Melbourne, Australia, has the largest tram network in the world! But why are they so slow? And is there something we can do to fix it?
Support me on KoFi! https://ko-fi.com/citymoose
Trams (called streetcars, light rail or trolleys elsewhere) are an integral part of Melbourne’s mass transit network, along with its buses and trains. But the system is showing its age.
If Melbourne wants to make its public transport better, there are a few simple changes they could make to the tram network to start with, which I discuss in this video.
source
The electronic tram timing point system should be connected to traffic lights. The timetabled timing locations should be at traffic lights and if the tram is running early then the tram should be held back with a red T light but if the tram is running late it should be given top priority at the intersection to help get it back on time. Car drivers couldn't complain because the system only kicks in when the tram is early or late. You always know when a tram stop is in a bad location when you constantly notice only one or two people getting on or off it, at a time.
Only one thing slower than the trams. Politicians…
Why don't you look at a country that does it right, and do the same thing? (Not like us, by the way.)
Having ridden buses and trams, and driving around Melbourne recently – I got to say that you're definitely right on the traffic lights. Whether or not they have priority systems built into them already – the lights in Melbourne are almost spiteful. They're pretty dumb, sitting with a green phase for nothing approaching on that side, and then only allowing a few vehicles through on each sequence before going back to red for a stupidly long time. Smarter traffic lights would certainly help with this issue – I believe Google is dabbling in trying to help solve this using traffic and pedestrian movement data in lieu of cameras.
I think you are definitely correct regarding stop density – in this day and age, trams simply do not serve this purpose. Localized transit is normally served by buses, with trams in most cities providing the 'heavy lifting' in between buses and commuter rail. Perhaps the intermediate stops, rather than being removed, could be downgraded to halts with minimal services to reduce maintenance, and are request stops only at certain times? Service is maintained in that situation, but you speed up the service and lower cost.
5:46 Priority signal trials began in 2016. In 2019, the Andrews Labor government began rolling them out progressively on a per route basis. 75 has been complete. I've seen them functioning on sections of numerous others routes. There are some excellent papers (ref: try Google) that describe how the technology integrates with, and provides advanced warning to the legacy Vicroads traffic light network.
less tram stops is a terrible idea. They are perfect as they are for disabled people
What a terrible video. Trams are not suitable to travel out to the outer suburbs. That's what the rail network is for. Massive face palm.
all the tracks should be removed, block cars all the time.
Agree. Fewer stops. Better tram stops. More lines in the west. And an orbital line from Moonee Ponds to Clifton Hill along Brunswick Road
except in the city, make half of all tram stops used only in the miserable melbourne winter.
I think it's good to remember that there are a lot of disabled, elderly and otherwise physically less capable people using transit. Removing tram stops could make transit use harder for those kinds of people. For me, an increase of 200 meters to closest tram stop would not be a problem at all, but for someone else, it very much could be a deal breaker, forcing them to rely on taxis and such. One of my mom's co workers, for example, takes train to Helsinki city center and a bus from there to her workplace, instead of walking 800 meters from previous train station, adding at least 20 minutes to her journey. Here in Finland, we do see extreme cold, snow, and ice, which during certain times of the year, makes being outside very unpleasant. Okay, enough of this.
Another thing I'm quite surprised you didn't touch, is that Melbourne is large, perhaps even too large for its population base. Most of Melbourne is composed of single family homes and have a density of just 500-3000 people per km2. Helsinki has a land area of 220 km2 (660,000 pop), while Melbourne has a land area 2500 km2 (5,000,000 pop). Both have roughly the same area dedicated to nature (15-20%). However, if Melbourne were to have the same level of density as Helsinki, which isn't that dense to begin with, Melbourne should have 7,7 million people.
So, here are some solutions to Melbourne's tram problem:
Short term:
1. Removing cars from tram tracks on most sections. In order to achieve this, some narrower streets would likely be converted to pedestrian only (excluding service vehicles) and have parking spots removed. (The more I look at Melbourne's tram tracks, the more monumental this task looks like, but I'll keep it here because in reality, it is possible to close vast number of streets from cars just like that. It's a political choice.)
2. Tram priority at all points of the journey. Signaling etc..
3. Tram stop distance adjusting. Some are simply too close to each other, but I don't think every stop should be 500-600 meters apart. That's too much. Since many parts have practically no tram stop infrastructure at all, this should be pretty easy.
Mid term:
1. Platforms. There are many places where there are no platforms at all, just a sign on a sidewalk telling that trams do stop here. Those kinds of "stops" slows down service needlessly.
2. Increased service frequency. If a tram comes every 10 minutes, an average person waits 5 minutes. If that is reduced to 5 minutes, an average person waits 2.5 minutes. Higher tram frequencies can also make trams faster due to fewer stops per run. Likely not during rush hour, but certainly during other times.
Long term:
1. Better connectivity to other lines, extensions and new lines to underserved areas (west), as you mentioned in the video.
2. More focused land use around transit stops. Single family homes along transit stops should be slowly upgraded to higher density low and midrise buildings. Furthermore, external expansion should be axed entirely.
These are just my thoughts, maybe they're good ones, maybe not. Anyway, thank you for reading and have a nice day!
I came. I saw. I subbed!
cars and trams don't mix very well also govt. regulations are strict on the time table too early get fined too late get fined, I agree with stops being so close, noone wants to walk
0:07 after st Petersburg lost 200 km track
3:36 because is west .west love car
4:44 so the solution is a dedicated line
😂 6:02 this tram idiot not metro of course the distance between stops is 200-300 meters compared to the metro which is 500-2000 meters. Tram just bigger dan Better bus line (BRT)
6:29 isn't that the part that was built in the suburbs? where the distance between houses is also far.
6:35 So are you proposing that the government eliminate half old stop in order to reduce the number of stopping times?
Most traffic lights appear to operate an anti-priority system. About 5 seconds before the tram arrives, regardless of whether it is stopping to pick up/put down passengers, the light will turn red – to the point that on my bike I know to try to accelerate to keep 100m clear in front of the approaching (from front or rear) tram so I don't miss the green light – once I'm clear 1 light cycle in front of a tram, I've got a clear way all the way into work before all the cars are stuck behind the tram.
The justification will be simple – to get the red light out of the way while the tram is stopped for passengers, and give the traffic no reason to try to jump the tram and potentially run over alighting passengers (no point being impatient when the lights are red anyway, not that that ever stopped a F150 driver). But the red light cycle is too long, and unconditional on passenger loading, so the tram sits at the front of the queue, unable to move, for far too long, at every single controlled intersection.
It seems so deliberately bad to me that I almost think they've accidentally inverted a logic flag in SCATS, and no-one's noticed because everyone's stuck in traffic unable to see around themselves and doesn't get a broad view of the network. Maybe traffic engineers need to have a compulsory 6 year stint riding bicycles before they're allowed to design road control systems.
maybe they can ask china to help
Absolutely agree that Melbourne’s tram network has far too many tram stops, it’s actually very frustrating and I wish they’d remove a fair few.
Agree with all points. It's about time there was a big transformation to fix Melbourne's car problem. Fixing the trams should be a part of that process (as well as implementing other strategies like prioritising walking and cycling) to reclaim our streets.
I hated the trams when I lived in Melbourne. I used to live in Coburg and I would visit my partner in south Melbourne. It took over 1 hour on the tram. By driving it would have only taken 15 minutes. I didn’t have a car and there was no train as a viable option. I was stuck with the tram and I resented it. For such distances trains should be an option, but in Melbourne trams are innapropriately usrd for long distances. Sitting on a tram for over an hour is just awful
is it just me or does some of the tram footage here look…off?
Come visit Toronto, where we have the world's second largest tram network, and once you've ridden ours, Melbourne's will feel much faster.
Thanks for an interesting video. One thing that Melbourne does have in its favour with the tram stops is that the tram only have to stop at many of them when passengers actually want to get on or get off and they don't have compulsory stopping at every stop, which was a major problem with Sydney's original tram system. I definitely agree that there should be more dedicated tramway lanes free of other road traffic blocking the trams where it is possible.
you have a very balanced approach to this, but for others that have the silly gadgetbahn light rail thing in their heads, trams are meant to be slow. they shouldn't have be fast enough to compete with trains. Trams already have poor stopping distances, we have trains with dedicated rights of way to avoid that problem. Melbourne Zoo (58) is a neat exception, not good standard practice.
giving priority is important though. Trams are more important than cars. and reducing amount of stopping would ease my motion sickness on them too
not just that, the process of embarking and disembarking takes forever. because there aren't enough doors. and too many seats too.
I don't think spreading stops out is much of a solution. The problem is our trams are trying to reach up to fill in the gap left by not having a Metro system. Meanwhile our suburban trains are trying to reach down to fill that gap too, compromising it's role as a suburban rail system.
We really need a new metro system made for moving masses of people in the inner suburbs around, routing trams to interchange with our suburban and metro trains, and freeing up the suburban trains to have more seats and run express into the city to shorten suburban trips.
Good video. I agree that traffic light priority and sharing lanes with cars are the biggest issues. I'm not so keen on removing stops from high-density areas. Also, it wasn't just cars that killed trams in many cities, it was also busses.
Found this very informative, and why can't we have priority traffic lights for trams…?? I guess it is a political issue…?
Anyhow great video!
Don’t knock Melbourne!
Best coffee on the planet!
Cheers from Sydney.
Wayyyy too many tram stops!! Could halve the number of stops easily. It’s ridiculous that you would have stops 200-250m apart. Yet it occurs regularly.
One thing that doesn’t help is the amount of people getting on at one stop and they then get off at next stop instead of just walking the next block. They stand there waiting 10 minutes to get a tram and then don’t even travel far
What nonsense. There's nothing wrong with the tram network.
Thank you! I've felt for a long time: TOO MANY STOPS. If I can walk between stops in a minute, that's way too many. I'd say 200 m should be the minimum between stops, unless connecting with other transport
I always feel like it needs to be said in these discussion on the 'removal of tram networks across the globe' that while there was certainly political interference going on, when you consider the context of the time, and anticipated planning needs of the next few decades, trams no longer stacked up, and for most cities merely maintaining the existing networks would have resulted in rapidly depreciating returns while failing to provide service for newer developed suburbs.
The removal of trams across the road was predicated off 2 decades of decline in their relevance. When street trollies ruled the urban landscape they were basically the only way to rapidly travel an urban area without a horse. As gasoline powered vehicles became more and more practical, the need for street trollies declined. With the emergence of affordable private vehicles and busses that could adequality perform the main role of street trollies without the limitation of the required infrastructure, scaling back and (in most cases) removing tram networks was sensible.
In most jurisdictions it's only 40-50 years later that the urban environment conditions have swung back in favour of public transport investment as the best practice option. It's not that you can't predict this swing. We had cities with massive populations around the world already, and congestion is an issue that predates the motor-vehicle. The real issue is that you can't reasonably plan for such a long timeline, nor can you be expected to spend significant amounts of public money on something the public views as not being useful to them in the now. To keep tram networks would have been a gamble on providing the best possible service for residents 50 years in the future rather then providing the best possible service for residents in the immediate future. It's a difficult sell to the voting public, to spend the transport budget on something that isn't able to adequality serve the full public, for the sake of people who wont be born for 4 or 5 decades. In this context Melbourne really is anomalous in their decision to stick with the trams, and there are various factors at play that helped that outcome succeed (I believe the Melbourne network was more up to 'modern' standards in 1960 then most of the Australian networks, and required less immediate investment to maintain acceptable standards, that an a huge wave of public support for the trams).
It also really must be emphasised, without reservation, that the trams removed around the world really aren't the equivalent of the tram systems being built today. That is why I have been using the term 'street trolley' rather then light rail. Modern light rail systems almost universally feature dedicated right of ways, lanes free of car traffic, signal priority, high quality high capacity rollingstock and a higher quality standard for stops. A street trolley system from the 1940-60s really isn't much more then a modern bus service. I often see people complain about how they use to be able to catch a tram from one specific location in Brisbane to another, completely ignoring the fact that there is a modern bus route that almost identically replicates the old tram route they're talking about. As you highlight in this video, the portions of the Melbourne network that haven't received real investment over the past decades have really fallen off, and I'd argue that in that undeveloped form, they really aren't much better then a bus. Don't get me wrong, they are 'better' then a bus, not not so much so that you'd have gone out of your way to build it from scratch. You wouldn't spend millions to have a slightly better bus, you'd spend millions to have a significantly better bus.
I do think the complete removal of trams in cities across the world was short-sighted to some degree. Generally speaking I think the best option for most cities would have been to retrain a core network of a few key routes to be modernised, while shedding external, lower utilised routes. In my home town of Brisbane, there are a couple of the old tram routes that I think could well have been preserved and upgraded overtime to provide what would have been an invaluable service today. Likewise, there are many routes that I think wouldn't have been worth keeping. The problem with this though is that a lot of urban planning is strategically driven. The 'right' answer is heavily based on your overall objectives. The dominate planning perspective at the time was that inner-city suburbs would have little development while outer city expansion would be the prime mover of the next few decades. With that in mind there is just very little incentive to dedicated additional resources for the inner city areas you aren't planning to push growth in, particularly when there is no reason to believe they'll actually be necessary in the next few decades.
Despite being a massive train fanboy, I really don't think there was anything unreasonable about the removal of tram networks across the globe in the 40s-60s, and I don't think it's a given that we'd be better off today if they hadn't removed them.
Thanks for the video. Excellent as usual. Very good points. Another option would be closing some streets to cars. A less controversial option is removing the side parking and making these lanes for cars or turning lanes. This would greatly improve traffic flow as one person parallel parking can slow traffic a lot, plus the middle lanes could then become dedicated tram lanes. Another is smart traffic lights that act more like a police person would (e.g. let more cars through, change immediately after the last car goes through, and never go red when nobody is waiting). Another good option is no right turn. This holds up traffic all the time. If people were forced to pick smarter routes then they wouldn’t hold up traffic all the time. If we both greatly improved traffic flow, made trams a priority, removed excessive tram stops, as you suggest, then I believe this would make a huge improvement to tram speed.
I’m also going to keep mentioning that trams pollute less than electric buses (due to no tyre dust, and more efficiency) until I hear it mentioned by more than just me 🙂
That Nicholson Street section IS modern. They already removed several stops when they redid it. The biggest issue for the 96 is getting stuck at the lights crossing Victoria Parade and Alexandra Parade and to a lesser extent Johnston Street. Fix the priority there and there will be no need to reduce the stops.
In 1961 2 routes in Melbourne’s Western suburbs were closed down permanently, one replaced by a MMTB bus, the other not. A tram line down Footscray rd to Footscray and then to Brooklyn and North Altona would be a nice start.
1: You are not going to get majority accessible. We can just forget that. Costs too much, not enough room. 2: There are plenty of tram priority traffic lights. 3: They still have to share road with cars and cars pay just as much as trams.
Hilariously, yes the trams are slow, but when Tram routes are closed and replaced with busses?
It's INFINITELY WORSE
6:50 I think this is an unfair comparison, you are comparing a section of route 96 that is only a few kilometres from the CBD to the outermost part of route 75 which is, what like 20km away from the CBD. Of course there will be more stops on the section of route 96 because there is more of a need for it.
However, i still do agree with your idea of less frequent tram stops.