tram ones show promise if they bothered to integrate them better with existing transit hubs or activity nodes rather than just real estate showpieces on an checklist in order to gentrify a neighbourhood...
I was just on a tram like 5 minutes ago. Trams are awesome. Long live the train and long live the tram.
This Bogotá issue is really a great example of why buses are insufficient, they aren't only building a metro system but also have 2 light rail projects showing not only how overcrowded the busses get, but also an additional benefit that light rail systems give such as intercity transportation (light rail in Bogotá will be extended to connect with other cities)
Luxtram is indeed the goat, and the future expansion plans that will turn it into a proper tram network and add a light rail portion look amazing for the city and country's future.
Maybe because 90 percent of the eus money goes into Luxembourg and it's got like no taxes so the rich actually pay taxes (by the way the 90 percent thing is called hyperbole before you complain)
@@Myguy2110What does that have to do with anything I said about the Luxtram network? Also if 90% the EUs taxes go to Luxembourg but Luxembourg has "got like no taxes", how is that beneficial to the country? The rich don't have their money here, they have it in on some island in the Caribbean or in the Netherlands.
@@ricardogens9834 I said hyperbole when I said 90 percent taxes and what I am saying is the eus taxes pay for this stuff (how else could you have such high quality free public transport)
@@Myguy2110”Myguy”, I don’t know what propaganda you have read, but Luxembourg receives so much EU funding because of the numerous European institutions located in Luxembourg. Also the “funds per capita” thing is completely unproportional because there are only 700k residents while the infrastructure needs to be built for 1M people because of the numerous cross-border workers.
Free public transport also barely costs more than before. Everywhere in Europe it is heavily subsidized already. Roads are also tax-paid and free to use, so why not public transport?
@@Myguy2110 the EU is also funding other projects in the Union, I don't see the problem with that. Mostly National taxes are paying for all the transport infrastructure.
What I like most about trams is their ability to operate safely in pedestrian zones.
What you didn't mention is that the pollutants in road vehicles come not only from the exhaust, but also from the tires and brakes. This is not a problem with metal tram wheels.
In Melbourne, trams have a design life of 50 years hence older Classes like the Z3, A's and B's still operating. If the track is laid or relayed using new track building techniques can hare a life of 20-25 years with the exception of major junctions of points and crossovers which usually have a life of 10-15 years depending on the number of tram movements.
A little clarification: I'm pretty sure that the first regular line is older than 1881 as in Italy (Turin to be precise) trams are in "regular" service since 1871 (not electrified till a few years later, though), and I'm pretty sure it isn't a first worldwide. Anyways interesting video!
19:11 - confidence in tram lines is a beautiful thing: in many cities the lines have not changed for 100 years or more (only getting extensions as the cities grew). I love this sense of consistency :) Cheers from Poland, not mentioned that often, but the tram network here is one of the biggest in the world, and it works pretty well with modernisations, new lanes constantly built and home-grown producers of trams (Pesa, Newag, also exporting). Trams were lucky in the 70s, that there was not enough money in communist Poland to get rid of trams, as many western countries did. I am happy to see the tram revival in many places! Oh, 20:00 my Kraków 🥰
sadly the cargo tram of Zurich is going be discontinued as the tram itself has reached it's end of life and the city wants to extend the offer of being able to discard bulky trash to more people thus using trucks which can go to more places
I watch all your Urban Transit news but I don't know if I have ever watched your videos like this. This was an amazing video!
Trams are way way more comfortable due to the smooth ride vs shakey bumpy ride on a bus or car.
I agree with you. Funny story: I took the tram from Utrecht to IJsselstein, I sat above a motor and my seat was a vibrating chair. Nice ride.
Especially REAL STEEL WHEEL trams vs fake trams like Translohr or Chinas ARRT which are just buses with fancy wheel skirts. Rubber tyre transit will never be as smooth by its very nature...
I agree, trams are great!
I think the more interesting discussion is when do you need a tram, when to upgrade to metro or when is it better to improve your bus system.
One drawback you did not mention is that trams are limited in average speed when compared to metro or regional rail (and comparable to BRT like systems, usually around 20km/h)
Overall, a great tool for the right problem
This video deserve more views! so underrated!
Oh, I wouldn't mind if it got a million views, but for some reason it's not happening yet.
4:45 some modern streetcars are actually designed to be useful. The Tempe Streetcar is designed to make the south/west side of the ASU campus more accessible to the light rail, with connections to off-campus housing east of campus.
The precise difference between the words "tram", "trolley", "streetcar", and "light rail" is extremely vague. The difference between that "streetcar" and the Phoenix area light rail is a good example of this in the same metro area; likewise, Salt Lake City has a "streetcar" and a "light rail" that even use the same equipment (just painted different colors).
9:25 the subway in Sofia is done by cut and cover, pretty much all of their lines are cheaper per km than any of these subways.
When comparing the cost between trams and buses it's also worth mentioning that buses cause significant wear on the street (particularly if you need to run them with high frequency). This is often overlooked as it comes from a different budget, but nevertheless somebody has to cover the cost eventually (and that's ultimately always the taxpayer). Add to that the bigger number of drivers required (personnel is usually one of the biggest cost factors).
Hence - depending on the layout of the city, the passenger numbers, distribution of passengers during the day, etc. - it's often actually _cheaper_ in the long term to invest into a tram system. Some calculations see the break-even at numbers as low as ~5000 pax/day under the right circumstances; but in general ~10,000 pax/day on a particular line seems to be a reasonable number where you should start thinking about a tram.
The same is true for the other end of the spectrum: a metro/subway costs about 10x as much to build and (more importantly!) maintain, but typically offers only about 5-6x more capacity than a tram. So you should only build it on lines where you _really_ need that additional capacity. Some cities built metro lines with the anticipation that in 15, 20 years the capacity would be needed, but then the running costs of maintaining an under-utilized metro line alone can actually be far more expensive than building a tram first (thereby already reserving the alignment) and upgrading or even rebuilding it later (when/if the need actually arises, which might also be a few years later now, since the tram's capacity will also have some room for improvement). Also, after 20+ years the line will probably be in need of some refurbishment anyway, which in part offsets the cost of an upgrade from tram to metro.
That brings us to the main conclusion: there is no "one right" system. Most cities require a multi-layer approach with buses for local distribution, trams for connections between city districts, and metro/rail for efficient travel across the city and beyond. Trams fit neatly in the middle and can (to some degree) also cover the functions of both buses and metro (and even interurban travel in the form of tram-trains), which makes them a good and versatile basis for a transit network.
Very good point, thank you for your comment!
I live in Penang, Malaysia. There isn't any public transit (except an unreliable and not punctual bus). Plans for LRT is always postponed. I hope they will plan a tram instead of a train as money wouldn't be a problem.
If your bus line became so much used that you have to run heavy articulated busses with less than 10 minutes interval, causing the vehicles to dig rails in the pavement, you better place down steel rails and call it a tram.
The Second Av Subway in NYC was built for over 1 bn dollars per kilometer. I don't think there has ever been a more expensive subway construction than that. Edit: wording
Bogota's Transmilenio was built because it was, and still being, cheaper than doing a Metro, yet I think it was a huge mistake, now Transmilenio is in its limit, besides of don't being able to successfully reach the demand of passengers that Bogota has. Also, Transmilenio is now the main basis of our public transportation system, and it will still be being it until Bogota has at least 3 Metro lines.
My city is a Tram-like Subway system that'd growing it's got two Disconnected lines right now they will soon be connected and Interlined together in 2025 or 2026 we also have two slightly older less successful lines also Disconnected from Eachother, expansions have been proposed however these plans have been swapped out for Subway lines and Bus Rapid Transit due to challenging Terrain
Thank you for this amazing video! I did not know about the possibility of cargo transportation by tram! Of course, drinking water is transported in this way in Mykolaiv, but this is a forced situation... I am glad to see that the cost of laying tram tracks in Lviv is so low, so there are good chances to continue the sixth route.
Nice video. Perfectly put together.
Maybe the only thing that I would reproach is the comparison of trams to the metro at the end. I would maybe put more emphasis on describing that those two solutions fit different purposes in the overall city mobility. That trams can´t usually replace some kind of metro system and the other way around metro can´t replace trams (or buses, trolleybuses...). They meet different types of transit demand and they complement each other.
For example, Prague thought so in the past that the metro would replace trams so they tore out some tram lines in the center, and that has been one of the worst decisions Prague has ever made in terms of public transport planning. Now they are trying to put at least some of them back.
In Brooklyn, we called them Trolleys. ..but they took them all away in the 1950's. 😭
Same for Queens and all the boroughs, also Long Island and New Jersey :(
I love trams especially the ones with no overhead ones like they have in Bordeaux for example.
I wish the UK had put trams in its medium sized cities, like france did 😭
Colombia mentioned! And yeah, I live in Bogotá and if something, the solution right now that the city is planning is apart from the 3 metro lines is to bring more buses...
10:06 When we talk about electric buses we also have to talk about charging stations cost (unless your city want to deal with diesel buses, which can become pretty expensive when they get older). Bus batteries either have to be very large for less charges per day but require very powerful chargers (something that can push 1MWh to charge 300kWh battery in reasonable time for example) or the battery will need to be small and require lot more charges per day. Or like the car maker Nio, someone can develop battery swap stations which honestly is a pretty good idea.
Great video! So happy I found your channel!
@@TheTransitNomad That's great, welcome!
How did you find it?
@@cityforall I used UA-cam search trying various keywords related to public transportation, but had to go through a lot of videos before I was able to see yours. I don't know why they were not shown above the others. Your work is so good! ☀😎 👍
In France the future tramway line 5 of Nice is gonna cost 50 million per kilometer (!!) while the upcoming metro line C of Toulouse is gonna cost 120 million per kilometer. That's quite a big contrast within a single country...
VAL metros can achieve
@@hobog no I'm talking about the future metro lince C currently under construction, which is actually a full-on heavy metro, with very wide carriages and steel wheels
Though I'm guessing that the line you're talking about in Nice runs along a complicated path?
Are there bridges, river banks, over / underpasses?
They've also probably included the entire urban renewal alongside the line into the overall cost.
@@KyrilPG yeah... the line indeed runs on a river bank for most of its route and there are bridges that allows it criss-cross the river 2 times or more (how did you guess it? Lol) and from the renders a substantial Metamorphosis of the street is envisaged, with widening of the embankment to give more riverside space to pedestrians & cyclists. And a 10 kilometer cycling path as well
@@Adrenaline_chaser There you have it.
It's not a wild guess, it's just that these are usually the costliest locations, and given where there are already tram lines in Nice the guess was fairly easy.
River banks often have to be reinforced or widened, bridges must be built, etc.
But also, in France, they tend to include the urban renewal part into the overall cost.
Whereas in the US or elsewhere it's more often separate.
For example, the latest extension of T3b in Paris that opened earlier this year, had a higher cost per kilometer than usual.
But that was due to the building of an "underground bridge" over the M3 line and filled up former road tunnels, plus the beautification of a few boulevards.
So it wasn't just a regular tramway extension with surface works, and given the relative shortness of the extension (about 3.5km), the expensive parts were spread over a smaller number of kilometers, making the cost seem higher per kilometer.
I'm pretty sure that for Nice line 5, if you take the bridges and embankment reinforcements / widenings out of the total, the cost of the surface works is pretty average for a tram in France.
6:30 cost of buses, everyone forgets the cost of road upkeep in their calculations.
While Dublin in my native Ireland has the LUAS tram network, which is very good at what it does and has become iconic since it was first launched, even more so than the DART trains, the network does need to be extended and expanded - I live in the U.K. and come home to Ireland on the ferries from Holyhead on SailRail, yet there is still no LUAS stop at the Irish Ferries or Stena passenger ferry Terminals, nor is there a LUAS line to Dublin Airport, which is a real hassle
One whole video focused on light rail trams and no mention of Melbourne Australia 😂
To be fair, he did say he was referring to modern tram systems. Most of the Melbourne network is shared with cars.
Great Video!
Great video! The thumbnail is fabulous!
Love ur videos about Trams!
I watched this whole video looking to see if you’d put in the Birmingham trams
From a North American perspective, a new tram/streetcar/light rail/whatever system should only be installed if one or both of the following situations exist:
1. The system is mostly separated from, or has priority over, car traffic. If it gets stuck behind red lights and behind car traffic it is just an expensive bus.
2. If #1 is not possible, but a bus route is extremely busy (busier than 99.9% of US bus routes) it might make sense to put in a tram anyways purely for the cost savings on the operation side; 1 driver per 500 passengers as opposed to 1 driver per 150; usage of cheap electricity over expensive diesel (or expensive batteries that wear out); equipment that lasts 50 years with minimal maintenance as opposed to equipment that lasts 20 years with tons of expensive maintenance.
Your clip of «Stockholm» is actually in Oslo.
Oops, you are right
This is a very good analysis of city public transport, the cost, pollution, safety etc. I am generally in favour of trams myself.
Thank you!
10:35 Those are numbers for 7-8 standing passengers/m², which is totally unacceptable, if not even impossible. You should look for the 4-5 passengers/m² figure where available.
My city needs to become a real city and then get trams. We only need about another 200K Residents added to my small village (population 463 people) 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I'm a professional transportation planner and subscriber who likes your videos and supports transit.
One criticism: The "auto companies killed the trams story" is a myth. Most tram systems in the US started as a means to support land development in less congested and polluted central city districts. (London's situation was similar.) Developers used the trams to make travel convenient to their new housing projects. They were not intended to make a profit solely on operation, they were for selling access to the new homes. It was a tremendously successful scheme and was copied in hundreds of American cities. After the developments filled up, the fares rose to cover the true expense. The riders didn't like that (obviously) and it was politically popular for the city government to take over the operations -- but at the old fare. This was increasingly economically infeasible over time. This process worked its way up through World War 2, when the money-losing systems were kept operating due to resource shortages and materials rationing. Afterwards, city governments shifted to buses (then being made in large numbers as factories shifted away from war production) for all the reasons you pointed out on the lower operating costs. No conspiracy, just economic reality.
Well there are two more parts to the story.
1. They could have increased the tram ticket prices back before cars were around, because people didn’t have the option to drive. The reason they didn’t is because it would reduce development, and once cars came about it then everyone would start choosing to drive
2. Some automotive companies did buy out some tram companies and replace them with buses. Yes they didn’t necessarily conspire to do it, but it did take out the government subsided competition.
Also, yes trams can be expensive to run, but buses aren’t any cheaper - because roads also cost money. The difference between roads and rails is that the government subsidises roads, so you pretty much only pay for the vehicles, while if you run trams the government doesn’t pay for the tracks. Trams are a cheaper and more efficient for of transport if you take this into consideration. The economic reality is that cars and roads are a worse choice economically, but auto manufacturers did what they could to exploit the fact that in the short term, and in small scale cars and roads can be a more convenient and easier option. This has ended up having detrimental effects on society. Trams are beneficial to society when compared to walking, cars are beneficial to society when compared to walking, trams however are of a greater benefit holistically.
I saw a news story the other day about the local council trying to lobby the state government for more money to do road maintenance on a road it built years ago- it made me wonder, isn’t it concerning that the local council managed to build more roads than it has the money to maintain? Wouldn’t it make more sense to close that road than it would to upgrade it? That is the economic reality of roads. All over the world we have spent millions and millions on infrastructure designed to last 60 to 100 years. We built most of that infrastructure in the last 60 years. We barely have enough money to build the infrastructure we needed 20 years ago, let alone maintain the last 60 years worth of bridges. This is not a problem we have faced ever before, not at this scale
True, it was getting time for new tram & track replacements, which were expensive, compared to abandonment & bus building
Car gives us freedom (True). if only one on the road. but this only happen in the car paradise of the open road (aka Car Publicity) but car(s) (plurial) gives us Trafic Hell and Cars dependent environment is the 9th circle of Hell .
The city of Casablanca dragged its feet on building a Lille-style metro for 30 years and then in the late 2000s, they finally dropped the idea completely and instead built nearly 100Km of transit (4 tram lines and 2 BRT lines).
Now yes I still think trams for a city of allegedly 3.4 million people (and probably a lot more in reality) are not nearly enough, but it has brought a higher standard of mobility to a very large portion of the population, and has massively improved the image of public transit as a whole which used to be catastrophic, when all there was were the old crummy, barely functioning buses.
Here’s to hoping for more transit in Casablanca, and who knows maybe even a proper metro one of these days.
My hometown of Edmonton was the first in North America to relaunch modern LRT in 1978 after destroying their once extensive street railway which shuttered in 1951 and it wisely chose to build the most expensive part first which was a subway under downtown that was capable of using 5-car 120m long trains for peak demand period and as low as 1 24m car during Sunday and late night services unlike Calgary which is limited still to only 4-car trains and that's after rebuilding all their downtown stations to accommodate these larger trains... Either way steel-wheel trains with overhead power are still the way to get the masses moving safely and efficiently until proven otherwise...
7:50 isn't Stockholm but Oslo
Fantastic video!!
trams are the most visible public transport, making immediately clear where it goes. You never know with buses or metros unless you stumble across a station.
It's all very well going on about how important to cut down on car use, but those of us who live in rural areas don't have a choice. Public transport is effectively non existent so it's car or nothing. If we want to go shopping parking is discouraged, so it's mail order or nothing (except lots of delivery vans).
A more grown up, flexible approach is needed, we don't all want to live in overcrowded cities.
We need more images of Geneva's trams ;-) historically the first tram system in Switzerland and once the largest network in the world. Sadly much of it got dismantled but it has now reexpanded with modern standards following the trend that you describe (making it a hybrid between old and new systems) and has the particularity of being a cross-border tram network
The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system was first implemented in Curitiba, Brazil, in the 1970s, not Bogota, and its creation is largely credited to Jaime Lerner, the city's former mayor and an urban planner. Lerner, along with his team, introduced the concept as part of a broader urban planning effort to address the city’s transportation challenges and improve mobility for a growing population.
Yes, you're right, I made a mistake here.
What was this Cuiaba thing?
They started building a tram line, but changed their minds halfway through, dismantled the rails that had already been laid, and recently sold the trams they had already purchased to another Brazilian city.
@@cityforall Oh god... I hate Cuiaba...
Great Video
Thank you very much!
Great video friend ❤
Thank you 🤗
What I hate is when trams are proposed for what should he a metro. People suggest trams for lines that would be over 10 km long, which is just too long because trams are frankly low.
Residents of Karlsruhe do not understand what you are talking about
@@cityforall The tram from Morsh Merkurstrasse to Yorckstrasse takes 23 minutes to go 9.5km, or 25 kmh. This is about the same speed as a bus, so most of the time you'd be better off building a rapid bus service as you'd achieve the same speed at a lower cost. My problem is when people suggest transregional systems as trams that go very slow.
You prefer heavy rail like a an elevated or ground level subway instead of light rail. You would like NYC, come visit. 🗽
17:13 Bad example 🤣These Škoda 14T trams suffered from broken frames and bogie mounts and were out of service for years.
Perhaps you have missed one further cost of trams, namely the need to retain vehicles and drivers for a replacement bus service when maintenance work is going on? These were needed for months when the tramline through Shudehill in Manchester was improved.
Trams should still be built in big cities as a complement to the metro system, especially since the last century metros have evolved from underground super trams into a makeshift of urban rapid transit railway of big dimensions.
The older Paris Metro lines have stops which are very close to oneanother for that reason, the metro was a way to burry the tram bigger lines. Nowadays, metro stops on more modern lines are on average 1 to 1.5 km apart for greater speed and reach outside the city.
Trams could replace the bigger bus lines.
great video
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@cityforall I found ur channel yesterday and already saw a lot of ur videos, keep ur work up. 🙏🏼
Trams are also much more inviting then busses imho. And a lot more comfertable.
Trams are also very comfy, no tight turns, no vibration
why we need Trams, cause they are sexy... and why should we go the Luxembourg rout and make it free for all, cause free public transport is even more sexy than those sexy trams...
What i was missing is not only the City aspect but als the Regional aspect, Like Karlsruhe/Germany where Tram in city act sike Suburban Train in the outer Region or Zürich with the Forchbahn... sure there are more examples...
You should visit a therapist if you find a non-human object sexy
@@SirHeinzbond Well, that could be an idea for another video focusing more on these tram system variations like tram-train, LRT, Statdbahn, translohr, GLT, and so on.
@@geography_czek5699 yes something to think of, looking for Karlsruhe where the Tram is a multipurpose one, and Zürichs Forchbahn its a dual purpose one, the other ones i have to google... i guess it's an cheaper alternative to Subway or Suburban Trains, and has more capacity as Buses
THis i s really informative! thank you so much:-)
I live in Seattle, and we once had a large amazing tram (and interurban/lightrail) system that was torn out in the 1950s... we are now spending millions/billions to rebuild both... (we also turned down fully federally finded metro systems in the 60s and 70s) you used footage of one of our street running trams as an example of bad design (it is) because it runs slowly in traffic.... this is due to the process for projects here... they make sure "everyone gets a voice" aka loud idiots scream and cry about giving up traffic lanes, etc... and the system get watered down until it becomes less effective then they complain about it not being effective and demand we stop building more trams... (this system also cost us a completely grade seperated metro because one neighborhood demanded the line go through their neighborhood (they said it would be racist if they didn't) then demanded it not be an elevated line through their neighborhood and since there wasnt money for underground in that spot... there is now one simgle section of the entire line at grade runjing in the middle of the street that slows the entire system down and makes it unreliable... it is incredibly frustrating and infuriating...
Well Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook have monorails ! We don't even have a measly little tram....
Edit: the idea below ignores how doors on high floor trams still are constrained by wheel arrangement.
It might be better to have trams that are mostly high-floor, to reduce the low-floor compromise on interior capacity. This is something I like about the unique light rail vehicles of Dallas.
It's more ideal to have an entirely high-floor high-platform system but we're trying to save on stations. The best tram vehicle is Vienna's ULV
On wider low-floor trams, the capacity is virtually the same given that passengers demand at least a minimum of proper seating.
Plus, the weight difference is not negligible.
Most, if not all, busiest tram lines in Europe are low-floor. (Paris T3's with 500 to 700k daily, T2 with 220-250k daily...).
How are Dallas‘s vehicles remotely unique? You know that high-floor trams with low-floor centre cars are super common, right?
They're the most sensible electric vehicles for our cities.
Thumbnail is Place de Paris in Luxembourg.
we can only dream here in south east asia... sigh =/
What about Manila, Philippines?
If your city passes 100k, you should realy look into a tram system. At least in Europe
Great video but please can you also show the price in dollars. Euros are so hard to convert
Thanks!
There is no big difference there. The amount in dollars will be about 10% higher than in euros
trams are hella based. make America tram again
17:49 that’s Chicago
So glad the Multipla also disappeared with the wide road. 3:13
Multipla is the best car of all cars, change my mind.
14:07 exept for the car drivers. They aperently can not
If I see my city's Tram, I have no choice but to click on the video
Ottawa, Canada has the worst LRT system in the world. Closed system like a metro but actually trams.
come on dude.
Self driving is a real game changer for light rail and will enable single tram units and therefore FREQUENT service, all these MULTI-trams are HISTORY!
#RailTransit
My bet is that it will be decades before widespread implementation of self-driving. It has been "almost there" for, how long? A decade or so? And that is just not enough, given the legal challenges of having an autonomous vehicle operate in public road traffic. Systems with dedicated tracks already have self-driving units, but tram networks always have at least some overlap with public roads.
Don't 3 or 4 minutes frequency qualify as "frequent"? They do in my book.
The "multi trams"are usually there for capacity (in Europe at least).
Like on Paris line T2, which runs double consists of 5-segment trams to cope with the daily ridership of 220 to 250k passengers.
Though T2 is a particular line where most passengers ride longer distances as it serves la Défense business district.
On other super busy lines, they run wide 7-segment trams.
@@TapOnX
Self driving for a tracked vehicle is MASSIVELY more achievable than for cars.
@@KyrilPG the point is to implement #RailTransit throughout society including in lies populated areas, and for this smaller more frequent services are VITAL.
@@KyrilPG we NEED #RailTransit EVERYWHERE not just in cities.
I love trams... but the one downside you did not address is speed. Trams/light rail are so much slower than metro or other fully separated modes. This is a real drawback in lower density cities where distances are long.
I do not consider this a disadvantage. Technically, a modern tram can be as fast as a subway.
The other thing is that in a dense urban environment, with a distance of 500 meters between stops, you really can't go very fast. But with longer runs, the tracks can be arranged so that the tram can travel at 60-80 km/h. The Karlsruhe tram-train on intercity sections can easily accelerate to 100 km/h.
@@cityforall That's fine if you are talking about short trips in dense cities. But for commuter trips e.g. for the new tramways in Sydney (L2, L3) the pedestrianised main streets etc are very nice but makes end to end journey times very long.
Each type of transportation is better suited for a particular situation. For what you have described, suburban rail or subway, or tram-train, for example, is really better suited.
Thank you for admitting Fedir Pritskyi in tram history 🇺🇦
I wish my hometown had a tram line...
Which one?
@@cityforall its name is Busto Arsizio, close to Milan and Malpensa Airport
Anyone knows if China does trams?
Yes
Just putting it out there that using Kharkiv as an example of post Soviet city with poorly maintained public transport was very bold. I think they have bigger fish to fry at the moment what with Russia invading them maybe? Just my thoughts though XD
I see your point but that condition of tram infrastructure was there long before the Russian invasion.
@@cityforall Completely understand that. Great video though!
Edinburgh resident - trams suck
Not faster than buses
Costs more to get to the airport than the bus
Lousy at moving large crowds to/from Murrayfield stadium
Loses millions of pounds every year
Tram is best suited to large metropolises with many residents and many customers, i.e. users of the Tram network and which are located in wide flat areas. Majority of the Finnish cities are unsuitable for the Tram network, for example due to the hilliness of the terrain, and another problem is profitability, which is already testing whether there will even be local bus traffic in Finnish cities in the future, for example, because the number of passengers who can afford bus tickets is decreasing and forces to raise the price of bus tickets so that the buses don't make a financial loss.
Public transit shouldn't be determined by profitability. And many cities that have hills have trams.
You can even use single rail rubber-tyred trams for hilly terrain like Paris T6 or Medellin tram.
What's your definition of a large metropolis and many residents?
@@KyrilPG Population more than 500 thousand. The total population of Helsinki is abou 664 thousand and it has been the only area where the tram network has been profitable in Finland (of course, Tampere with about 255 thousand inhabitants got its own express tram* line in 2021, but its operation has remained somewhat financially unprofitable and the biggest reason for this has been considered to be that there are not enough people living in Tampere and the city has planned to double its population by the end of the next decade (*express tram focuses on faster travel with fewer stops)).
@@danielmalinen6337 Your figure is nonsense. Many cities with just 200.000 or fewer inhabitants require trams because their bus networks can‘t stem the amount of ridership. Look at Freiburg or smaller French cities. A city of 500k should have a proper Light Rail network with tunnels and all that.
@@danielmalinen6337 500k inhabitants is already metro territory in France.
Rennes, for example, has 220k inhabitants in the city and 470k inhabitants in the wider metropolitan area, and there's a 2-line automated metro network that carries more passengers daily than the city proper's population...
There are cities with less than 50k inhabitants that have tramway lines... like Aubagne or Valenciennes, and several with less than 200k inhabitants.
Toulouse, 505k inhabitants in the city proper and 800k to a million in the whole area, has an automated metro with 2 lines, a 3rd metro line currently being built, plus tramway lines, and even a gondola line and several BRT lines (and regular bus lines, of course).
Strasbourg, 300k inhabitants proper, 515k inhabitants in the wider agglomeration including a German portion, has a large 6-line tramway network that moves roughly the equivalent of the city's population every day.
There are many examples of cities well under 500k that have very successful tramway networks.
Also, the point of public transportation is not to make a profit, just like roads aren't built to make a profit. It's there to offer a public transportation service.
Sometimes, when a city builds a tramway line that doesn't have much ridership, it's better to continue developing the network because it is the lack of connections that caused the low ridership.
Or the line is simply poorly designed, doesn't have enough transfers with busses, lacks park & ride garages, etc. But usually it can be improved.
A tramway line is a "structuring transportation mode" that shapes the way people move around. In other words, it's a backbone for the city's mobility.
Smaller cities can have successful tramways, they just need to be built the right way to really leverage their full potential.
Meanwhile kolkata 🥴
😃🚍🚈
Most cities are now buying electric buses because they are cheap and easy to operate& Flexible
Cheap and easy is an overstatement...
Depots require major electrification systems to be able to recharge them ; busses still don't have a great lifespan for the battery, and the cost to operate is often higher than trams (not to be confused with cost to build).
The cost of operation per 10,000 passengers is higher with electric buses than with trams.
Paris, for example, is buying many electric busses to replace its massive fleet of combustion engine busses, and also several dozens of trambuses to operate BRT lines that feed the metro, RER, and tramway networks. (Similar to Brisbane's metro buses)
But they very much continue to expand the tramway network, with several dozens of new trams ordered to renew and expand.
щойно зрозумів що ти алекс шутюк😭 я думав ви різні люди
відео супер як завжди!!!
한국의 차량 운전자들의 목소리가 너무 크다.
그들을 무시하고 추진할 정치인들이 필요하다
bogotá did not invent brt. curitiba did
Yep, that's right!