Cork - Light Rail [route options idenfication and initial design underway]

donvito99

Sam Russell wrote: »

If we install segregated bus lanes with high frequency (a bus every 2 mins), will this not suffer the same effect. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the trambus can be programmed to deviate from the same path to reduce this effect. Also, the surface can be concrete to reduce this effect also.

The single rail is not load bearing and in effect is merely an electric current return, so no special foundations are needed. This means installation is quick and cheap. The vehicles are probably the same cost, and could be similar to Luas trams. In fact, very similar to trolley buses, but using single O/H wires instead of twin O/H wires.

I don't think that's a sufficient solution though as ultimately you are presumably putting something in for the long haul? A tram/bus is going to cost more to run and maintain over its lifetime than a conventional tram system when you add up having to :

- resurface and repair the running way (I don't think there are all that many deviations that you can programme in) regularly
- replace vehicles more often and run more vehicles with more drivers in the first place to replicate the capacity of a tram (the Van Hool system carries about 150 pax per bus only). Also maintenance of a road vehicles more complicated chassis which comes in for more punishment is a headache
- it's never going to be as comfortable for passengers as a tram. I don't think this is a huge problem in Ireland where people inevitably have no choice, but it's worth noting and amounts to a cost to the passenger.

However, if you're not planning on moving all that many people (i.e. max 2k pph), and you don't expect demand to increase all that much and the system is going to be quite short (i.e. a couple of kilometres), then I think it is a good solution. I really don't know traffic in Cork all that well, but in Dublin I think this kind of system would be at moving people orbitally i.e. the Metro West route from Tallaght via a new bridge over the Liffey valley to Blanchardstown.

Sam Russell

donvito99 wrote: »

- resurface and repair the running way (I don't think there are all that many deviations that you can programme in) regularly
- replace vehicles more often and run more vehicles with more drivers in the first place to replicate the capacity of a tram (the Van Hool system carries about 150 pax per bus only). Also maintenance of a road vehicles more complicated chassis which comes in for more punishment is a headache
- it's never going to be as comfortable for passengers as a tram. I don't think this is a huge problem in Ireland where people inevitably have no choice, but it's worth noting and amounts to a cost to the passenger.

The deviation I am talking about is to reduce rutting by bustrams running exactly the same position in the road. I would envision each tram deviates from the exact position in a random fashion each time it runs - sometimes 5 cm to the left and sometimes 7 centimetres to the right. The roadway could be made of pre-cast concrete sections to speed construction and give a sound base for the trambus.

Why would maintenance be any worse than for a tram? The body would be similar and the suspension could be similar, but with ubber wheels. Both have electric drive. Trolley buses are used in Geneva - that would be a good place to look at for experience.

donvito99

Sam Russell wrote: »

The deviation I am talking about is to reduce rutting by bustrams running exactly the same position in the road. I would envision each tram deviates from the exact position in a random fashion each time it runs - sometimes 5 cm to the left and sometimes 7 centimetres to the right. The roadway could be made of pre-cast concrete sections to speed construction and give a sound base for the trambus.

But if you're going to the trouble of building a concrete running, why not go that little bit further at that point and install rails? That's the most expensive part of light rail, the trackbed.

Why would maintenance be any worse than for a tram? The body would be similar and the suspension could be similar, but with rubber wheels.

This isn't the case though, they're not similar at all. The chassis for a vehicle on a road has much more to do and needs much more TLC at more regular intervals than the bogie on a light rail vehicle. If they were similar, don't you think we'd have 55m long buses in operation? Wouldn't cities be abandoning existing systems and building trambus systems in lieu of new light rail systems if there was no penalty to building a trambus versus light rail?

Idbatterim

Sam Russell wrote: »

If the rut problem is a serious issue, the tambus could randomly take a different path as it trundled along. The ground rail is partly a guide but is also the return path for electric current. The road could be surfaced with concrete anyway if that is required. I am sure that it would not be a huge cost over tarmac.

It has the benefit that the ground rail takes no load so has no huge foundation and so can be quite cheap to lay, and if necessary, to move. I think it might be a good solution for Cork and other cities. Luas type tram systems are hugely expensive, and the tram bit is going to be more expensive than the trambus.

That's why I thought it could be good for cork. What's the saying ? The perfect being the enemy of the good often it isn't the choice between a good and very good solution here , they are so concerned with bean counting , it's the good option or none

Sam Russell

donvito99 wrote: »

But if you're going to the trouble of building a concrete running, why not go that little bit further at that point and install rails? That's the most expensive part of light rail, the trackbed.



This isn't the case though, they're not similar at all. The chassis for a vehicle on a road has much more to do and needs much more TLC at more regular intervals than the bogie on a light rail vehicle. If they were similar, don't you think we'd have 55m long buses in operation? Wouldn't cities be abandoning existing systems and building trambus systems in lieu of new light rail systems if there was no penalty to building a trambus versus light rail?

Luas is the only tram system with 55 m trams. Maybe we should ask why other cities run much shorter trams.

Most bus systems are diesel - and that limits everything about them. Most buses are old technology with little robotics or AI built into them. Most operators are very future averse. That is why there is little major advances outside China. They Chinese just do = without agonising as to why it cannot be done. They build cities easier than we build houses.

Garret FitzGerald said Luas should be built with an underground section as it would be unable to operate properly in the City Centre. Did they listen?

The trambus is electric not diesel and it need not be more bus than tram.

donvito99

Sam Russell wrote: »

Luas is the only tram system with 55 m trams. Maybe we should ask why other cities run much shorter trams.

It isn't though, Budapest and Sydney run vehicles as long or longer.

Most bus systems are diesel - and that limits everything about them.

Most buses are old technology with little robotics or AI built into them. Most operators are very future averse. That is why there is little major advances outside China. They Chinese just do = without agonising as to why it cannot be done. They build cities easier than we build houses.
...

The trambus is electric not diesel and it need not be more bus than tram.[/QUOTE]

It's not about where the power is coming from.

If you are looking to move a lot of people, you'll use a rail based solution as that is more efficient. If you are looking to move some people, a bus based solution is more efficient (all in).

This trambus doesn't know what it wants to be by definition. It is handicapped by running on a bus chassis and that is why planners have built tramways instead of guided buses despite that tech having been around for decades now.

Bringing it back to the thread at hand, applying a trambus to the proposed Cork Light Rail would be a mistake, just as applying a Luas on Dublin's Harcourt St and Broadstone alignments instead of a Metro was a mistake.

Carawaystick

marno21 wrote: »

These are rare occurrences to be fair. A better solution would be higher fines and enforcement for behaviour which leads to accidents

Its not just accidents and "deliberates" that block tram lines, the luas is delayed by parades, events, power outages and protests, in Dublin.
the busses are re-routed when these things happen.

I can't see trams getting up to Holyhill, or Summerhill, or even the airport, so bus only routes would be better.

As there is unlikely to be rail services to areas busses serve outside the city, bus only routes can use these also to allow quick and easy ways to get to the city from Carraigaline, Kinsale, West Cork, Glenmire, etc

niloc1951

Sam Russell wrote: »

There are various configurations that would work. O/H power with battery backup would allow the trambus to pull pass obstructions. A fully battery trambus would need recharging which means downtime at some point. .

In Saville (Spain) the tram system is only part overhard power supply.
In the suburbs and at city centre stops the pantograph raises automatically to collect power and charge the onboard battery pack, but when travelling through city centre streets it runs on battery power alone.
The obvious advantage is the saving of cost and disruption related to the installation of overhard cables in the city centre.

donvito99

niloc1951 wrote: »

.
The obvious advantage is the saving of cost and disruption related to the installation of overhard cables in the city centre.

Is the installation of overhead power infrastructure what causes the disruption and delay associated with these projects? I would have thought this was a pretty straightforward exercise, and that digging up city streets to build trackbed is the major issue.

niloc1951

[QUOTE This trambus doesn't know what it wants to be by definition. It is handicapped by running on a bus chassis and that is why planners have built tramways instead of guided buses despite that tech having been around for decades now.
[/QUOTE]

Spot the difference apart from the rails Nimes Trambus Light Rail Tram

niloc1951

donvito99 wrote: »

Is the installation of overhead power infrastructure what causes the disruption and delay associated with these projects? I would have thought this was a pretty straightforward exercise, and that digging up city streets to build trackbed is the major issue.

Agreed, but not installing overhard power cables in the city centre does save on the overall construction disruption and it also saves the on the visual polution of the cables. The lack of the overhead cabling in Saville is very noticable from an environmental point of view. SEE HERE
BTW the system in Saville is a light rail based system.

Sam Russell

Is the trambus just another version of the BRT that was proposed for Dublin?

From the Nimes pricing, it would appear to be 50% of the cast of the proposal they considered for a light rail version.

I see the Nimes system is run by Transdev.

donvito99

niloc1951 wrote: »

This trambus doesn't know what it wants to be by definition. It is handicapped by running on a bus chassis and that is why planners have built tramways instead of guided buses despite that tech having been around for decades now.

Spot the difference apart from the rails Nimes Trambus Light Rail Tram

One carries about 150 people and the other carries twice as many at least.

You're comparing a system which carries 1.3m passengers a year to a system that carries 40+ million passengers a year? Apples and oranges.

donvito99

niloc1951 wrote: »

Agreed, but not installing overhard power cables in the city centre does save on the overall construction disruption and it also saves the on the visual polution of the cables. The lack of the overhead cabling in Saville is very noticable from an environmental point of view. SEE HERE
BTW the system in Saville is a light rail based system.

You'd be paying more for vehicles though. This elegant solution is not without cost and I wouldn't describe it as cost saving measure.

This would be a good solution for Cork though if there is an aversion to overhead power supply through the city's core.

TheChizler

donvito99 wrote: »

One carries about 150 people and the other carries twice as many at least.

You're comparing a system which carries 1.3m passengers a year to a system that carries 40+ million passengers a year? Apples and oranges.

Can Cork sustain a service that carries up to 300+ every few minutes? Even with all the projected developments what is the expected demand? I'd take frequency of smaller trams and reliability over capacity unless there's hard evidence for the capacity requirement.

niloc1951

donvito99 wrote: »

One carries about 150 people and the other carries twice as many at least.

You're comparing a system which carries 1.3m passengers a year to a system that carries 40+ million passengers a year? Apples and oranges.

2016, population of Cork City = 125k, Nimes = 151k
The LUAS might carry 40+ million passengers a year but the population of the Dublin region is over 1.4m

The line T2 in Nimes, referred to in the link, is 11.5km and is projected to carry 28,000 passengers per day by June 2021 which is in the region of 10m per year.
While the LUAS might carry 40+ million passengers a year its combined routes represent over 40km.
Both figures are similar pro rata from passenger per km perspective.
Yes, apples and oranges, but Dublin and Cork are apples and oranges when it comes population size and spread and rapid transit solutions.
We should be looking at the solutions other similar sized orban areas have proven to be cost effective and not those relevent to high population / high density capitol cities.

BonnieSituation

It would be the guts of 250k if you weren't being strict about the city boundary, which we definitely should ignore in this case, even with the recent expansion.

donvito99

I think the lesson in Ireland is that we build things that are almost immediately at capacity (Dublin Airport T2, the Luas, Lansdowne Rd etc). We should be expecting Cork to grow in population and in economic activity.

Whilst much more cost effective than light rail, I don't think the Mahon Point to Ballincollig alignment should be BRT. As we've seen with Luas, when you get around to replacing ad upgrading the system to meet the inevitable massive passenger demand, locals - who live nearby and only seem to use the service off peak - will object to the upgrade and accuse government of 'tearing up Cork's perfectly fine BRT system' or something along those lines.

Sam Russell

donvito99 wrote: »

I think the lesson in Ireland is that we build things that are almost immediately at capacity (Dublin Airport T2, the Luas, Lansdowne Rd etc). We should be expecting Cork to grow in population and in economic activity.

Whilst much more cost effective than light rail, I don't think the Mahon Point to Ballincollig alignment should be BRT. As we've seen with Luas, when you get around to replacing ad upgrading the system to meet the inevitable massive passenger demand, locals - who live nearby and only seem to use the service off peak - will object to the upgrade and accuse government of 'tearing up Cork's perfectly fine BRT system' or something along those lines.

But surely, the expansion does not have to be higher capacity of the one line, but build more lines to spread the load.

I am not familiar with Cork, but Dublin went with two Luas lines, and when they reached capacity, the made them longer to make them even more over capacity, and then ran them through a jammed city centre causing complete a jam up. A better solution would have been to branch the lines and have multiple routes possible.

A single line for Cork should be just a start, with plans for a complete network that gets people to where they want to go - quickly, with at most one transfer. The Dublin solution has turned out to be two lines that cross, but do not interconnect, so it is not possible to go from St Steven's Green to Heuston without a transfer requiring a walk (in the rain).

Electric power is quicker and cleaner, as well as quieter. Electric motors have very high initial torque that gives fast acceleration - ideal for a tram/trambus.

Carawaystick

donvito99 wrote: »

Is the installation of overhead power infrastructure what causes the disruption and delay associated with these projects? I would have thought this was a pretty straightforward exercise, and that digging up city streets to build trackbed is the major issue.

At a Public consultation for a bus solution in Swords, the engineers confirmed this, its the foundations for heavier trams or metro that cost the money and take the time

snotboogie

niloc1951 wrote: »

2016, population of Cork City = 125k, Nimes = 151k
The LUAS might carry 40+ million passengers a year but the population of the Dublin region is over 1.4m

The line T2 in Nimes, referred to in the link, is 11.5km and is projected to carry 28,000 passengers per day by June 2021 which is in the region of 10m per year.
While the LUAS might carry 40+ million passengers a year its combined routes represent over 40km.
Both figures are similar pro rata from passenger per km perspective.
Yes, apples and oranges, but Dublin and Cork are apples and oranges when it comes population size and spread and rapid transit solutions.
We should be looking at the solutions other similar sized orban areas have proven to be cost effective and not those relevent to high population / high density capitol cities.

You are comparing a metro population (1.4 million) to an outdated City Council boundary population (125k). To emphasize how ridiculous the number is, about 30%-40% of the proposed tram line would be outside of the old city council boundaries you are using. The actual urban population of Cork was 210k in 2016.

ricimaki

This debate is essentially about whether Cork should get Bus-Rapid-Transit or Light-Rail-Transit.

When you look on Wikipedia, Europe has 8 countries with BRT lines, with the majority of them in France, which has 29 separate systems. Germany has a single BRT system

Comparatively, 25 European countries have LRT systems. France has 26 active systems, many of which are in cities which also have BRT lines.
Germany has >50 active tram networks currently.

Recent towns/cities such as Aubagne, with a population of ~50,000, chose LRT over BRT.

Whilst it's interesting debating the cost's of various systems, at the end of the day, very few European countries are implementing BRT systems. You can be sure they carried out detailed cost-benefit analysis, compared the 2 systems, went through public consultation etc. to come to this conclusion. I'm sure there are benefits to BRT, but there can't be that many...

As for cost of the systems, cost isn't the issue with public transport in Ireland. The lack of political will to do anything is the reason our transport is so bad. If it was enough of an issue for the general population, funding for tram's would be found. If BRT is chosen for cork, imagine how many politicians and media will complain about the millions being spent on a fancy bus...

salmocab

ricimaki wrote: »

As for cost of the systems, cost isn't the issue with public transport in Ireland. The lack of political will to do anything is the reason our transport is so bad. If it was enough of an issue for the general population, funding for tram's would be found. If BRT is chosen for cork, imagine how many politicians and media will complain about the millions being spent on a fancy bus...

I’d go further and say there would be uproar because Cork only got busses but Dublin gets a metro. I’ve long since felt that politicians use a Urban/Rural and Dublin/Rest of the country divide to their advantage whilst slyly actually pushing the agenda themselves.

niloc1951

ricimaki wrote: »

This debate is essentially about whether Cork should get Bus-Rapid-Transit or Light-Rail-Transit.

When you look on Wikipedia, Europe has 8 countries with BRT lines, with the majority of them in France, which has 29 separate systems. Germany has a single BRT system

Comparatively, 25 European countries have LRT systems. France has 26 active systems, many of which are in cities which also have BRT lines.
Germany has >50 active tram networks currently.

Recent towns/cities such as Aubagne, with a population of ~50,000, chose LRT over BRT.

Whilst it's interesting debating the cost's of various systems, at the end of the day, very few European countries are implementing BRT systems. You can be sure they carried out detailed cost-benefit analysis, compared the 2 systems, went through public consultation etc. to come to this conclusion. I'm sure there are benefits to BRT, but there can't be that many...

As for cost of the systems, cost isn't the issue with public transport in Ireland. The lack of political will to do anything is the reason our transport is so bad. If it was enough of an issue for the general population, funding for tram's would be found. If BRT is chosen for cork, imagine how many politicians and media will complain about the millions being spent on a fancy bus...

Having travelled extensively in Europe many many of the cities with LRT are legacy systems from the early 20th. century which have been updated and extended to 21st. century standards, although many continue to operate 20th. century rolling stock. example

Markcheese

salmocab wrote: »

I’d go further and say there would be uproar because Cork only got busses but Dublin gets a metro. I’ve long since felt that politicians use a Urban/Rural and Dublin/Rest of the country divide to their advantage whilst slyly actually pushing the agenda themselves.

Your right , there would (will) be uproar .. mainly from the people who wouldn't use either brt or light rail , and it'll distort and delay the whole shebang to the detriment of those who actually would use public transport ...

salmocab

Markcheese wrote: »

Your right , there would (will) be uproar .. mainly from the people who wouldn't use either brt or light rail , and it'll distort and delay the whole shebang to the detriment of those who actually would use public transport ...

Like I said earlier they should build something with a lot of redundancy in it, things like this need to be built with an eye on 50 years down the road and more. I don’t know Cork well enough to comment on the route but there is nothing surer than housing springing up along the line in increased densities.

niloc1951

salmocab wrote: »

Like I said earlier they should build something with a lot of redundancy in it, things like this need to be built with an eye on 50 years down the road and more. I don’t know Cork well enough to comment on the route but there is nothing surer than housing springing up along the line in increased densities.

A mass transit system, either rail based or not, is not a fixed asset. In furure times if needs be its capacity can be increased by more frequent service and/or network extensions.
Unlike other fixed assets, like for example the four roundabouts on the N40, extending the capacity of a mass transit system does not require re-engineering/alterations of the original infrastructure.

salmocab

niloc1951 wrote: »

A mass transit system, either rail based or not, is not a fixed asset. In furure times if needs be its capacity can be increased by more frequent service and/or network extensions.
Unlike other fixed assets, like for example the four roundabouts on the N40, extending the capacity of a mass transit system does not require re-engineering/alterations of the original infrastructure.

Not sure what your driving at but what I meant by redundancy is the ability to increase numbers by having room for higher frequency or larger carriages/vehicles. Obviously this would also mean that extensions or splits could be incorporated relatively easily.

TheChizler

The only part of this worth planning for 50 years down the road is the route, I don't think it's likely any of the direct infrastructure put in now (read now as in 10 years from now) will still be in use in 50 years time. Tracks, and overhead lines might all need or have been replaced (or be irrelevant) by then. No point trying to predict the future beyond the next 20/30 or so years. We could spend years planning for the future and get it wrong anyway, in the meantime we need a sustainable transport solution sooner rather than later.

Rulmeq

niloc1951 wrote: »

A mass transit system, either rail based or not, is not a fixed asset. In furure times if needs be its capacity can be increased by more frequent service and/or network extensions.
Unlike other fixed assets, like for example the four roundabouts on the N40, extending the capacity of a mass transit system does not require re-engineering/alterations of the original infrastructure.

Except in Ireland, where you will be accused or "ripping up the green line" when you try and plan for future upgrades.