[LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Sydney / New South Wales Transport Discussion
Linto63
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Linto63 »

The annoying thing about the displays at Central and Dulwich Hill line is that it states when the next tram is due in and not out. When it does arrive it then states it is due out in 1 minute, when often if sits there for a fair bit longer.
tonyp
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by tonyp »

Linto63 wrote:The annoying thing about the displays at Central and Dulwich Hill line is that it states when the next tram is due in and not out. When it does arrive it then states it is due out in 1 minute, when often if sits there for a fair bit longer.
Due in and due out should be the same time at an intermediate (non-terminus or interchange) stop. The stop dwell should be no more than in the range 10-30 seconds even with a crowd. (Yeah OK we know about the "door problem" in NSW, but even so ...)
neilrex
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by neilrex »

tonyp wrote:Some are unable to walk.

.
Well they will just have to be patient then, won't they.

Meanwhile, if some people are not travelling far along the route, and can see the tram won't be coming for 14 minutes, and decide to walk, then that leave more space on the next tram for people who can't or don't want to walk instead.
tonyp
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by tonyp »

neilrex wrote:
Well they will just have to be patient then, won't they.

Meanwhile, if some people are not travelling far along the route, and can see the tram won't be coming for 14 minutes, and decide to walk, then that leave more space on the next tram for people who can't or don't want to walk instead.
Which is all the more reason for the tram to be visible in the journey planner. Anyway my feedback has gone to TfNSW and they're looking at it. Countdown timers are also essential for the same reason.
Michael Bamborough
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Michael Bamborough »

They really need to purchase extra trams at least 4 new ones. And have the inner west tram line operate every 6 minutes on peak hours, every 7-8 minutes on off-peaks & weekends. And every 10 minutes on evenings. Services would run faster if boarding in/out doesn't take long due to overcrowding issues.
tonyp
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by tonyp »

Michael Bamborough wrote:They really need to purchase extra trams at least 4 new ones. And have the inner west tram line operate every 6 minutes on peak hours, every 7-8 minutes on off-peaks & weekends. And every 10 minutes on evenings. Services would run faster if boarding in/out doesn't take long due to overcrowding issues.
They're limited by the single track stub terminus at Dulwich Hill (and the apparent inability to timetable some services to short-work). The more efficient Gold Coast line has been using single track termini temporarily (pending extensions) and it manages 7.5 minute headways at best. IWLR would not need so may extra trams if it speeded up the journey time and shortened dwells in crowds by ordering trams with the full complement of 6 doors that this tram type has as standard instead of deleting doors off the specification. (What is this allergy to doors that NSW has with all its public transport modes nowadays?)
burrumbus
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by burrumbus »

It's not only doors tony that TFNSW has an allergy to.It's a very conservative view of a one size all fits all services mindset.A theory of thats how it's been done for the last 70 years and that's how it will stay.
No thought put in that each service is different and needs different approaches in route management and vehicle speccing to make that service successful.
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Ben_Daui
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Ben_Daui »

Just oberseved the front 2 cars set number unknown on the back of a semi heading eastbound on the M7.
moa999
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by moa999 »

Ben_Daui wrote:Just oberseved the front 2 cars set number unknown on the back of a semi heading eastbound on the M7.
Sure it wasn't Canberra or Newcastle CAF trams. Both are identical and very similar paint schemes
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Ben_Daui
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Ben_Daui »

moa999 wrote:
Ben_Daui wrote:Just oberseved the front 2 cars set number unknown on the back of a semi heading eastbound on the M7.
Sure it wasn't Canberra or Newcastle CAF trams. Both are identical and very similar paint schemes
It was definitely a Variotram, I recognised the nice flat front end compared to the ugly CAF front end.
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boronia
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by boronia »

Could be 2107, which I understand has been acquired by the Tram Museum?
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Ben_Daui
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Ben_Daui »

They are being broken up for scrap, RP thread has the info:https://www.railpage.com.au/f-t11395869-s25.htm
tonyp
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by tonyp »

TfNSW has somewhat undermined their business case for getting rid of the Variotrams. Originally they argued that it was worth getting rid of half-life trams because of the money they would get selling them to another operator and because the new CAFs would only cost $2 million each. Fast forward and we find that the CAFs actually cost over $4 million each and the Variotrams are fetching a pittance for scrap.

Of course nothing surprises with TfNSW. It's only us taxpayers' money. They still get to take home the same salaries, why should it bother them? One can only live in hope that one day somebody will drain the swamp.
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Ben_Daui
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Ben_Daui »

Observed another front car on the back of a semi on the M7 exiting at Sunnyholt Road eastbound this afternoon.
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boronia
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by boronia »

WAs at Central about 11.45 this morning to catch the LR. A massive crowd waiting on the platform, and THREE marshals there to try and regulate the crowd. Tram fully loaded and still maybe 30 or 40 people on the platform told "wait for the next one, only ten minutes". I managed to get on the next one, but it looked like the situation was repeated.

I don't know what the relative wages of marshals and trams drivers are, but couldn't help wondering if an extra driver and extra tram could be employed for less than two of these marshals?
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tonyp
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by tonyp »

boronia wrote:WAs at Central about 11.45 this morning to catch the LR. A massive crowd waiting on the platform, and THREE marshals there to try and regulate the crowd. Tram fully loaded and still maybe 30 or 40 people on the platform told "wait for the next one, only ten minutes". I managed to get on the next one, but it looked like the situation was repeated.

I don't know what the relative wages of marshals and trams drivers are, but couldn't help wondering if an extra driver and extra tram could be employed for less than two of these marshals?
Geez what a mess. TfNSW can't get anything right.

In theory that crowd would have been about 250 (maybe even 300 at 8 ppsm) if they couldn't get 30-40 on the tram. Do you reckon that they actually got 200 or more people on the tram boronia?
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boronia
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by boronia »

I don't know how many, but they were certainly packed well in through all doors. The marshal near the rear door had to do a bit of verbal "pushing" to get the stragglers clear.
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Linto63
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Linto63 »

It's just one of those things, demand levels ebb and flow and particularly on Sundays are hard to predict. Same thing happened yesterday morning at Wynyard when over 100 Asian tourists lobbed to catch the B-line, inevitably some were left behind.

While efforts are made up to beef up services where there is expected to be higher demand, e.g. extra services or rostering bendis to beaches on hot Sundays, inevitably at some point these projections will be off. They may well get the vast majority right, we just don't here about it. As much as some may think TfNSW should be mind readers, forecasting demand is an imperfect science.
tonyp
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by tonyp »

The demand on IWLR seems to be consistent (high), something that TfNSW should have predicted during the planning stage. Now they're in a situation that they can't provide extra capacity even if they want to because of the limitations of the system design. Even worse, the government has been talking up the idea of selling off that one high-capacity tram terminus (a legacy from the previous system that they should be grateful for) to become a porte cochere for a hotel and switching to a much lower-capacity terminus down on the street. Balls-ups in NSW aren't accidental, they're planned that way.

And I thought we were told by somebody here earlier that the contract system is so rigid and inflexible that an operator can't simply throw in an extra artic or tram if there's unexpected demand without prior written permission from TfNSW, unless they're happy to not be paid for it.
Tonymercury
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Tonymercury »

Linto63 wrote:It's just one of those things, demand levels ebb and flow and particularly on Sundays are hard to predict.
So who's paying for the three marshals? And why are they on duty?
Linto63
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Linto63 »

Tonymercury wrote:So who's paying for the three marshals? And why are they on duty?
Transdev marshals are usually rostered at Central on a Sunday to deal with the aforementioned crowd issues.

Forecasting demand is a bit of a dark art that often comes in way over or way under. The demand levels for the Cross City and Lane Cove tunnels were both extremely optimistic. And it's not just in NSW, witness the Clem 7 tunnel in Brisbane.
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by Tonymercury »

Linto63 wrote:Transdev marshals are usually rostered at Central on a Sunday to deal with the aforementioned crowd issues.

.
QED
tonyp
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by tonyp »

I presume that the photos in this article convey the current situation:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/syd ... wntil.html

You don't need marshalls for that, you just need enough flamin' doors on the trams and enough trams. I don't think a platform stop in the street will handle that crowd, but undoubtedly the present stop would handle a few limos and taxis for an hotel, which is of course far more important.

The CSELR Citadis (which should be what's running on IWLR) have six double doors per 30 metres, which should be the minimum accepted standard nowdays (pro rata for buses too!). The Urbos 2 that were sent back to Spain had CAF's standard specification of the equivalent of 5 double doors per 30 metres. The current CAFs, thanks to TfNSW deleting doors from the specification, have the equivalent of 3 double doors per 30 metres.

GCLR has managed 7.5 minute headways on its line with temporary single-track termini at each end. That would require 12 trams on IWLR with its present slow journey time. Having more doors in the trams should help speed up the journey and take some pressure off fleet requirements. They could add a couple more trams to the fleet, even from the CSELR fleet.
Last edited by tonyp on Mon Mar 26, 2018 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
grog
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by grog »

Couldn’t they increase frequency with relay drivers at the Dulwich Hill end?
tonyp
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Re: [LR] Extra tram services to help ease crowding

Post by tonyp »

grog wrote:Couldn’t they increase frequency with relay drivers at the Dulwich Hill end?
I think that's worth a try. There's basically no recovery time in the timetable, so they might as well dispatch the trams again as soon as possible.
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