munich: do trams cause ridership? vice versa?

[Jonno]

Great article/blog by Jarrett Walker at Human Transit.

My tour of Germany, France, and the Netherlands in July brought me to numerous situations where trams are used to great effect in handling high volumes of passengers moving in exclusive rights-of-way.  (I cannot emphasize too often that these are usually more like light rail than like American streetcars or Australian trams, which are often compromised by having to share a traffic lane.)

I spoke to many transit experts on the trip, and only in Munich did I hear a planner state the view that it may make sense to convert buses into trams solely because trams can attract more riders.  (Note that Prof. Patrick Condon http://www.humantransit.org/2010/04/is-speed-obsolete-.htmlalso wants to replace buses with trams, but he's thinking about a development and urbanist outcome.  He's also arguing, as my Munich contact would not, that it may be good for transit to be slower.)  This planner recently wrote to me to share the following data, showing that German cities with trams have higher per capita ridership than cities that run only with buses.  It's too big to copy here, but it's a simple Word file:

http://urbanist.typepad.com/files/cities-with-or-without-tram.doc

He writes:

The result is, that cities with a tram system have in average 50% more passengers in the total system (tram and bus) than cities with a bus only system.

Cities like Wiesbaden with an extensive bus lane system are among them.

OK.  But if you're going to throw these kind of data around as though they're decisive, please remember:

Correlation is not causation, nor does it tell you which way causation goes.

In this case, the correlation may be more easily explained by a causation that goes the other way, i.e. that ridership is "causing" trams.  The best reason to convert a bus to a tram, or to build trams instead of a bus line, is because you need a higher capacity -- in riders / driver -- than you can handle on buses. It's perfectly logical that high-demand corridors have trams rather than buses, but that doesn't mean the trams caused the ridership.  It may be the opposite, or a complex mix.

[#Metro]

The service that trams give and buses give are similar, but not the same.
IMHO this is a contentious area which is hotly debated. The main message seems to be "the vehicle does not matter", which I think is just not true. There is the rail factor.

Read some of the comments.
When a bus is upgraded to LRT patronage goes up.
When a LRT is shut down for maintainence and replaced by buses patronage goes down.
When trams are removed like in Sydney or Melbourne, patronage goes down too.

Upgrading the service quality would be expected to increase patronage, if this is true
that LRT has a better and more comfortable ride, then you would expect to see patronage go up too.
Then there is the land use changes- if more development occurs because of LRT then that would also
be expected to increase patronage. Somehow I don't think people are going to start developing TODs
around garden variety bus routes.

Correlation might not be causation, but this is a weak case to argue IMHO because It merely casts doubt, rather than
disprove the alternative. A stronger case would be one to argue that trams conclusively does not increase ridership in and of themselves
and provide examples.

Mind you, there is information flying around the internet talking about Ottawa's busway and how that did not increase
patronage... I think it actually fell. Explained away in terms of people moving in and out of the city at different times, but interesting nonetheless.

My position is, if there are feeder service and connections to major centres/interchanges then that will increase patronage. And people won't catch services if they are bad, dirty or uncomfortable.

[ozbob]

People like trams and heavy rail for the ride quality and comfort.  This is a well known fact.  Trams are very efficient people movers, and well suited to inner city areas.  Just have a look at Melbourne, what a great network.  Motor cars are not needed by the enlightened.  I grew up next to a tram  and rail.  We never had an issue getting around, never had a car either, bicycle, walking, tram and rail was the way we got around.  There are tentative signs that an environment that is not car dependent is slowly being entertained and considered for inner Brisbane.

[somebody]

Death to the notion that we don't need fast services.

[#Metro]

Of course fast services are needed. That's why there are trains.