If I ever needed persuading that buses are cheaper than steetcars Sam certainly did that. After all, how can anyone really argue that it is cheaper to dig up a street, install railroad tracks and repave that street to put a vehicle than it is to simply take a rubber tired vehicle and run it on an existing street. Yet I have found an argument that streetcars are really cheaper than buses on high density routes. Here is is:
[url]http://beyonddc.com/?p=1733]/url]
The arguent is that while the initial cost of a streetcar line is higher operating expenses are lower because: 1. Streetars las much longer than buses. Buses are often replaced after 10 years. Streetcars can be rebuilt at lower cost and will last much longer. I don't know the ideal life of a streetcar. I do know that New Orleans runs Pearly Thomas cars originally built in 1924 which is 90 years old next year. The cars have been rebuilt more than once and have been upgraded over the years but they sure are old. 2. Electricity is generally a cheaper fuel than fossil fuels. And if history is any guide it will continue to be. But I think it is important to point out that streetcars can be run on fossil fuels just as well as buses are and buses can and are run on electricity. Actually both streetcars and buses could be run on the fuel that makes most sense on a particular route. 3. Finally, streetcars are bigger than buses. It isn't just that a typical streetcar is bigger than a typical bus; streetcars can be hooked together so one streetcar operator can operate 2 or more. The ability to carry more passengers means that fewer people are needed to operate streetcars and a fleet of buses carrying a similar number of people. Bus drivers' salaries and benefits and pension costs are a large part of the expenses of any bus system. Reducing the number of employees can create large savings over time, savings that can be used to find the higher national costs.
So are some cities losing money because they continue to use bus systems on heavily traveled routes?
John WR If I ever needed persuading that buses are cheaper than steetcars Sam certainly did that. After all, how can anyone really argue that it is cheaper to dig up a street, install railroad tracks and repave that street to put a vehicle than it is to simply take a rubber tired vehicle and run it on an existing street. Yet I have found an argument that streetcars are really cheaper than buses on high density routes. Here is is: [url]http://beyonddc.com/?p=1733]/url] The arguent is that while the initial cost of a streetcar line is higher operating expenses are lower because: 1. Streetars las much longer than buses. Buses are often replaced after 10 years. Streetcars can be rebuilt at lower cost and will last much longer. I don't know the ideal life of a streetcar. I do know that New Orleans runs Pearly Thomas cars originally built in 1924 which is 90 years old next year. The cars have been rebuilt more than once and have been upgraded over the years but they sure are old. 2. Electricity is generally a cheaper fuel than fossil fuels. And if history is any guide it will continue to be. But I think it is important to point out that streetcars can be run on fossil fuels just as well as buses are and buses can and are run on electricity. Actually both streetcars and buses could be run on the fuel that makes most sense on a particular route. 3. Finally, streetcars are bigger than buses. It isn't just that a typical streetcar is bigger than a typical bus; streetcars can be hooked together so one streetcar operator can operate 2 or more. The ability to carry more passengers means that fewer people are needed to operate streetcars and a fleet of buses carrying a similar number of people. Bus drivers' salaries and benefits and pension costs are a large part of the expenses of any bus system. Reducing the number of employees can create large savings over time, savings that can be used to find the higher national costs. So are some cities losing money because they continue to use bus systems on heavily traveled routes?
First of all, a general observation in response to John WR’s note. It’s a mistake to compare a streetcar operation that exists primarily as a tourist attraction, to a straight transit use. The New Orleans cars are certainly very old. The San Francisco cable cars are even older. They do not continue to exist because they are the most efficient way to provide transportation services. They exist because they are important tourist attractions, and they fill that role very well.
Now let me turn to John’s three comments:
1. Older streetcars can certainly be made to last longer than busses. A modern bus, since it is a completely self contained vehicle, is far more complex than an older streetcar. Newer streetcars are also much more complex than older ones, and it’s an open question whether they can be made to last as long as the older, simpler models. I note that the San Diego light rail system is currently replacing LRV’s which they bought in the 1980’s and early 90’s, which represents a service life of about 25-30 years. Light rail vehicles don’t get the abuse of streetcars that spend their lives in stop and go service fighting street traffic. But even if streetcars can be made to last longer than busses, the much greater initial costs of the vehicles, and the huge, ongoing costs of the infrastructure required to operate them would easily offset any savings in greater vehicle life.
2. Historically, most streetcars ran on fossil fuel. Or, more precisely, they operated on electricity produced by burning fossil fuel. In fact, streetcar systems were often the largest users of electricity (and of fossil fuel) in the cities they served. As such, they were not (and are not) immune from fossil fuel price increases. The only systems that are largely immune to fossil fuel costs today are those which get electricity from sources such as hydro or nuclear.
3. The argument that streetcars should be retained because they had more capacity than busses was frequently made in the 1930’s. It fell by the wayside after WWII as more and more passengers deserted streetcar systems and busses became larger and more reliable.
The fact is that some streetcars have more capacity than busses, and some do not. Modern, articulated busses have larger capacities than most older streetcars. If you go back into the history of street transit, you will see that many streetcar operators surrendered the theoretically greater capacity of streetcars as early as the 1920’s in favor of small cars (the Birney safety car) that better fit their declining traffic base. In other words, the theoretically greater capacity of a large streetcar was of no value to them.
Of course, you could build streetcar trains today that have more capacity than even the largest busses. But the problem with surface transit in most U.S. cities isn’t that the vehicles don’t have enough capacity. It’s that the capacity that they have isn’t being fully utilized. I’ve lived in both Chicago (still a major transit city) and Omaha. Omaha used to be a major streetcar city with a comprehensive streetcar system. They removed the “standee” straps in Omaha during the 1930’s because of passenger declines. Today, it’s hard to find a bus in Omaha even in the “rush” hours which is anywhere near full. Clearly, they dosn’t have any need for higher capacity rail vehicles. The same is true in many, many other cities which used to have extensive streetcar systems. And even in few “big” cities, where the busses often run full (like Chicago), they often aren’t being operated at anything close to the headways that streetcars used to be operated. I suppose that, theoretically, you could run long streetcar trains on lengthier headways to provide the same capacity with less employees. But, if you did that, surface transit would become even less convenient than it is today and drive more passengers away.
From an economic standpoint, if uyou do the math for all costs involved, typically a streetcar installation makes sense only when passenger boardings exceed 20,000 per day at a particular location looking at both directions. Some of the museum-heritage operatons are less than 1,000 per day!
But streetcars are fun. They can attract retail shoppers to an area.
One f the things that frustrates me is that today, many in and out of government, fail to understand that there are routes best served by LRT's and routes that are better served by buses or commuter rail. This is certainly true in Minneapolis/St Paul. We are paying for the silly and stupid mistakes made in the 1950's.Of course one of them was the abandoning streetcars completely in 1954.We have gone through a hotly debated rebuilding of an LRT line along University Avenue which was abandoned by TCRT in 1954.This route should never have been abandoned. I was TCRT's busiest route,operated with PCC cars exclusively. Those PCC cars could have been operated for many years after 1954.
I should not have said typical. The 20,000 figure applies for laying track in streets without major and vast relocation of utilities. This can raise the figure. In the old days utilities were permitted to interrupt service on one track, and temporary "pancake" switches were used to facilitate single-track operaton throught the affected area. Mosr successful light rail lines run 40,000 rides a day or higher.
The story of the rape of the Twin Cities streetcars is fairly well known, and in this case it was not GM (although they leased the buses) who but an "investor" who saw an opportunity to profit from sale of scrap and then lease buses to increase operating costs justifying fare increases.
Don't confuse modern LRT's with streetcars. While the vehicles may be broadly similarIy, the services and infrastructure are not.
LRT's are essentially rapid transit systems. While they may have some street trackage, most of the mileage is usually on private rights of way. And even the street trackage is usually in reserved lanes not shared with other street traffic. As a result, an LRT system can offer service which is superior to a busses that get caught in street traffic.
The classic streetcar systems of yore, on the other hand, operated mostly in city streets, without reserved traffic lanes. Streetcars had to fight their way through street traffic just like any other street vehicle. The only difference was that streetcars ran on rails embedded in the pavement rather than driving on the pavement. And, unlike a bus line, an entire streetcar line could be brought to a stop by one double parked car. Streetcars like this had no real service advantages over busses. Prior to WWII, they might have had an advantage in terms of capacity, but this became meaningless in the post WWII period as busses became larger and riders deserted public transit by the millions for private autos.
daveklepper I should not have said typical. The 20,000 figure applies for laying track in streets without major and vast relocation of utilities. This can raise the figure. In the old days utilities were permitted to interrupt service on one track, and temporary "pancake" switches were used to facilitate single-track operaton throught the affected area. Mosr successful light rail lines run 40,000 rides a day or higher. The story of the rape of the Twin Cities streetcars is fairly well known, and in this case it was not GM (although they leased the buses) who but an "investor" who saw an opportunity to profit from sale of scrap and then lease buses to increase operating costs justifying fare increases.
Have you read the excellent "Twin Cities By Trolley" book by Diers and Isaacs (University of Minnesota PRess, 2007, ISBN-13:978-08166-4358-5)? While the authors have nothing good to say about the management team who presided over the bus conversion (some of whom went to prison), they also point out that TCRT's ridership tanked big time after WWII - a loss of 45 million riders in just three years. Their view is that the conversion "was inevitable and necessary given the loss of riders, TCRT's deteriorating financial situation and the public's preference for the automobile".
All that said, streetcars are very definitely fun - the older the better..
An example is Portland, OR. Compare MAX with the streetcar, MAX has higher speeds, dedicated lanes, private ROWs, and a tunnel, all of which the streetcar lacks.
The REAL difference, According to LION is commitment.
Beese come and go, like putting your hand in a pail of water. Pull it out and leaves no trace in the water. Such are the beese.
A street car demonstrates commitment to a community: It is going to stay there, and the city/county that put it there has a continuing interest in "there", wherever there is. This in turn increases property values. Stick you hand in a can of Crisco: the impression remains, everybody can see that your hand was there.
Such is a streetcar line.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
BroadwayLion The REAL difference, According to LION is commitment. Beese come and go, like putting your hand in a pail of water. Pull it out and leaves no trace in the water. Such are the beese. A street car demonstrates commitment to a community: It is going to stay there, and the city/county that put it there has a continuing interest in "there", wherever there is. This in turn increases property values. Stick you hand in a can of Crisco: the impression remains, everybody can see that your hand was there. Such is a streetcar line. ROAR
The few "streetcar" lines (as opposed to LRT lines) that still exist today may be somewhat more resilient that the rest of the industry was, particularly those that fill an important tourist function (e.g., San Francisco, New Orleans). Also, government being what it is, once a government agency has spent a bundle to build a streetcar line, they are unlikely to discontinue service in the short term. The long term, however, may be a different story, as ridership patterns change and the line requires additional investment to remain in service. Recall that the Detroit heritage streetcar line - one of the things that was supposed to "save" downtown Detroit - was abandoned when the track required reconstruction.
IMHO any transit whether it be bus, street car, electric bus, light rail, commuter rail, is the ability to provide reliable - constant time service at all times of the day.
When there is the ability to run different length trains using the same operator for a full day's pay then many economies of scale are then available.
Ex . If in the morning an operator can run a three car train into the employment center leave 2 cars go back out to the end of the line then couple up and bring in 3 cars again the wear and tear on the cars is reduced + less energy used. This is somewhat the way Portland was in the past although I have no idea what the situation is now.
Late in the evening , overnight, early morning, a shorter car compatible with longer cars can be operated. Again operator gets a full single shift work day. This type operation allows for memory schedules which will attract some additional passengers.
The problem of down town parking, end of line maintenance facilities is not easily resolved especially in very extreme weather locations.
Streetcar lines were often abandoned because they simply did not make economic sense when a great majority of the local trips in the community were by private car, and they would not make economic sense today. (Special cases as a fun drawer to retail neighborhoods are exceptions.) But Flatbush Avenue and Nortons Point, Brooklyn, 42nd Street and Broadway-42nd Street Manhattan, Woodward Avenue and Michigan-Grand in Detroit, and most of Capitol Transit, were bussed because of non-economic political considerations and should have remained streetcar. Canal Street, New Orleans was another and has been restored. The streetcar and light rail lines being built today are in an environment where the bus and auto are mature technologies and economies, and thus they should last, unless teleportation or something similar is developed!
Many streetcar routes in Manhattan and on Capital Transit were equipped with conduit pickup, which has a lot more maintenance issues than overhead. While I won't deny that political factors had a lot to do with converting these lines to bus, I'm not sure that they would have lasted much longer as streetcar routes than they did.
I've read all of the comments on this thread. Here is my response:
My suggestion is really that we should reconsider streetcars for specific high volume lines where they might be a better way than the buses now used. Actually, "Reconsidering Streetcars" would have been a better title than "Bringing Back Streetcars." My title suggests a return to the old days but that is not really what I intended to say. My intention is to argue that today we should look at streetcars and buses in the context of today's needs and other realities.
After posting I did a little research about some bus lines close to me and learned that they could be examples for partial replacement with streetcars.
New Jersey Transiit's 11/28 line runs from Market Street, Newark via Washington and Broad Streets and then Bloomfield Avenue to Montclair where route 28 branches off to go to Montclair State University and then to Willowbrook Mall. Route 11 leaves Bloomfield Avenue at Route 23 also ending at Willowbrook Mall. Each day there are 74 buses in each direction. Service is between 6 am and midnight.
NJT's 72 line (which I take) begins at Newark Penn Station running on Raymond Boulevard to Washington Street where it follows an identical route to the 11/28 up to Broad Street where it turns right and continues on to Paterson. here are 41 buses each way from 6 am to midnight (not 74 as I originally posted in error),
On average the 11/28 line has a bus about every 15 minutes and during rush hours buses are about 5 to 7 minutes apart. The 72 line averages a bus every 26 minutes and during rush hours buses are 20 minutes apart. At mid day my 72 is so full it has a few people standing and during rush hours it can be too full for the driver to stop to pick up passengers. This must also be true for the 11/28 which has an identical route except for a few blocks at the beginning. The distance to Broad Street (where the routes diverge) is about 6 miles. New Jersey Transit does not publish ridership by bus route much less part of a route. However, it is certainly possible that ridership on these routes equals or exceeds 20,000 trips per day on week days. NJT operates standard 40 foot transit buses on these routes. The section of the routes which are identical to each other could be considered as a candidate for conversion to street cars.
It has been noted that larger articulated buses are available. NJT uses them but not on the above routes. It has also been noted that streetcars can be smaller than standard sizes. I suggest that whether buses or streetcars are used for transit the size of the vehicle should be fitted to the needs of the operation that it serves.
The point is made that electric traction may well rely on fossil fuels; however those fossil fuels are simply burned at another location. My point in bringing up electricity is that it is generally a cheaper fuel than fossil fuel used for an internal combustion engine. Of course there is also maintenance of an overhead wire system or conduit system. However, perhaps this issue is not really relevant. Both buses can streetcars can be operated with either electricity or an internal combustion engine.
I am suggesting streetcars as a better way than buses to move high volumes of people. I do not suggest them for economic development of an area or as a tourist attraction. Those ideas should be evaluated on their own merits. Also, I am not suggesting that generally we should replace bus lines with streetcar lines; actually I believe the opposite. Most transit lines do not have a high enough volume to make streetcars practical and are much more suited to buses. My post is all about lines where buses are so successful that streetcars would be even more successful.
Streetcars, where they are used, have a long history in the United States of outlasting buses by decades. Today electronic technology is the state of the art. Electronic technology is in fact much more long lasting than traditional electromechanical technology. Today we have ac induction traction motors which are clearly superior to old fashioned dc traction motors. Moving parts still wear out but today electronics allows us to have fewer of them. In New Orleans streetcars have been upgraded with electronic technology and some have been running almost 90 years. I don't suggest that as the idea but their history suggests the decision to replace a streetcar is as much or more of a policy decision than a decision dictated by the fact that the vehicle is worn out.
It is true that I propose streetcars running in streets which also carry other vehicles. I don't expect they will operate any faster than current busses. The tracks could be in the right traffic land which would preserve curbside parking and at the same time not require passengers to cross a lane of traffic. And to the extent there are cars stalled on the tracks they would have to be promptly moved or towed away but that is true with buses also because of the general amount of traffic on the streets. Ideally we could use technology to enable green lights to last long enough to give them preference. In the Essex county lines I describe above this is not done now but it could be done equally well with buses as with streetcars. The only real advantage in speed I can see is if we can combine street car and bus lines with light rail lines and I will say more about that later. But I agree there would be no advantage in speed if streetcars were to replace buses on heavily used routes.
Permanence. I am talking about heavily used bus routes which are pretty permanent themselves. Streetcars are if anything more permanent than buses although nothing is forever. I think permanence is most important when a streetcar route is installed where there is not a current need but where it is hoped to attract development to an area. If a bus route is put in a similar location there is no demonstrated commitment by government to maintain it but the capital cost of a streetcar line demonstrates a commitment by government.
Personnel and trains of cars. One advantage of streetcars is that they may be hooked together in trains of cars. A train of cars takes many fewer operators than individual buses. Buses are more labor intensive. Labor costs include wages and salary, fringe benefits such as health insurance and funding pension systems. Those are very significant costs. To the extent that total employees can be reduced there can be real savings.
It has been pointed out that in an all bus system any bus driver can drive any bus which makes management's job easier that it would be with bus drivers and streetcar operators whose positions are not interchangeable. No doubt this is true; however it also reveals a lack of faith in managers to manage a transportation system. Since there are cities with both buses and streetcars the problem seems to be surmountable.
I think I have responded to all of the points mentioned above. I will later respond to the points mentioned below.
John
Chalk said he wanted to keep streetcars, and the PCC's were well-maintained and so was the track right to the end. He may have been posturing, but I believed him and still do. Congress forced this issue.
John WR: The fossil fuels question has met a game changer as the natural gas boom is now here. GE makes a recupertative electric generator system that can recover almost 50% of total energy content of natural gas. That is almost double the recovery of any reciprocating motor vehicle. + the emissions of the system is much less than oil.
One has to wonder if running light rail trains with power from a center rail conduit mmight work much better now than in past years ?
The Washington conduit system was well maintained, and the one line that was thought to be a maintenance problem, Rossllyn - Benning, had already been abandoned. And when they dug up some of the tracks for extensive road regrading, they found the conduit in much better condition than expected. Even with the conduit system, the density of traffic, the condition of the track and cars, the then age of the cars, all argued for economic reasons to preserve rail operation. If this would have continued after the Metro was constructed is arguable. But streetcars or light rail or something inbetween is coming to Washington, DC, now.
In response to JohnWR's latest note, let me state right off the bat that I'm not familiar with NJT's bus operations in the Newark area. However, based on the information in the note, I have to question whether any of the routes he mentions are candidates for rail service, whether "streetcar" or LRT.
As I understand his note, these routes operate on 15 minute headways. They use standard, 40 foot busses, not the larger articulateds on the market (which apparently NJT has, but chooses to use on other routes). Sometimes, there are standees on the busses, and somethimes a bus has too many passengers to make a pickup. The latter conditions occur from time to time on any bus line with decent patronage (as opposed to bus lines that normally run nearly empty).
A 15 minute headway with standard busses isn't very impressive. The easy measures NJT could take to increase capacity, without a huge investment in rail infrastructure, would be to shorten the headways and/or use larger busses. The fact that NJT has apparently not chosen to take either of these measures suggests that they regard the existing capacity as adequate.
In one of my earlier notes, I mentioned the Diers/Isaacs book on the Twin Cities streetcar system ("Twin Cities by Trolley"). This book has information on the headways on the various TCRT streetcar routes, and it's interesting to compare these with the Newark headways John mentions. The principal TCRT routes appear to have had service frequencies of 10-15 minutes off peak and 3-5 minutes peak.
FALCON48: Your analysis seems very thorough. The telling piece is the use on the routes in question of 40' buses, which have 42 seats versus 59 on NJT's articulated buses.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
As much as I would lok forward to greater NJT use of rail transit, I must agree with FALCON on this case. And doubly so because there are more pressing needs for NJT capital funds.
Maybe a return to an "all four" system is best, perhaps adding a fifth in Light Rail between streetcars and rapid transit. The best system for each route.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-four_(public_transport)
If you include PATH, NJT's territory has electrified commuter rail, diesel commuter rail, rapid transit (PATH), Light Rail (Hudson-Bergan County, Newari-Bloomfield, River-Line Camden-Trenton-Diesel, and bus. You could count this as six if you wanted to. And add a seventh, ferry boats on the Hudson River. Then there are taxicabs, making an eighth.
blue streak 1 GE makes a recupertative electric generator system that can recover almost 50% of total energy content of natural gas.
Streak,
This is totally new to me, something I never even thought of before your post. With Google I found GE CL.AIR, a system which captures, recompresses and reburns exhaust gases (methane) leaving only carbon dioxide and water. Is that what you refer to? What is unclear to me is the link to an electric generator. Of course the system could be used to provide power for a generator but that seems to be not necessary. Or maybe it is not small enough to put in an individual vehicle but would be used to power a generating system which then could provide power to transit vehicles. I'm still a little confused here.
Falcon,
I'm responding to you because several others have and think highly of your analysis.
First, my main point is that buses require one operator per vehicle while streetcars do not. One operator per vehicle maximizes the number of people required to operate a transit system and adds the maximum number of management officials to oversee that maximum number of operators. Given the high costs of labor which, in addition to wages and salary included fringe benefits such as health insurance for whole families, social security and medicare taxes, pensions and other things is is really a good idea to commit a transit system to maximizing these costs? Certainly streetcars have a higher initial cost but because they can be connected in trains with one operator for a train of 2 or 3 cars they offer the potential for reducing labor costs.
I appreciate the fact that you are not familiar with New Jersey Transit, the system I personally happen to use and I don't expect you or anyone to be familiar with it. I refer to it because I need to post about things I have experience with. Actually the 11/28 bus routes operate with an average headway of about 15 minutes but some headways are as short as 5 or 6 minutes and others are longer depending upon the time of day. The 72 route has a headway of 20 to 30 minutes during weekdays with an average of 26 minutes.
The fact that people on NJT buses often must stand is not a problem. The fact that buses sometimes pass stops because they are too full to pick up more people is. The city of Newark, New Jersey happens to have a high crime wait and to be waiting on the curb of a city street can often be unsafe. You point out that NJT could shorten headways or use larger buses to address this problem. The fact of the matter is that NJT does not do either of those things. I doubt very much that anyone at NJT believes leaving people standing at city bus stops while buses pass them by is "adequate." That suggests a dismissive attitude about passenger safety. Rather, I think transit managers do the best they can with the number of busses they have.
I am not at all family with Twin Cities by Trolley. I did go to Amazon and look up reviews of the book. From what I can see it is the history of the trolley system in Minneapolis and St. Paul, a history which ended in 1950. I like history and I'm sure it is fascinating. What I don't see is that it is about American transit systems today, especially the problem of dealing with labor costs which are much larger than they were in 1950.
You suggest that for the routes in my example buses really make more sense than streetcars would and those who express opinions agree with you. You make a very good point. I write about these routes because I try to write about things I know about but the fact that I know more about these routes than I know about others in and of itself does not make them good candidates for streetcar lines. But I do ask if you believe that buses with labor costs of one operator per vehicle are necessarily the best choice for all transit lines which run in the streets? I suggest that streetcars may be a better choice for some lines.
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis of a topic I think is important.
NorthWestThe best system for each route.
NorthWest,
Your comment took the words right out of my mouth. All transit routes are not the same. We should fit the vehicles to the routes and transit operators are beginning to see that.
Using your link I found another which I think is helpful:
The San Diego trolley's Siemens S 70's being delivered seat 60, with much standing room (commuter capacity = 102). . Price: $4.3 mil. per car. I have no idea how much a bus costs, but $4.3 mil. plus the cost of building trackage and overhead wire sounds like a pretty hefty investment on bus lines that as JohnWR describes them sound like fairly low-density routes. Streetcars are wonderful, but belong on higher-density lines, as Dave Klepper and others have suggested.
Addendum:
"Based on 2011 values in the US, the purchase cost of a regular 40 ft bus is $280,000 to $300,000 compared to a hybrid bus that is between $450,000 and $550,000."
http://www.intrans.iastate.edu/publications/_documents/t2summaries/hybrid_transit_bus_tech_brief1.pdf
John,
I think streak was referring to gas turbines with a recuperator - a device that uses the heat from the exhaust gases to preheat the air from the compressor prior to admission to the combustion chambers. An even more effective use of the exhaust gas heat is a combined cycle plant, where 60% of the energy from natural gas can be converted to electricity. The only practical mobile version of a combined cycle plant would be a ship's propulsion system.
Buses pretty much require some sort of hydrocarbon fuel (petroleum or natural gas), with alcohols and bio-diesel as an option. Electricity can be generated from a wide variety of sources besides hydrocarbons, with coal, nuclear, hydro and the new-fangled renewables.
One other aspect of bus vs streetcar is labor. The North County Transit District cited labor being the largest single cost of running a bus transit system as the reason for investing in the DMU Sprinter line. A DMU or MU'ed LRV can carry several times the number of passengers as a bus. Conversely, this implies that the classic single car streetcar doesn't make much sense.
- Erik
erikemBuses pretty much require some sort of hydrocarbon fuel (petroleum or natural gas), with alcohols and bio-diesel as an option. Electricity can be generated from a wide variety of sources besides hydrocarbons, with coal, nuclear, hydro and the new-fangled renewables.
Trolley busses do use electricity (and I am sure you know this), accelerate faster, potentially providing more capacity. They are cheaper than putting in tracks, only needing the wires, and can operate in more than one lane on the same set of wires placed in the middle of two lanes. They also are much easier to use in tunnels. But they lack MU capability, and turn intersections into masses of wires. So, they probably fit in above diesel busses, and below streetcars.
To each route the best vehicle!
schlimm The San Diego trolley's Siemens S 70's being delivered seat 60, with much standing room (commuter capacity = 102). . Price: $4.3 mil. per car. I have no idea how much a bus costs, but $4.3 mil. plus the cost of building trackage and overhead wire sounds like a pretty hefty investment on bus lines that as JohnWR describes them sound like fairly low-density routes. Streetcars are wonderful, but belong on higher-density lines, as Dave Klepper and others have suggested. Addendum: "Based on 2011 values in the US, the purchase cost of a regular 40 ft bus is $280,000 to $300,000 compared to a hybrid bus that is between $450,000 and $550,000." http://www.intrans.iastate.edu/publications/_documents/t2summaries/hybrid_transit_bus_tech_brief1.pdf
If trolleys cost aprox. 10x the cost per seat of a bus, it hardly seems like a contest. Trolleys may last longer, but not 10x longer. Regarding labor costs, a multi car trolley must either have extra crew to collect fares, or have ticket machines and compliance personnel, plus track and wire maintainers.
Schlimm,
Like others you mention I too have suggested streetcars belong on high density lines. I used lines I am familiar with as an example and certainly my rider's perspective may not be sufficient to conclude streetcars would be a good choice for them. But that does not negate my argument that we should fit the transit vehicle to the route. And I think we need to consider labor costs. Do we want to have a policy of one operator per vehicle or do we want to have the option of one operator for multiple vehciles?
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