Suburban bus routes that can be converted to Tram

[rmz19]

Visiting Paris over a month ago got me thinking, the city has a diverse tram system which mostly traverses the outer city/suburbs, some tram routes are orbital while others are more local. I drew some comparisons to London and deduced that the reason why we don't have a tram system as diverse as Paris is due to our relatively dense bus system which covers the entirety of the city, whereas due to the fewer amount of bus routes in the Parisian suburbs trams compensate for that.

This is not something I generally advocate or favour, I prefer to have more buses over trams, although having both a dense bus and tram system together would be great if possible, however if there were some bus routes you think can be potentially converted to trams what routes would you choose? One bus route per geographical part of London is only allowed i.e. north, west and east, with the obvious exception of south. The routes must also be suburban and orbital in their nature.

My choices would be the 102 for north, 140 for west and 229 for east.

[routew15]

Jun 6, 2017 17:54:47 GMT rmz19 said:

Visiting Paris over a month ago got me thinking, the city has a diverse tram system which mostly traverses the outer city/suburbs, some tram routes are orbital while others are more local. I drew some comparisons to London and deduced that the reason why we don't have a tram system as diverse as Paris is due to our relatively dense bus system which covers the entirety of the city, whereas due to the fewer amount of bus routes in the Parisian suburbs trams compensate for that.

This is not something I generally advocate or favour, I prefer to have more buses over trams, although having both a dense bus and tram system together would be great if possible, however if there were some bus routes you think can be potentially converted to trams what routes would you choose? One bus route per geographical part of London is only allowed i.e. north, west and east, with the obvious exception of south. The routes must also be suburban and orbital in their nature.

My choices would be the 102 for north, 140 for west and 229 for east.

I'm personally still a big fan of the cross river tram (essentially the 59, 136 & 168) it is shame tram depot space is a challenge in zone 1/2. Orbital tram routes seem sensible idea, the ELT comes to mind as this was its eventual plan. 

[snoggle]

Jun 6, 2017 17:54:47 GMT rmz19 said:

Visiting Paris over a month ago got me thinking, the city has a diverse tram system which mostly traverses the outer city/suburbs, some tram routes are orbital while others are more local. I drew some comparisons to London and deduced that the reason why we don't have a tram system as diverse as Paris is due to our relatively dense bus system which covers the entirety of the city, whereas due to the fewer amount of bus routes in the Parisian suburbs trams compensate for that.

This is not something I generally advocate or favour, I prefer to have more buses over trams, although having both a dense bus and tram system together would be great if possible, however if there were some bus routes you think can be potentially converted to trams what routes would you choose? One bus route per geographical part of London is only allowed i.e. north, west and east, with the obvious exception of south. The routes must also be suburban and orbital in their nature.

My choices would be the 102 for north, 140 for west and 229 for east.

I think you need to define "suburban" and "orbital". The obvious choice, and I'm going to break your rules, is the 253/4. That has sufficiently high demand and a lot of short hop traffic to make trams a viable option. I can just about see the 140 being done because it is hugely busy and you would make long term operational savings by replacing a lot of buses with fewer, high capacity trams.

Paris is actually an unusual example to quote because it is arguable as to where Paris itself starts and stops in both administrative and transport terms. It has little need for the more traditional radial tram network, as seen in many cities, because the Metro and RER is so dense. The new tram lines tend to link outer suburban centres which are fairly "stand alone" in the nature or as a replacement for the very long established "petit ceinture" inner circular bus service which itself mirrored a long abandoned railway line. The huge advantage Paris has is that it has a long term funding arrangement and it is not afraid of doing more than one scheme at once. It's perfectly happy to build multiple tram lines, extend its Metro and RER networks and invest in buses. We've only had one such period, the last 10-15 years, in the last 60-70 years which is frankly ridiculous. Furthermore the rest of the country is now in "revenge" mode and doesn't want to see London have any more schemes. No such issue in France where they spend across the country.

[rmz19]

Jun 6, 2017 18:32:07 GMT snoggle said:

Jun 6, 2017 17:54:47 GMT rmz19 said:

Visiting Paris over a month ago got me thinking, the city has a diverse tram system which mostly traverses the outer city/suburbs, some tram routes are orbital while others are more local. I drew some comparisons to London and deduced that the reason why we don't have a tram system as diverse as Paris is due to our relatively dense bus system which covers the entirety of the city, whereas due to the fewer amount of bus routes in the Parisian suburbs trams compensate for that.

This is not something I generally advocate or favour, I prefer to have more buses over trams, although having both a dense bus and tram system together would be great if possible, however if there were some bus routes you think can be potentially converted to trams what routes would you choose? One bus route per geographical part of London is only allowed i.e. north, west and east, with the obvious exception of south. The routes must also be suburban and orbital in their nature.

My choices would be the 102 for north, 140 for west and 229 for east.

I think you need to define "suburban" and "orbital". The obvious choice, and I'm going to break your rules, is the 253/4. That has sufficiently high demand and a lot of short hop traffic to make trams a viable option. I can just about see the 140 being done because it is hugely busy and you would make long term operational savings by replacing a lot of buses with fewer, high capacity trams.

Paris is actually an unusual example to quote because it is arguable as to where Paris itself starts and stops in both administrative and transport terms. It has little need for the more traditional radial tram network, as seen in many cities, because the Metro and RER is so dense. The new tram lines tend to link outer suburban centres which are fairly "stand alone" in the nature or as a replacement for the very long established "petit ceinture" inner circular bus service which itself mirrored a long abandoned railway line. The huge advantage Paris has is that it has a long term funding arrangement and it is not afraid of doing more than one scheme at once. It's perfectly happy to build multiple tram lines, extend its Metro and RER networks and invest in buses. We've only had one such period, the last 10-15 years, in the last 60-70 years which is frankly ridiculous. Furthermore the rest of the country is now in "revenge" mode and doesn't want to see London have any more schemes. No such issue in France where they spend across the country.

I acknowledge these terms are a bit vague regarding this subject.

What I mean by 'orbital' is trunk routes that are radial in their nature and don't deviate away from their respective geographical areas, routes that generally lie along the axis of the part of London they are situated in i.e. north/south/east/west.

By 'suburban' I mean routes that are not in close proximity to Central London and lie within the outer city/suburban area. I won't mention zones as that would be too specific.

[joefrombow]

Wasn't there a plan before for the 207/427 from Shepherds Bush to Uxbridge to be turned into a tram ? I personally think a scheme like the ftr bus/tram hybrid First group operated in parts of the country would be a good idea in London on basically straight routes upgrade some of the Bus stops have fewer on the routes so like a semi express route and then a feeder route along side and have some dedicated lanes and even off road sections like a guided busway where possible upgrade the bus stops to a decent standard to fit the bus would save alot of money and provide a similar kind of experience but I know bendy buses are a touchy subject and most people don't like them but are they not very similar ? And as for routes I would say from Aldgate to Romford so 115/5 and also Aldgate to Romford via the 25/86 .

[snoggle]

Jun 7, 2017 5:23:28 GMT joefrombow said:

Wasn't there a plan before for the 207/427 from Shepherds Bush to Uxbridge to be turned into a tram ? I personally think a scheme like the ftr bus/tram hybrid First group operated in parts of the country would be a good idea in London on basically straight routes upgrade some of the Bus stops have fewer on the routes so like a semi express route and then a feeder route along side and have some dedicated lanes and even off road sections like a guided busway where possible upgrade the bus stops to a decent standard to fit the bus would save alot of money and provide a similar kind of experience but I know bendy buses are a touchy subject and most people don't like them but are they not very similar ? And as for routes I would say from Aldgate to Romford so 115/5 and also Aldgate to Romford via the 25/86 .

Yes the West London Tram (WLT) would have replaced the 207/427. It is an ideal corridor for a tram service because of the high level of usage overall and high proportion of relatively short journeys. I also agree with your East London route suggestions as they have the same characteristics. In today's environment you could only ever justify trams if you have a high demand corridor and / or the prospect of significant growth and linked development. Unfortunately the road lobby is too powerful in this country as are NIMBY lobbys so getting anything sensible done is close to impossible. The WLT was scrapped due to significant local opposition and the local political fall out in Ealing. Part of the deal for scrapping it was that Crossrail would be funded by Government but also that the 207 corridor would get vastly improved bus priority. The latter never happened.

I don't agree that First's half baked FTR concept offers any solutions. It was just a tarted up bendy bus with a ticketing system that never worked. The fact that First never deployed the full fleet, had to deploy conductors because the stop based ticket machines never worked and have withdrawn all FTR schemes shows they were a mess. Even the busway in Swansea was deemed too dangerous and, I believe, is being withdrawn or the traffic system redesigned. Anyone, anywhere can put in high capacity buses, better ticketing and improved bus priority if they want to and if they work with the right people. The end result, though, has to work and be kept working. We can see in London, all too readily, that it's possible to make improvements and then for things to change and all the hard work unravels within a few years.

[sid]

I'll go for the N86 in the east, Stratford-Romford-Harold Hill. The 109 in the south, joining up with the existing tramlink network. The 65 in the west and the 329 in the north. All seem to be busy routes with potential for attracting more users.

We can only ponder on what might have been if tram lines weren't ripped up years ago!

[vjaska]

For me, I'm happy the cross river tram scheme died a death as the Brixton proposal was to terminate it along part of the northern section of the market at Brixton Station Road where it is quite narrow. I'd also rather see the 109, 207 & other similar routes receive tri-axles instead.

[Gellico]

Converting existing bus routes to tram wouldn't be as effective as possible, a entirely new system would have to be thought out where trams do trunk route and buses do feeders to the tram network. Or to get the best of both worlds trolley buses, then you have no emmisons from transport and if the vehicles still had conventional power if there was an accident the entire service wouldn't grund to a halt.

[snoggle]

Jun 7, 2017 15:07:23 GMT Gellico said:

Converting existing bus routes to tram wouldn't be as effective as possible, a entirely new system would have to be thought out where trams do trunk route and buses do feeders to the tram network. Or to get the best of both worlds trolley buses, then you have no emmisons from transport and if the vehicles still had conventional power if there was an accident the entire service wouldn't grund to a halt.

Depends on what you mean by "effective". There is plenty of evidence from across the world that trams / light rail are a popular and well used mode of transport that are far more efficient than buses in terms of how many people can be carried in one vehicle / with one driver. You are correct that bus routes may well have to be restructured to provide different links to / from tram routes and stations. Where the UK tends to be very bad is in properly organising bus to rail interchange so that people can have predictable / reliable connections. Our inability to organise these properly taints people's views about having trams as the core of a local transport network. Other countries are perfectly capable of running effective transport systems but we never quite reach the same level of aspiration or delivery.

[twobellstogo]

Jun 7, 2017 15:07:23 GMT Gellico said:

Converting existing bus routes to tram wouldn't be as effective as possible, a entirely new system would have to be thought out where trams do trunk route and buses do feeders to the tram network. Or to get the best of both worlds trolley buses, then you have no emmisons from transport and if the vehicles still had conventional power if there was an accident the entire service wouldn't grund to a halt.

While I largely agree with you, I think some bus routes would still benefit from a tram conversion. Will do a list later, but to me the obvious one is the 109 corridor.

[Gellico]

Jun 7, 2017 16:10:54 GMT twobellstogo said:

Jun 7, 2017 15:07:23 GMT Gellico said:

Converting existing bus routes to tram wouldn't be as effective as possible, a entirely new system would have to be thought out where trams do trunk route and buses do feeders to the tram network. Or to get the best of both worlds trolley buses, then you have no emmisons from transport and if the vehicles still had conventional power if there was an accident the entire service wouldn't grund to a halt.

While I largely agree with you, I think some bus routes would still benefit from a tram conversion. Will do a list later, but to me the obvious one is the 109 corridor.

Elephant and Castle to Lewisham going down Old Kent Road would be very good however given the Bakerloo line extension it would seem a little pointless imo.

[astock5000]

Jun 7, 2017 15:27:48 GMT snoggle said:

There is plenty of evidence from across the world that trams / light rail are a popular and well used mode of transport that are far more efficient than buses in terms of how many people can be carried in one vehicle / with one driver.

That's true, however the maximum number of trams per hour along a given road will be far lower than the maximum number of buses possible. Tram systems are often thought of as more reliable then bus routes and that encourages use, but then with the issues with interchanges you mention and the inconvenience of changing in any case, some passengers may prefer to take a bus all the way instead of connecting to/from a trunk tram route.

Trams have a clear advantage where off-street alignments are possible (these are likely to have restricted clearances or low bridges and therefore be less suitable for a bus-only road). However if proper bus priority measures, vehicles with either open boarding or a layout designed for passenger flow, and in some cases limited stop services, were all provided there is no reason why a bus service couldn't be as quick and reliable as a tram running on-street. With buses it could be achieved with far less disruptive and expensive construction work while also being more flexible both in terms of altering routes or minimising disruption due to breakdowns, road closures, etc. Unfortunately 'bus rapid transit' as a concept isn't as popular as light rail and most schemes tend to be small scale and don't have the full amount of priority measures needed to make them comparable to a tram service.

[T.R.]

How about the 271 route between Archway* and Moorgate? Yes it's short but in terms of infrastructure the roads are mostly wide enough.

(*not sure about Highgate, both the hill and the village locals)

[southlondonbus]

The 280 kind of came close with the proposed extension of the Tramlink with a line from Sutton to Tooting. I know it was proposed to divert via St Helier Hospital and to link in at Mitcham Junction I think thou the 280 would have been withdrawn as the tram would have provided the link.