RAIL - Back On Track Forum

But can it run to the cruise terminal via runway 01R

Quote from: #Metro on November 24, 2023, 12:36:33 PM

QuoteWhich is why that person specifically said building/obtaining buses built with doors on both sides. Doesn't need to be a "trackless tram".

Disagree. Defining feature of a trackless tram is doors on both sides of the vehicle.

Current rail based trams aren't self driving, they need an operator and some buses like OBahn are guided, so automatic guidance isn't defining IMO.

Likewise Toronto trams had cabs at one end like a bus, so the number of cabs isn't defining either.

By elimination, that just leaves doors on both sides as the essential feature.

Disagreed. I agree with timh here.
If doors on both sides means a bus is a "trackless tram", does that mean the buses inside airports used to transfer passengers between remote stands and the terminals are "trackless trams"? What rubbish.
IMO to be called a "trackless tram", it needs to be guided in one way or another. Doesn't mean every guided bus is a "trackless tram", ie: I definitely wouldn't call the Adelaide O-Bahn "trackless trams".
However, in reality, they're all just buses! Does it run on a road with rubber tyres? Yes? It's a BUS.

Whilst I like the concept of centre/median running for a range of reasons, I think to quickly implement a BRT-based network with the exiting bus fleet (doors on 1 side) I would convert the kerb lane to bus lane (ideally separated by some sort of physical barrier) with signal controlling and minor/modest improvements to the rationalised stops including lighting, seating, bike parking, ticketing machines, etc.  As budgets allow.  This lane conversion could include reducing the width of the remaining traffic lanes and implementing bike lanes. This will typically be where the current road reserve has ample room in newer/urban fringe areas.  As budgets allow.

I would only move to centre/median running as part of Stage 2 either

• converting the BRT to LRT (as funding becomes available) with centre running and station upgrades
• or more permanent BRT route upgrade (if necessary/+ ROI) or other changes to the corridor

As part of a BRT permanent upgrade there will be both vehicle, operational, contingency and station design decisions that need to be made...there will be extensive list of inputs into this decision making including reuse of existing fleet.  This may mean the purchase of a new vehicles (what ever they are called) but only because the system needs additional capacity to the total fleet.

Agree, getting the service in using existing vehicles is priority.

The advantage of trackless tram/centre running is that the median is generally faster.

Slow traffic tends to keep left, you have left turn traffic and you have driveways with cars popping out in the left lane.

Centre median running largely avoids that and it looks more like LRT which might impact perception, particularly for local development.

RM transport reports that they are converting a few articulated electric bus routes to LRT in LA prior to the LA Olympics. Just saying 😉

I can understand Jonno's call for investment in an underground subway/metro network, but their is still a need for surface transport as well. I find that street running LRT really enhances the city and allows tourists to properly explore the city and surrounding businesses. LRT is also better at converting car trips to public transport trips than BRT is.

But saying that I am not advocating for trams to run into the suburbs except for the Hamilton area. They are more suited to run from West End to New farm via the CBD, Valley and Spring Hill. I also think that The Gabba and Buranda areas would also benefit.

The RACQ proposal is ok but it's nothing special as regular electric buses can do the same thing by sweeping the suburbs and feeding trains stations. We don't need specially designed electric articulated buses to do that.

Quote from: #Metro on November 24, 2023, 12:36:33 PM

QuoteWhich is why that person specifically said building/obtaining buses built with doors on both sides. Doesn't need to be a "trackless tram".

Disagree. Defining feature of a trackless tram is doors on both sides of the vehicle.
....
By elimination, that just leaves doors on both sides as the essential feature.

I did ask if you felt that building a bus with doors on both sides would make it a trackless tram, it would seem that is t he case then. I think most people wouldn't agree with you on that being the defining feature of a trackless tram. Every vehicle I have ever seen promoted as a 'trackless tram' has done so based on it's ability to follow a painted line as if it were a track. If it had doors on one side only and followed the painted line it would still be called a trackless tram.

Quote from: #Metro on November 24, 2023, 12:02:45 PMWell, how would median running work with BRT on Kingsford Smith Drive where there is a median but it's narrow?

I would put it to you that a trackless tram with doors on both sides would be able to service a median platform, but a usual bus with doors along only the left side would not.

How is a dedicated lane with a painted line down the middle different to a dedicated bus lane to such a degree that one is possible and the other is impossible? In both the Trackless Tram and BRT scenario you are likely building a segregated median centred ROW that wipes out a traffic lane in either direction. The only distinction between the two is that one will have to have a painted guide line for the automated steering to follow.

And of course a usual bus wouldn't be able to use median platforms not designed to accommodate them, that would be the whole point in using a dedicated BRT bus design for the purpose. Not all BRT systems are dependent on the vehicles operating them being able to enter and leave the busway to complete larger journeys. That has less to do with good busway operation and more to do with the over-abundance of, and reliance on, single seat journeys baked into the Brisbane bus system. If an effective service required duel side boarding, then that would just rule out regular buses using it. 

Look I don't want to come across as rude, but this is becoming a little asinine. BRTs that do exactly what a trackless tram does, with the sole exception of automated steering, already exist in operation around the world. You seem to be gradually reaching a point where you're basically arguing that those existing BRTs are trackless trams themselves, which would make this whole conversation pointless because we'd just be arguing over the name of a mode of transit rather then the attributes that affect the implementation of that mode of transit.

Look at it this way. Light rail is fundamentally different to BRT due to the traction. You can design a BRT vehicle that is identical to a LRT vehicle in all aspects except that it runs on rubber tires on asphalt, you can run it on a route where the only difference in infrastructure is that one has steel rails and the other is an asphalt lane, and you can run it to the exact same service intensity as an LRT, but it still isn't an LRT because it is not running on a rail.

The only such distinction that exist between between a high level BRT (as described above) and a trackless tram is that the trackless tram has mostly automated steering, and even that that's a dubious distinction with the ongoing development of driver assisting AIs designed to run motor vehicles in conjunction with an operator (which is essentially all the automated steering in the trackless tram really is).

A trackless tram is a BRT. If you are going to try and argue that having doors on both sides is what makes it a trackless tram, then as far as I am concerned you may as well also be arguing that a trackless tram is a BRT too.

Quote from: verbatim9 on November 26, 2023, 11:50:53 AMRM transport reports that they are converting a few articulated electric bus routes to LRT in LA prior to the LA Olympics. Just saying 😉

I think that particular conversion is more speculation then firm plan. In the same sense that Sailsbury to Beaudesert is 100% happening but if you ask 'when?' tmr will give you a dirty look.

Quote from: verbatim9 on November 26, 2023, 11:50:53 AMBut saying that I am not advocating for trams to run into the suburbs except for the Hamilton area. They are more suited to run from West End to New farm via the CBD, Valley and Spring Hill. I also think that The Gabba and Buranda areas would also benefit.

The RACQ proposal is ok but it's nothing special as regular electric buses can do the same thing by sweeping the suburbs and feeding trains stations. We don't need specially designed electric articulated buses to do that.

We don't need specially designed electric buses to do that, if only because the existing glider stylised vehicles do the job just fine as is and could be very easily expanded into other areas.

I just struggle to see the benefits of building a tram system from scratch that isn't a borderline metro. If we had a West End to New farm tram that would be better then the West End to New farm Glider, but I'd need a lot of convincing that it is better enough then the glider warrant the expense of building it, particularly when I think West End to New farm (and beyond) is a major candidate for a metro level service.

That's basically the case for most casually promoted LRT proposals I see. I think you need to be going well above what could be achieved by an optimised bus service, because the cost of an optimised bus service is so significantly lower then the cost of putting in LRT. It's not a barrier to great to overcome, but a barrier that won't be overcome by anything short of property cost-benefit level analysis that we as outsiders to the powers that be aren't really capable of.

QuoteI did ask if you felt that building a bus with doors on both sides would make it a trackless tram, it would seem that is t he case then. I think most people wouldn't agree with you on that being the defining feature of a trackless tram. Every vehicle I have ever seen promoted as a 'trackless tram' has done so based on it's ability to follow a painted line as if it were a track. If it had doors on one side only and followed the painted line it would still be called a trackless tram.

Thanks for the question, but as I explained, automation or guidance are not defining features. The Adelaide O-Bahn BRT buses can also follow a track, for example. They would not be trackless trams because they have doors on one side only. Most trams or LRVs also have a human operator, so to copy LRT incorporating an automation component is not essential.

Progress in technology also means that in the future, ordinary buses may become automated as well. There are already automated cars that use LIDAR, for example, to do this.

QuoteHow is a dedicated lane with a painted line down the middle different to a dedicated bus lane to such a degree that one is possible and the other is impossible? In both the Trackless Tram and BRT scenario you are likely building a segregated median centred ROW that wipes out a traffic lane in either direction. The only distinction between the two is that one will have to have a painted guide line for the automated steering to follow.

Yes, so if you do Google Street view on KSD or perhaps Old Cleveland Road, having a bus with doors on both sides you could use the existing median and the current right-hand road lane. An ordinary bus with doors on the left side is going to need a platform off to the left, which would place it in the traffic flow, or the bus would have to use the left lane (where there are left turns, and driveways).

That is the difference. It is a little easier to set up your platform in the middle of the road like LRT when you have doors on both sides. I also gave an image of a busway platform in the M2 Motorway in Sydney as an example of the problems you might run into when using ordinary buses to do road median platforms. In the M2 case the buses have to cross over to the wrong side of the road to serve the platforms.

QuoteBRTs that do exactly what a trackless tram does

BRT is a mode, buses are the vehicles. A trackless tram is a type of bus.
In the same way that LRT is a mode and LRVs or trams are the vehicles.

QuoteI think most people wouldn't agree with you on that being the defining feature of a trackless tram.

Popularity is not validity.

It isn't my intention to get into the weeds about these points, but there are subtle differences between an ordinary bus and a trackless tram. Mainly the doors. There is some advantage to having doors on both sides - not massive, but it is a closer emulation of what LRT is.

I think a main objection to trackless trams is that if they become popular, they will decrease the potential market or market share of trams / LRVs because the competition coming from BRT will have increased. Some potential projects such as Sunshine Coast Mass Transit or even LRT to Hamilton Northshore might be built as BRT rather than LRT, for example.

I'll ask again - if doors on both sides of a bus is what makes it a trackless tram, does that mean the airside buses at airports are trackless trams in your opinion?

I think the main reason for people's rejection of trackless trams is more along the lines of 'gadgetbahn', sh!t that keeps coming up to re-invent the wheel, but worse.

Metro have you actually been on Kingsford Smith Drive? The median is not that wide for most of it. I would feel pretty unsafe as a passenger standing on a platform on that median in the middle of a 6 lane road (even if the middle two were converted to rapid transit lanes of some sort)

Like most road ideas he only has google map measurements and street view which aren't always correct.

Courier Mail---> Brisbane needs light rail to avoid becoming 'obese', says expert

QuoteA light rail network linking Brisbane suburbs should be considered to prevent it becoming an "obese" city where major roads remain congested and affordable housing is difficult to find.

Do it!

I don't know how people can look at the success of the GC system, which is a really well implemented case of LR that has demonstrably done what it said it was going to do, and lift PT patronage, all with running costs lower than bus.

But then some people say "oh but Brisbane should just stick to buses" (or some other gimmick)

The patronage is there to be gotten if we just built it.

LRT has potential from the CBD through the Valley and on to Hamilton Northshore.

That said, prefer to see the BUZ network rebooted and the network simplified first. That can be done now.

LRT from Carindale to Indro is number 1 on my Christmas list and I've been such a good boy this year.

Quote from: NothingToSay on December 08, 2023, 19:29:43 PMLRT from Carindale to Indro is number 1 on my Christmas list and I've been such a god boy this year.

My question is is LRT got enough capacity?  I suspect this needs Metro level capacity.

Quote from: Gazza on December 07, 2023, 09:10:57 AMDo it!

I don't know how people can look at the success of the GC system, which is a really well implemented case of LR that has demonstrably done what it said it was going to do, and lift PT patronage, all with running costs lower than bus.

But then some people say "oh but Brisbane should just stick to buses" (or some other gimmick)

The patronage is there to be gotten if we just built it.

I'm perfectly happy to have the option investigated, but I just don't think it should be treated as a guaranteed win.

As Jonno points out, a lot of potential LRT corridors in Brisbane are also potential Metro.
Existing bus infrastructure, for better or worse, complicates the equation against LRT. It's far harder to create a cost-effective plan for implementation of LRT when the busways already exist. Not impossible, but it's a great big handicap that the G:link didn't have to deal with.
LRT has to hit certain benchmarks before it is even better than a bus in the first place. Of course, anything built to the standard of the G:Link is going to achieve that goal comfortably, but you want to be sure the proposed system isn't cutting cost with mixed traffic street running, no intersection priorities, less than ideal rollingstock and routes optimized for minimal construction cost rather than optimal transit outcomes, or you'll end up with a very overhyped bus very quickly.

Transport problems are mode neutral. I am instantly skeptical of any transport solution that prioritizes a certain mode excessively without a clear transport problem-defined rationale behind it. Yeah, the Gold Coast LRT has been amazing, but a lot of work and investigation went into determining that it would be amazing before it was built. I expect that same level of work and investigation to be conducted for a Brisbane LRT before we just build it.

QuoteTransport problems are mode neutral. I am instantly skeptical of any transport solution that prioritizes a certain mode excessively without a clear transport problem-defined rationale behind it.

Agree, and great to read this!!

There are major issues with LRT approaching from the southside. Crossing the Brisbane River is a big one.

Northside approaches don't have this problem.

QuoteThere are major issues with LRT approaching from the southside. Crossing the Brisbane River is a big one.

Is there an engineering reason you couldn't build a bridge for trams?

GLink has a bridge over the Nerang river.

In Brisbane, we have a public transport only bridge to UQ.

Why is it a major issue?

Quote from: Gazza on December 11, 2023, 10:32:38 AM

QuoteThere are major issues with LRT approaching from the southside. Crossing the Brisbane River is a big one.

Is there an engineering reason you couldn't build a bridge for trams?

GLink has a bridge over the Nerang river.

In Brisbane, we have a public transport only bridge to UQ.

Why is it a major issue?

It's less a barrier that can't be overcome, but rather that the requirement of a new bridge disadvantages LRT as an option when compared to just improving the busways, or compared against a more heavy-duty metro option that would also need an expensive river crossing.  It costs a lot of money. Bus solutions don't pay that money at all, and metro solutions pay that money for better outcomes.

It's all a case of opportunity cost. We can build an LRT and people will use it and it will be good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is the best and most practical option available to us.

The presence of the busways giving the buses an abnormal boost in quality of service is a huge detriment to any future LTR proposal. In overly simple terms, if Level 1 is Bus, level 2 is LRT and Level 3 is metro, in a normal situation finding those level 2 scenarios is simple. However the busway has turned our buses into a level 1.5 solution, and the window for transport problems that are best solved with LRT is now smaller than it otherwise would have been.

It would cost a lot to set up an LRT network in Brisbane and I'm not entirely confident that the benefits would outweigh that cost given the existing bus infrastructure we have. G:link wasn't competing against world-class busway infrastructure when it was planned and built. A Brisbane LRT has to be designed with the existence of the Busways in mind, and that inherently handicaps it.

To be clear, when I talk about LRT, I don't mean it in terms of improvement to the busways. Putting trams on existing busway is a low priority for me.

When I think of priorities for PT projects, an important driver for me is bringing new segregated routes to areas currently only served by suburban buses. Actually increasing the geographical catchment of mass transit.

If we take the SEB, i wouldn't convert it to LRT or even heavy rail. But I would do things like build LRT or Metro under Logan Road, or build rail to Flagstone, both of which reduce pressure on the busway whilst simultaneously adding new stations and new catchments to the system.

QuoteIt would cost a lot to set up an LRT network in Brisbane and I'm not entirely confident that the benefits would outweigh that cost given the existing bus infrastructure we have. G:link wasn't competing against world-class busway infrastructure when it was planned and built. A Brisbane LRT has to be designed with the existence of the Busways in mind, and that inherently handicaps it.

An excellent point, Marshal.

LRT vs BRT mode comparison was the subject of the 2007 Lord Mayor's Mass Transit Review and research such as Turner (2003) https://trid.trb.org/view/700198

Originally, the SEB was built rather than LRT because it didn't require purchasing a whole new fleet of vehicles either - existing BCC buses could be used. It also avoided interchange and supported express rocket buses, which was seen as a plus. Express trams are very difficult to provide for in LRT on roads. But with BRT, it can be designed so one bus simply leapfrogs the other at a station.

This advantage would also seem to apply to trackless trams, if they also ran on the busways.

Then, of course, LRT has to go somewhere. It obviously cannot fit into QSBS, and prior proposals with LRT on Adelaide Street were objected to by the Property Council of Australia due to concerns about building owners having street access blocked or restricted. That said, I think George Street in Sydney balances competing needs well.

A wildcard in all of this, is that a R1 Gold Coast Regional Rapid Rail project that uses the M1 corridor could also avoid the need to construct a new river crossing as it could just enter the existing CRR tunnels. Such a project would also relieve the SEB and provide for new TOD opportunities at places like Upper Mt Gravatt (Garden City), while avoiding the need to construct a metro or purchase metro train rollingstock.

The bottom line: many members would support LRT provided that they could be presented with a project case that demonstrates it makes sense in both absolute and relative terms to the alternatives.