Hacker News Reader

Comment by m0zg | Hacker News Reader

What's the advantage compared to a tram or trolley bus? I don't get it.

No need to build and maintain the infrastructure (rail and overhead power lines.)

The ability to navigate the road freely -- trolley buses often have trouble circumnavigating badly parked cars in their way, sometimes causing the driver to get out to reattach the "prongs" to the wires.

Also, trams are somewhat prone to "tram jams" caused by one faulty streetcar blocking the railway. And they simply cannot get around a badly parked car.

Trolley buses also have to slow down at intersections to avoid coming unhooked.

Other than the need to maintain rail + power lines, I think these issues are overblown. The badly parked car scenario sounds pretty horrendous in theory - one careless actor causes chaos for an entire city center! In my experience it simply doesn't happen - I think people just know how damaging it could be (and possibly how much trouble they would be in) that they pretty much have to be considerate and self-aware.

However I have seen trams broken down temporarily (a couple of times in the last 7 years of taking 2 trips daily) but these get resolved surprisingly quickly with minimal fuss. Additionally I've only seen a Trolley lose its connection a couple of times, and the resolution took about 1 minute.

This is of course heavily based on personal experience, if you have experience to the contrary I'd be curious where this is. A friend complained a bit about Trolleys in Wellington needing frequently reconnected, but I don't know how common that is or whether they just had some bad luck

You underestimate how much infrastructure costs.

you way overestimate people - it happens fairly frequently in philadelphia that the trolleys are blocked by illegally parked cars. Cars also try to beat the trolleys at intersections and cause accidents all the time - which when the trolleys are old 50s/60s solid steel beasts - a modern car does not win that fight.

>In my experience it simply doesn't happen - I think people just know how damaging it could be (and possibly how much trouble they would be in) that they pretty much have to be considerate and self-aware.

That's not really the why, at least not here. The shortcomings of trams (including derailing and the inability to maneuver past stuck or badly parked cars) are handled by a 24h emergency crew dedicated for just that. I think they move on average less than one car per day, but those missions are much more frequent during wintertime.

Trams are much more prone to failure than buses.

Still seems like a trolley bus at least could get out of such a bind with a very small battery that lasts like 3-5 minutes. It could then recharge said battery when it reconnects. That way it won't have to haul ten tons of flammable batteries everywhere it goes.

Buses can go where trams and trolleys can't. Buses are everywhere, even in cities that have trams and trolley buses. So it's important that they too go electric.

Trams are horribly, horribly expensive. You can spend hundreds of millions on a line which could be provided at a tenth of the price by a bus lane and some buses. And the bus lane is more flexible because you can use it as a spine for services branching off at either end.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com