One new snippet of information from the video below: the 220 metres test track was installed in only 2 months! So, a kilometre could be installed in 10 months if you are using just a single installation team, perhaps faster, as they learn how to do it.
Light rail systems always take ages to build. The reason for that is because you have to build a reinforced concrete bed for the track, and move all the utilities under the road to build that bed. With the VLR, the concrete bed isn't needed. In fact, the track is prefabricated, and you need to just remove the top 30 cm (1 ft) of the road surface to install the track. Because installation is so fast, a municipality could commit to building 1 or 2 miles a year, finish the track required, and have a network soon after construction begins. Each year thereafter, the network could expand. With heavier light rail, because of the construction difficulties, a whole line has to be built and completed before it can be opened.
Sometimes you see an idea that is so clever you wonder why no one thought of it before. Coventry's proposed very light rail is one of those.
It has been designed from scratch to minimise costs, with the aim being to allow large towns and small cities to have a tram network.
First, it has no overhead wires, but runs on batteries which are fast charging. The tram will be able to run 20 km (12.5 miles) on one charge. Overhead cabling is expensive, and in historic city centres, unsightly.
Second, the track is prefabricated. It is relatively lightweight, and shallower than conventional tram track, designed to be only 11 inches (30 cm) deep. That way the need to relocate cables, water pipes and gas pipelines is minimised or eliminated. The track is made off-site, is seated on prefabricated slabs, and is clipped together; it can easily be moved, or even temporarily lifted to facilitate work on utilities. Constructing the track is the biggest part of building a light rail/tram system. This technique dramatically reduces costs, and also speeds up construction 10-fold. Some new tram networks have taken 10 years to build, with massive disruption while they were being built.
The trams themselves will be lightweight, being made of a mixture of steel, aluminium and composites:
VLR vehicles weigh no more than a tonne per linear kilometre. Hence, whilst a heavy rail vehicle typically weighs 44 tonnes and can carry 100 passengers, a similarly loaded 11-tonne Coventry VLR vehicle carries 50 passengers. This lower weight reduces infrastructure costs which is a key area for driving down railway costs. [Read more here]
All these innovations will allow the tram track to be built for about £10 million per kilometre, between one half and one quarter the cost of a conventional light rail.
The track is where the significant cost savings come in. Sitting beneath today’s roads is a crisscross of utilities – gas, water, internet – which can be extremely costly to relocate. This means traditional urban [light] rail can cost anywhere between £25m and £50m per kilometre – with £100m not unheard of in some city centre locations.
The new track, designed from scratch in partnership with WMG and Ingerop, will sit just 30cm into a road surface, minimising the need to move utilities. As a result, Coventry City Council estimates the new track could cost closer to £10m per kilometre to install. [Read more here]
Each tram is about the size of a bus, 11 metres (36 feet) long, 2.65 m (8 ft 8 inches) wide, and 3.17 m (10 ft 5 inches high), and will hold up to 56 passengers.
Why a tram network instead of a bus?
In recent years it has been recognised that due to climate change, air quality, and congestion, there needs to be a shift from cars to public transport.
The permanency of rail tracks encourages clustering of housing, businesses, and leisure facilities along urban routes, whilst improved transport links in rural areas help boost productivity and level up disparities. However, such situations do not necessarily generate high passenger numbers so the challenge is for such rail routes to be financially sustainable.
Nick pointed out that recent developments in technology such as lightweighting, batteries, fast charging, 5G, digital manufacturing, and autonomous operation have made a new mode of affordable rail-based transport possible in the form of VLR which “does what it says on the tin.” [Read more here]
The video below shows a test run.
I consulted the following sources for this article:
We will have to get used to the fact that traffic jams are here to stay. After all, if traffic can move one per cent faster during rush hour, this will increase car commuting by just over one per cent. This follows from research by Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch Road Authority. The study provides a simple insight into the behavioural effects of various mobility measures. These are average effects that can vary in specific situations.
Rijkswaterstaat's findings are in line with international research. A synthesis of five studies concludes that in urban areas, one per cent extra motorway capacity leads to one per cent extra traffic. For urban trunk roads, the figure is 0.75 percent. This confirms the 'fundamental law of road congestion', as one of the five underlying studies is called. A study of the impact of 16 motorway widenings in the Netherlands also shows that the additional traffic growth on the main road network exceeds the increase in capacity.
Congestion regulates mobility behaviour. Excessive congestion encourages drivers to choose a shorter journey, to avoid the rush hour, to travel with someone else or to use another mode of transport. Less congestion has the opposite effect. After the opening of the Zeeburger tunnel near Amsterdam, 16% more cars crossed the North Sea Canal during rush hour, the average occupancy of these cars fell by 7% and 31% of drivers returned to driving during rush hour.
So, congestion remains. Back in 1988, McKinsey advised in its report 'Ending traffic jams' that more asphalt would not solve congestion. The statistics bear this out: after some ups and downs, the time lost per kilometre driven on Dutch motorways today is about the same as it was twenty years ago. Traffic jams slow traffic down by an average of one tenth of a kilometre per hour.
This analysis also implies that converting roadways to pedestrian zones, i.e., making roads traffic-free, will not increase congestion, even while it makes using the streets more pleasant for pedestrians.
Meanwhile, building light rail leads to less congestion, shorter travel times, and less pollution:
I find evidence that an increase in the supply of [light]rails [in European cities] leads to less congestion, less travel time and less pollution. Furthermore, I find that cities with a new rail system have 7% less congestion, 1% less travel time and 3% less pollution than cities with no rail systems. I find no evidence of different pre-trends of treated and control cities. The impact of rails on congestion, travel time and pollution is gradual, and increases over time.
The analysis would imply that expanding a light-train or tram system after the first section has been constructed will lead to further traffic/congestion reductions, especially with network effects.
This paper suggests that in Melbourne (with the world's largest tram network) the impact is somewhat larger, despite stops being much closer together than on most light rail systems:
In inner Melbourne trams have a much higher impact in reducing congestion; vehicle time
travelled and total delay on the road network decreases by 3.4% as a result of tram
operations. The average road network speed rises from 41.6 km/h to 41.9 km/h (an increase
of 0.9%). The operation of trams in inner Melbourne increases actual travel time on average
from 2.14 minutes/km to 2.13 minutes/km. Although trams contribute to reduce the number
of car trips on the road network, the average travel speed increases slightly. This is because
the travel speed on links with non-exclusive tram rights-of-way decreases due to the low
speed of trams and boarding/ alighting passengers. The tram network contributes to reduce
16% of the number of moderately congested links in inner Melbourne
The moral of the story is clear: if your freeways are getting congested, don't add more lanes or more freeways. Build light rail. And add pedestrianised streets, which, the Melbourne experience shows, work particularly well with trams.
They've left out monorails, but my guess would be they'd have the same capacity as bus rapid transit (BRT) double lane and light rail. And, a chart of cost per kilometer vs capacity would also be interesting.
A tram/light rail system is the cheapest mass transit option for medium density suburbs, cheaper than freeways and high density underground rail. Sydney, after getting rid of its tram network in the 50s, has started rebuilding a light rail network, as the blogger "My Ordinary Life" mentions:
The Sydney Light Rail has announced it is adding 90 services a week to its Central Station to Dulwich Hill line. Passenger numbers rose 60% in the last financial year. The line was extended to Dulwich Hill in 2014.
This bodes well for the Randwick and CBD extensions currently under construction.
Light rail is nice: it runs like a tram on city streets, but becomes a train of sorts in the suburbs. And the power it runs off can come from renewables, it produces no diesel fumes, and its stops (in the city) are close to where you want to go.
