Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

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Tim Williams
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Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by Tim Williams »

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This wonderful book was authored by Ian Lynas in 1983 - it covered Australia's Government and Municipal Operators at that period; there were individual (brief) histories, fleet lists and photographs for all operators and how everything has changed since then.

European chassis makers had started to take over from the previous all British suppliers, and how competent those European products were and the last of the urban double deckers were just hanging on with just over 40 Atlanteans in service with the UTA in Sydney. Artics were making their presence felt in Adelaide, Canberra and Sydney and for my area the last of the Adelaide style (MTT/STA) buses were in service with the 307, B59 Volvos.

A great period, but when you look at present day buses, you realise you far we have progressed from those days, particularly as our current body designs are well up there with world standards, whereas in 1983, individual states idiosyncratic designs were the norm and some other those existed because entrenched parochial attitudes and/or unnecessary union influence. For example the Volvo B59 bodies in Adelaide never took advantage of the wide door entries and low floor levels available with that chassis. I observed much more competent bodies in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki which truly took advantage of that chassis attributes.

I do hope that some of you may have this book and will appreciate my comments.
LB608
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by LB608 »

The book is beside my computer right at this moment
burrumbus
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by burrumbus »

Thanks Tim.
I too have this book by the great enthusiast ,Ian Lynas and I use it regularly to research things.
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1whoknows
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by 1whoknows »

Also one of my regular references along with its predecessor Australian Govt Buses by Les Pascoe which dates from 1972 but only covered Canberra Sydney Newcastle Adelaide and Tassie.
"Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out"
David Horowitz.
LB608
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by LB608 »

Australian Govt Buses is also by computer
tonyp
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by tonyp »

Tim Williams wrote:
A great period, but when you look at present day buses, you realise you far we have progressed from those days, particularly as our current body designs are well up there with world standards,
Our current citybuses in particular are twenty years behind current European best standards. Fully low-floor is only just starting to make its appearance here whereas it's been pretty widely standard in Europe for many years.

As a very minor point, it's a pity that on the cover of the book, buses were illutrated by the latest local developments whereas trams were represented by a W when by that time there were a couple of hundred Zs already in service.
Tim Williams
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by Tim Williams »

Hi Tonyp, full low floor buses are slow to arrive here but, as noted before they are not without some negatives:

1. They are more complicated (portal axles, reduced access for maintenance etc) and tend to be more expensive to maintain.
2. Due to some of their chassis/operating components having to be within the cabin, plus the plinths, wheel arches etc., they generally have a significantly reduced seating capacity - a 12m bus can seat 33-35 passengers, where as a combo can seat nearly 50.
3. There are a lot of seats towards the rear of these buses that are either on plinths or need to be stepped up to.
4. the rear mounted mechanicals (engine especially) are closer to the ground, than on a combo and our suburban roads, shopping centre entrances and exits, are full of varying road angles which make the operation of even combos difficult - the so called "angle of departure" is reduced on full low floors.
5. Full low floor buses are/were a lot more expensive than combos.

I do though admit that the layout of the new MAN95's are quite good - even on the lower deck, at the rear, but plinths and steps to seats abound!!
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by tonyp »

Well, it looks like the gates are opening with recent orders for 58 low-floor buses in Victoria and the Victorian government favouring their advantages. The type of points you raise could have been raised about any bus innovation ever, but the fact is that these buses have been operating successfully and now practically as standard in Europe for over two decades. If operators or the public had any significant problem with them they wouldn't have been taken up so enthusiastically. The industry has to move with the times. Anyway, my main point here was to respond to the comment that our body designs are up with best world standards. They're not.
Tim Williams
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by Tim Williams »

Yes, I am sure more of the low floors will be purchased and one of my main points is that our roads (especially road profiles) are not the same as Europe's "billiard table" roads. Having operated buses of my own in regional town also having run the operations for a national company, including urban routes, I can assure you of the difficulties of operating anything with a low floor or a long front overhang here.

We do not have the high use of urban public transport, that is evident in Europe, maybe excluding Sydney and we do not see willing to invest in the roads to make them suitable for full low floors (with some exceptions) and similarly the wide use of double deckers must must be held back by a reluctance to make the roads suitable (trees and infrastructure). It is interesting that Europe, as a whole, puts up with cattle truck conditions in their buses (low seating and mass standing), whereas the Poms won't, but both generally have shorter journey's than here.

I really don'y with your comments about our body builders not being in the same league as the European ones - if that were true, how would Volgren gain orders from Japan? And in Singapore there are complaints about the rattling/creaking of AD500 Enviro bodies (AD is looking into it and may have something to do with the Chinese assembly) and everyone's apparent favorite the MB Citaro, according to Singaporeans, suffers from a lack of power from its 7lt engine and poor air-conditioning (which I can agree with). There are some pretty ordinary bodies made in Europe and they do rattle - a couple of years ago, I travelled in a fairly new 12m SD from Nice to Cannes in the South of France, it rattled a lot on their smooth roads, again the air-con was weak and it was uncomfortable, lots of standing and the low floor layout = minimal seats (plinths and steps), with a few people tripping up. Overall it was a poor experience.

There are some things that are not perfect with local bodies (such is the window line on Bustech's SD's) but then as I say European bodies are not perfect - in fleets that I been responsible for, we have operated coaches/buses with European bodies and there have been problems with them, that were not evident in similar local products!
tonyp
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by tonyp »

I'm referring to local designs in terms of functionality Tim, not quality of manufacture, which I agree is very good here. Billiard table roads in Europe? Have you been anywhere from Poland and Czech Republic eastwards - the world epicentre of the low-floor bus incidentally? A lot of the roads are absolutely shocking, not to mention driving on cobblestones. I'd say these buses are well-proven.

Volgren gets the jobs because they design a better bus body than anyone else in Australia and they get exports because they're now the only local with solid experience in building low-floor buses, as well as their low-entry bodies. And of course our new double-deckers are all low-floor lower decks but somehow that's OK but not in a single decker?

One very important issue with the portal axle incidentally is that they're increasingly being supplied with electric drive motors (all the recent Victorian orders are like this), which paves the way for full electrification that's coming to buses in the next decade or two. Nobody will be wanting a high floor at the back to put a diesel engine under any more and such diesel engines as still will be around in any case can go vertically at the rear. Change is coming regardless.
Tim Williams
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by Tim Williams »

Ok, I do take your points!

I haven't been to Eastern Europe and I can imagine the roads being rough, but apart from the smoothness or otherwise of our roads, it is the dips and sometimes the change gradient etc. one road joining another that causes even our combo buses to bottom out.

New York has absolutely atrocious roads, full of holes, so called temporary plates and the MTA urban buses are not pretty or particulary accessible, but they are robust and need to be. "Horses for courses" and that might be the issue here.

So, back to the subject,are you talking about is the lack best practice functionality, including internal layout - please provide some examples and comparisons with the European equipment. I suppose first on your list might be full low floor layout, which is beginning to come, but would be interested in other matters.
tonyp
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by tonyp »

Tim Williams wrote:
So, back to the subject,are you talking about is the lack best practice functionality, including internal layout - please provide some examples and comparisons with the European equipment. I suppose first on your list might be full low floor layout, which is beginning to come, but would be interested in other matters.
Some of this is down to agency/operator conservatism, sometimes influenced by the militancy of the RTBU, notably over time the failure to use doors to full potential resulting in slow passenger exchange and buses not filling to capacity because they get blocked up at the front. Once pre-paid or POP fare systems were introduced, the Europeans moved pretty quickly to all-door loading and unloading, complemented by a good distribution of doors front to back, meaning that a crowd can be moved on and off the bus and distributed evenly and to maximum potential through the bus. When we had conductors on board in Australia, this could be done - and was in Sydney at least, not to mention the Adelaide three-door Worldmasters - and it worked very well. Introduction of OMO without simultaneously introducing a pre-paid fare regime undid it all disastrously.

Meanwhile, parallel developments were going on in the European tram industry (they also went through as much engineering pain, believe me!) and, out of this, lessons were learned that were picked up in both sectors. Apart from doors (which trams had already long-resolved), the biggest enlightenment once the move to wheelchair access was underway was that removal of any steps on the gangway (the aisle and the door vestibules) really helped speed the movement of passengers (both on and off the vehicle and within it), made it safer from falls and injuries and helped distribute passengers throughout the vehicle because the physical and psychological deterrent of steps was removed. This was all measured with much field and stop-watch work over the years. In both buses and most trams there were unavoidably step-ups to some seats over engineering components but these are not considered much of an issue because the passenger is usually stationary while getting into and out of a seat. The best tram designs manage to avoid any steps at all, so even the minor risk of a twisted ankle getting out of a seat is removed. Unfortunately, it's not possible to eliminate this in a bus, but a good manufacturer like Solaris does manage to minimise the number of seats on plinths.

In terms of seating capacity, while there is a loss of seats in the multi-door citybuses with high turnover en route, the Europeans too specify buses according to the work they do. So, for example, 12 metre buses in longer-distance suburban work will usually have two doors like we do, rather than three. They can also be clever with design. I remember noting on this forum once that a SOR NB18 5-door 18 metre artic in Europe has around 50 seats, about the same number as the 3-door Volvo B12BLEA artics operating in Sydney.

In summary, in continental Europe, the bus industry has taken its lessons from developments in tram design, but in Australia (and the UK), the way that trams function as mass-transit vehicles is considered irrelevant to buses. This has a big bearing on the thoughtlessness of some elements of local designs and really compromises them as effective mass transit vehicles.
Tim Williams
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by Tim Williams »

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Got to go out soon, but I will read your comments in detail later. In the meantime, look at the photo I took travelling from Nice to Cannes, conditions were not good and there was a lot of complaining both French and English!!
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by tonyp »

Tim Williams wrote:
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look at the photo I took travelling from Nice to Cannes, conditions were not good and there was a lot of complaining both French and English!!
All I see there is a bus doing its stuff as it should if it were in the city, however it's definitely the wrong sort of bus for a 30 km intercity journey! Here's an 18 metre low-floor citybus loaded up with about 150 passengers!
SOR bus Prague.jpeg
I've regularly been in buses with crowds like this in Sydney and Wollongong, except not managing to be this full because there's an obstacle halfway up the interior, the crowd has stalled and the driver has (sometimes) driven off leaving people behind at the stop because he/she thinks it's full. Not good at all - both a design and an operational flaw.
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This wonderful experience I had in Sydney with nearly 60 people jammed into the first two-thirds of the bus because hardly anybody wanted to go up the stairs (just two standees up there):
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No operational flaw on this service, all-door entry through three doors. Serious design flaw though, considering it's a battery bus with no engine to go under the floor.
Tim Williams
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by Tim Williams »

All very interesting and I don't want to revert to the usual DD's vs. Artics but passenger comfort must be of prime consideration and packing 150 into an artic might be operationally efficient, but it is no way to expect passengers to travel - some places are used to high capacity standee buses and trams and have to tolerate it, because there is no alternative. Europe, lots of Asia, Africa, South America etc., but the dear old UK has most people sitting, however they seem not to bother with cooling and ventilation!!

Both Singapore and HK have low car ownerships and rely heavily on public transport - a lot of standing on trains and some on the buses, but a lot of seating also. I do believe that we need convenient and comfortable public transport in Australia, if we are to get people out of their cars.

Talking about advanced ticket systems, multiple door boarding, which results in fast loading, is all fine, but if Australian customers (yes that's what passengers are!) are then faced with a crowded strap hanging and basically uncomfortable trip, then they will try to find something better - which usually means the car. In the past engineers determined bus types, high floor, front engined, reliable for their day and good to maintain, but passenger accessibility and general comfort was secondary!
Now we have transport planners/accountants/economists trying to get best out of the equipment - maximum loads, "sweat the assets", meaning getting the most our of the buses, but again I do not hear much about passenger comfort.

I think her we fall between what happens in the UK and what happens in Europe and that may be where we are with our local bus designs - but in summary I do not think high standee buses will cut it, in the long run here.

Good discussion, thanks!!
Tim Williams
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by Tim Williams »

Tonyp, just adding to this discussion - people are generally happier standing in trains and trams, with the general perception that they are both smoother than buses, not being subjected to the cut and thrust of traffic, or minimally in the case of trams.

Solaris is an interesting manufacturer, small by European Standards?? - 1,000 buses/trolleybus manufactured per year - high quality very specialised equipment. I have never seen their products in the flesh, the closest (in concept) that I do have experience of are the Finnish chassis and body manufacturers - high quality, but small numbers in a global sense. My wife is Finnish and I have been there a number of times, including a 2 months stay, some years ago. Imagine asking your wife to translate into Finnish to the Chief Engineer of Helsinki City Transport (not the correct name), if he had memories/experience with Leyland's Pneumocyclic gearboxes in their Sisu buses!!
tonyp
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by tonyp »

Ironically Tim this discussion is on the weekend of the 60th anniversary of the closure of the North Sydney tram system and its replacement by buses (acting on the advice of London Transport "experts"!) and it and all subsequent conversions from tram to bus were an absolute disaster that has crippled Sydney's street transport ever since. Basically, the buses couldn't even remotely handle the loads and a huge amount of patronage was lost to driving their own cars, either to railway stations or directly to work in the city or wherever. Sydney's tram conversions resulted in loss of nearly 50% of street public transport capacity and it was a similar story in other Australian cities.

Now these replacement buses were high seating capacity, very often double deckers which slowed journeys down greatly because of their long stop dwells and slow speeds. Sydney bus patronage remained static for 30 years from the 1960s in spite of the considerable population growth. So much for attracting people from cars.

What has eventuated since the 1990s is the Big Australia policy and immigration which has sent the population growth of the cities (except Adelaide) into overdrive. In addition, an increasing number of the younger generations are not getting driving licences. So suddenly Australia has a critical public transport capacity problem and buses are "the sick man" in the overall picture. In the bigger cities we can no longer afford the guaranteed luxury of the seated journey nor the single-seat journey and the evidence shows that users are so desperate to get on a service that this is not the issue it used to be. The Brisbane busway development demonstrates this growth/capacity issue. The single seat journey is no longer feasible due to capacity limitation and sheer congestion of the buses that its being converted to a core high-capacity standee bus (should be a tram actually) with interchange to feeder buses.

Bus design and engineering needs to now adapt to this change and the European model is the one the industry will need to follow. The current two-door, single entry, stepped-floor citybus will no longer be adequate for this duty except on longer suburban runs and the double decker is (as it always was) killed by its dwell time for anything other than long-distance express or limited stops work.
Tim Williams
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by Tim Williams »

You have made a couple of interesting points:
1. Tram systems were ripped out of a lot of cities, UK, USA and here and I am sure that this was a huge mistake, otherwise we would not be attempting to put in small light rail systems now. Local authorities faced several problems in the 1950's - declining ridership due to car and and the TV (leisure travel to the movies, dance hall etc. plummeted with the coming of television!), worn out infrastructure (with limited budgets to replace tracks and wiring, as needed) and no money for expansion to new "further out" suburbs. Melbourne was fortunate in having a system in good condition in the 1950's, having replaced a full cable tram system only in 1940 and also having a very strong pro-tram M&MTB Chairman, Sir Robert Risson (from 1949 to 1970) who, almost single handedly ensured the survival of their tram system, which is now the envy of many places!!

2.The old back loading DD's were low in capacity and would have been slower loading than the multi - entrance trams, no doubt about that. Hong Kong, as you would know, has a very high proportion of large DD's all with one staircase only, with their Octopus card system and familiarity by users, loading and unloading is fairly slick - those DD's have a capacity of 134 on a 12m and I think 144 for 12.8m (similar to an artic but with a high number of seats). There is insufficient road space for artics there and they would not get approval. In Singapore, again road space is a problem and artics are being phased out. They also a good ticket system, with multiple card readers, but they do acknowledge congestion on DD's around the base of the staircase/exit. They have been trialing an MAN A95 DD (12.8m?) with twin staircases and one entrance/2 x exits - The LTA has put out a tender for 100 of these, with the second exit right at the back, as a trial batch. It will be interesting to see what eventuates.

3. I had a conversation with someone very senior in TfNSW (I cannot name the person) and they were very anti artics, due to the roadspace they occupy for the number of passengers carried and the mayhem created when one of these breakdown in the centre of Sydney.

4. In Adelaide we seem to have a lot of Artics travelling around at all hours when 11m rigids would be more than adequate after rush hour. There is a tender out for 300 buses to be supplied over a 10 year period, I wouldn't mind betting than full low floor types will be included + electrics and/or hybrids, but possibly no artics for a while.
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Re: Buses and Trams (in 1983) by Ian Lynas

Post by tonyp »

Tim Williams wrote: 3. I had a conversation with someone very senior in TfNSW (I cannot name the person) and they were very anti artics, due to the roadspace they occupy for the number of passengers carried and the mayhem created when one of these breakdown in the centre of Sydney.
Transport administration in NSW goes into regular long periods of dark regression during its whole post-war history. I already detected such an attitude forming and the reasons for this one would rotate around being hounded by the roads people to make more (illusory) room for cars and not hold them up in any way. Needless to say, such an attitude is neanderthal nowadays. How often (or more than any other bus) do artics break down in the centre of Sydney? Very little I would imagine. Wait till one of their new 67 metre trams comes to a halt across an intersection, that'll fix the traffic good and proper!

Once again in Europe they're buying artics like crazy as patronage booms. The average proportion in city fleets there is now over 25% iirc. In Prague it's over 40% of the fleet. Berlin has just placed a big bus order of over 900 buses with about 2/3 of them artics. Even in Australia, Volgren is saying that their orders for artics are booming. If Sydney wants to drop out of the capacity race with its buses, it's not the first time they've shot themselves in the foot in this way. If these are the attitudes among transport administrators, then they need to get onto building those tram lines (and metros) as fast as they can.

I just feel disappointed that the bus sector could potentially offer so much more to contribute to meeting the demand but chooses not to due to its conservatism. Why then did the industry argue so strongly that they'd do a better job than trams all those years ago and then, when they'd convinced the politicians to get rid of the trams, they just went and sat on their lazy backsides and did bugger all while all the customers went off to drive their cars? The biggest city transport con job of all time and a general urban disaster.

By the way, the cause/effect of "declining ridership due to car" post-war was certainly the case but tram conversions such as North Sydney revealed that a lot of cause/effect was "due to bus"! Literally within days of the conversion, car traffic exploded, with many of these former tram-users getting in their cars and driving to the nearest train station if they didn't drive into the city. Train traffic on the lower north shore stations immediately grew on average 30% with Milsons Point station, the closest to the city and the closest possibility for park-and-ride, there being no parking restrictions in those days, having a 1,000% patronage growth the next day after the conversion! My dad, who is from UK and worked in transport there, said that when the trams ended in London, a lot of people started driving rather than catch the bus. Bus enthusiasts like to blame spontaneous growth in car use, but buses themselves were one of the causes of that.
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