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Re: There are other solutions to increase Orangeline ridership, by operating the service better.
Author: Max Wyss
Date: 04-03-2019 - 08:51
Well… politicians and NIMBYs…
The question with branching is always a balance between line capacity and synergies. With POP and all door boarding, it should be possible to operate a vehicle every minute sustainably (although the article whines about bus priority at the intersections…). But if you do branching, you will need to have the branches run more or less according to the schedule (which means bus lanes and signal priority for the branches as well). And there must not be too many branches… maybe 3 to 4 maximum at each end, and in a way that the "spine" would be an overlay of those 3 to 4 lines.
I do understand that "bus" has a stigma in the US (probably "thanks" to the atrocities called "school bus"). But I think that electric drives already can improve the image, because the vehicle would be quieter and inherently cleaner. Another thing which could help a lot is working on people's perception that it is "Transit" and not "bus vs light rail vs heavy rail vs commuter rail". This would require a Verkehrsverbund (well, the concept is so exotic in the anglosphere that there is no english term for it) with the message "I am also a …" and "one ticket to rule them all…"
Now, for the trolleybus model, branching would be possible with a minimum of additional infrastructure (assumed that the core remains fully electric, then a branch could be maybe 5 km long and operated without restrictions (that's about a standard with BTBs, 10 km range in "regular operation mode", which means full acceleration, all "comfort consumers" on, and no limitation in speed).
And FWIW, Hess calls their 25 m buses "LighTram®".
The question with branching is always a balance between line capacity and synergies. With POP and all door boarding, it should be possible to operate a vehicle every minute sustainably (although the article whines about bus priority at the intersections…). But if you do branching, you will need to have the branches run more or less according to the schedule (which means bus lanes and signal priority for the branches as well). And there must not be too many branches… maybe 3 to 4 maximum at each end, and in a way that the "spine" would be an overlay of those 3 to 4 lines.
I do understand that "bus" has a stigma in the US (probably "thanks" to the atrocities called "school bus"). But I think that electric drives already can improve the image, because the vehicle would be quieter and inherently cleaner. Another thing which could help a lot is working on people's perception that it is "Transit" and not "bus vs light rail vs heavy rail vs commuter rail". This would require a Verkehrsverbund (well, the concept is so exotic in the anglosphere that there is no english term for it) with the message "I am also a …" and "one ticket to rule them all…"
Now, for the trolleybus model, branching would be possible with a minimum of additional infrastructure (assumed that the core remains fully electric, then a branch could be maybe 5 km long and operated without restrictions (that's about a standard with BTBs, 10 km range in "regular operation mode", which means full acceleration, all "comfort consumers" on, and no limitation in speed).
And FWIW, Hess calls their 25 m buses "LighTram®".
