City of Stirling Trackless Tram Public Trial 

This is one of the reasons why a similar system was recently scrapped in Nancy...

The exterior touches are the least of the concerns. They can easily change that.

@@thevannmann you mean "interior" of course.

They are guided buses but with infrared guiding system unlike the old rail guiding system like guided bus in Brisbane

@@rick_terscale1111 Yes, it was 5 am when I wrote the last comment. >_>

@@leo1933they are NOT trams.

Half bus half tram

@@Gaminggunzellernot tram.

@@xr6lad I said half tram half bus if you read properly

no sane person in either hemisphere would call it a trackless "tram". it's a bus. a fancy bus with nicer suspension and two articulations, sure, but it's still a bus

A bus that can serve the same function as a tram without the massive investment into tracks.

@@zachb1706 With less capacity and shoddier ride quality.

@@thevannmann not really that much less capacity. Melbourne Trams can only fit an extra 50 people on, and chances are you couldn’t install Trams as big as those down the thin Scarborough Beach Rd. I doubt capacity will be an issue, even at peak. You’re also ignoring the benefits. A trackless tram can go around disruptions on the road, and can be implemented with a much lower cost and less disruption to the local area.

@@zachb1706 There's already a vehicle that can go around disruptions on the road It's called a bus

They can probably make it not drive on the same line all the time, or at least they will do that if rutting becomes a problem

@@pwhnckexstflajizdryvombqug9042 it's not the line as much as the weight. You'll get the same rutting but it will be wider and build up slower

I mean Scarb beach Rd is horrible to drive on and is already rutted so it’s due for re surfacing, though I bet the weight won’t matter compared to trucks and busses already in this route

@@robertbruce2182 weight and road damage is near enough to an exponential relationship. So say TTs are a small increase in weight from normal buses and trucks, there most likely will be serious deterioration

@@leo1933 Google fourth power law

@leo1933 Dude, I already know what it is, I'm just saying it looks nice, but it just looks like an articulated bus but longer and can be driven at both ends? I did not say that it was an actual bus if you actually read my comment properly. I'm not dumb you know, and I wasn't born yesterday either, so you don't have to tell me twice anyway to be more specific it looks half bus half tram.

It’s a trolleybus

@@leo1933it’s a bus. I take it your never seen articulated buses over seas?

​@@leo1933even its Wikipedia page says it is a guided bi-articulated bus.

@@ChrisNF trolleybuses use overhead wires. this is a battery electric bus.

Don't drive, don't take a bus, Just walk is better safest

Small cities don't need an expensive articulated bus when there are literally better options.

Maintenance will be minimal as its using road Also electric Serving will likely be easier

They only included one sentence? I actually said way more but it wasn't included.

@@TransportofPerth It's always the way with news media. They edit out all the good stuff and just leave a one liner.

Yes they run on battery gaining energy at stations where there are charging points and from regenerative braking.

​@TransportofPerth, it's a bus.

I guess so, I'm due to make a new intro soon anyway considering I have been using this same general one for so long now. I should have done that for this video!

@@TransportofPerth considering the recent Federal infrastructure cuts, if the Sunshine Coast rail line is axed, the Qld government have announced that they may build a trackless tram system

@@TransportofPerth oh and the Brisbane ones are in fact actually trackless trams according to the manufacturer and Brisbane council, but the only reason why they were designed with some bus-like features was so they could easilly train drivers as well as use the vehicles on other non-metro routes with high demand

On this day with the trial it was only about 4 minutes.

still better than a bus though.

it's already wearing divots into the road apparently

Melbourne had plans for one, but it never went through. Sydney hasn't proposed a trackless tram at all as far as I know

@@TheLostProbe They are still talking about getting a trackless tram from Monash Uni to Rowville. It will cost about half that of a coventional tram.

@@DavidWilliams7037A and it'll also cost more to maintain and operate than a regular tram

There was a brief idea to turn Parramatta Light Rail stage 2 into a trackless vehicle, but they decided against it. It will be built as light rail

It needs a smooth road which means the tyres are recessed. A smoother ride. A bus has bigger wheels which can run on any terrain and is a bumpier ride with sharp turns. I’m not sure what guides it, the white line? The entire route would be stored, probably a local radio system that acts like a GPS. If it’s a good idea, I can hope a service can be introduced in my neighbourhood, laying tram tracks and overhead wiring would be unthinkable.

Go away

Yes it is

Yes

@@TransportofPerth Brisbanes metro one is way better.

It does require a platform, but yes it is

Nope, it went back to China for now.

Half bus half tram

@@Gaminggunzeller Tram, by definition, is a type of rail transit. "Trackless tram" is a marketing name so a city can say they built a tram without the required investment and benefits. I don't know the city of Stirling, apart from a bit of googling I did. It's pretty big for the number of inhabitants (for someone from Spain, at least, as cities here are usually much denser) but if the city thinks it needs a type of BRT line they can do a great one with a "regular" electric bus, it will be as efficient and cheaper while providing the same level of service or even a better one, as they'll be able to have more buses with higher frequency. In my city of Barcelona the bus network was redesigned about 10 years ago by creating a network of horisontal and vertical lines crossing the city with easy changing points between them. Some consider it as a BRT but it's just regular buses, with regular stops and a painted bus lane in most places and it's great. Barcelona is a big city (the same size as the city of Stirling but with 1.6 million people a metro are of 5.5 million) so we have metro, trams, suburban/regional train and even 2 funiculars, near me I have two metro lines but since they introduced the new bus line network I prefer the bus. Each of those buses is $3.3m (Australian, I assume). The same style bus as this "trackless tram" that Barcelona has is the Exqui.City24 by Van Hoff and the cost was ~2.5m AUS but they also have the regular articulated buses with the same look but even cheaper regular articulated buses will do the job. You build a tram for the advantages of rail transit, not for the way the cars look.

@AL5520 Buddy, I don't mean to come across this as rude, but I already know what a tram is, I'm just saying that this one is half bus and half tram if you actually read my comment properly. Make sense?

@@Gaminggunzeller I don't think you're rude and I did get your remark as kind of a joke but a lot of people don't get jokes, sarcasm and other hints which is why I prefer to stick to clear facts.My replay was less for you and more to others that see this and think it's an actual replacement for a tram and won't mind the city wasting money on a glorified expensive bus. If experts think the city needs a tram they should build a tram and if a bus is deemed sufficient (or they cannot afford more than a bus) they should build a good and frequent regular bus service and not waste money on gadgetbahn. As I said, I'm from Barcelona and here (and in Spain in general) we built great high quality transit systems for a very low cost (relatively of course, a transit system is never cheap) and we do it also by standardizing things and using more basic and utilitarian construction. Metro stations in Barcelona, for example, are very basic, unlike some other places around the world, but I prefer this over extravagant and very expensive systems that end up providing worst service.

In no way is this a half tram of any sort. It’s 100% a bus.

I know but this was the first time the public was allowed on it.

Yes I know

Basically a hybrid of them.

batteries

Electric batteries which can be charged at stations from the power grid. Now how the power grid gets electricity is another story...

I reckon the final vehicle will be fitted with Transperth logo and their own design

It is currently not funded by the state government but if it ever will be then yes they would do that.

Exactly, which is why it will completely fail if the state government doesn't fund it to integrate it together.

Research shows that trackless trams are a more popular transport choice to buses which is easy to understand. They operate quietly, smoothly and efficiently, utilising a train chassis as opposed to a bus chassis. It replaces the noise and emissions of buses with electric traction from batteries recharged at stations in 30 seconds. It has all the speed (70 kph), capacity and ride quality of light rail with its autonomous optical guidance system, train-like bogies with double axles and special hydraulics and tyres. It can slide into the station with millimetre accuracy and enable smooth disability access. I think calling it a novelty form of transport is underselling it. It can quickly board and move a much larger number of people than a bus can. There is also scope to take your e-scooter/bike on there which you can't do on a bus. With a reliable system in place with good frequency (something Perth does quite well when it comes to trains) and infrastructure of stations in place it would be an attractive form of public transport imo.

@@haydencooper_ so wading through all that, it's quieter and smoother at the cost of flexibility of route? I'm not sure buses have particular issues with disabled access or boarding people quickly, though I could be wrong. I'm also not convinced that WA public transport networks are running at full load necessitating longer (= more impact on car traffic) vehicles with more capacity. The bike / scooter comment is interesting. Is everyone allowed to bring one at all times? How does that impact capacity? I'm not a hater, just trying to understand the rationale beyond what again in your comment spends more time talking about the technology than the actual problem it's trying to solve.

On the real road it won't follow road markings, but rather magnetic strips which provide attraction between the tram and the road, which are impossible to be rubbed off.

It's got steering wheels in the cab. The driver would be able to take over if need be.

Two cabs, doors on both sides which slide, low floor throughout, basically all the features you would expect of a tram just without the tracks.

Bus

This is a bus NOT a tram.

With higher capacity, 2 heads, better ride experience, narrower and better looking.

@@thevannmann it's still worse than a real tram

@@thevannmann the only benefit I would see is if it could work on both road and tram tracks. If not then why not just make better busses instead of this?

So... What's the problem?

Cheap? Trams are insanely expensive. Sydney has paid $210 million per kilometre. And then you have the downside that any distruption on the tram lane leads to the tram having nowhere to go

@@zachb1706 yes they are cheaper to operate than buses. They last longer, their tracks last longer and you need less drivers. I am not familiar with the project in Sydney, however, all major projects in Europe showed that the TCO of Trams is lower than those of BRT and bus systems on a per passenger basis. Furthermore, trams are way more attractive than buses. BRT projects in Europe saw a lesser increase in ridership than tram projects. There is a comparison paper available from the tram project in Kiel Germany. However, it is in German.

@@reinerjung1613 we don’t live in Europe so I take those analyses with a grain of salt. Our cities are much less dense, which means that you must build out more rail to serve the same number of passengers. Also public construction projects are simply more expensive here for a multitude of reasons. But it means that it’s cheaper to just buy buses, or in this case long buses that looks like a tram, from China than to build out costly rail infrastructure. And so on. Essentially the same reasons why a high speed rail network makes no sense in Australia when it works well in Europe

@@zachb1706 the key point is when you have enough people to use the tram than it will be favorable. And in some cities you have that density. However, it may be a better strategy to first take lanes from cars and run buses on these lanes exclusively. This will make bus journeys more reliable. And then later switch to trams when you can actually fill them.