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dateline July
2000 In a shocking U-turn that could see politicians and transport operators making a serious commitment to global warming gas emissions, street level air pollution and travelling public comfort, serious thought could be given to introducing new, sparkling 'tbuses' onto London's streets. With the £2 billion that's said to be pledged and political commitment being given to innovative ways of making travel pleasant and efficient, some are suggesting trials of brand new technologies. With light railway systems costing too much for widespread use, these new systems combine the advantages of pollution cutting electric power, flexibility and lower cost. If the powers-that-be take on board the true costs of environmental damage, public health and life style quality, then these new systems could prove a boon to the city's attractiveness. But there's inertia, technical complexity, cost reticence and risk inhibition to be overcome. |
 'Tbus' technology, or as
old-timers would say, 'trolleybuses like trams', means electric street
traction devices of varying cost, infrastructure complexity and carrying
capacity. There are four contenders, costing perhaps 60% of equivalent
light rail schemes. All are guided, rubber tyred and electrically driven.
All have been developed abroad by national and multi-national companies,
including some of the biggest names in the global transport industry. They
have been developed over the last five years, although aspects of their
technolgies go back much further. It's in the combination of ideas, in
attempts to combine advantages of more traditional forms of urban
transport, that these 'tbus' technogies are new. Not that they are
'hand-me-downs'. Some, like the 'Civis' use new ways of guidance. Some,
like the 'Stream' use new ways of collecting power. Some, like the
'Bombardier', have been built and tested, some are only now being built
and some haven't yet been constructed. All aim to 'seduce' the car loving
public back onto street transport - something that's confessed to be
wanted by most, even if, up till now, few unacceptably polluting cars have
been left behind. |
 Award procuring transport
commentator Irvine Bell has suggested that "trolleybuses" or 'tbuses'
could be given trials and then implemented on the capitals throughways.
Speaking after a green award ceremony to Alstom for their Athens
trolleybus order, Irvine said, "My belief is that London is the best option. The still deregulated environment outside London remains a big disincentive to new trolleybus schemes, unless they are mostly on private right of way, in which case steel wheels on steel rails may be a better option. The sorts of routes to promote trolleybuses on would be routes like the 27 routes of the £60 million London Buses Initiative [LBI] scheme, where the routes are extensively traffic managed and with a lot of bus lanes, to speed the buses past other traffic. Trolleybuses on such routes could give many of the benefits of modern trams, but at much lower capital cost and be implemented in much shorter times scales and with a fraction of the disruption of installing new tramways. Automatic guidance, perhaps by non mechanical means such as buried wires, could be used with advantage on [sections of] such routes, for example to reduce driver stress, reduce width of bus lanes or guarantee accurate alignment to kerb / [low] loading platforms at stops." |
Historical Note -
As a case of déjà-vous, this story has considerable historic precedence and parallel. In 1909, the first trolleybus in Britain was tried in the depot of Metropolitan Tramways. It was thought of as a lower cost alternative to then newly introduced tramcars that had seen a mania of building since the turn of the century. Today, the building of rapid transit systems in Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Croydon can be seen as a tramcar phoenix rising. Back in 1909, there were also various trolleybus contenders, the Schiemann, Cedes-Stoll, Loyd-Kohler and Filovia designs. It took a number of continental tours by transport authority officials and transport committee councillors, some entrepreneurial courage and a perceived need in an era when public transport was understood to be crucial, for the trolleybus to be pioneered in the UK and ultimately replace the tram. Some of the companies involved then are involved again now. Ashley Bruce  |
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| Cegelec AEG Promoted (unsuccessfully) for
Liverpool, the 'MRT' uses buried cables that guide the tbus by induction.
Conventional trolleybus overhead supplies the tractive
force. |
Renault/Matra
Civis Uses painted lines on the
roadway seen by a computer recognition system to steer the tbus.
Propulsion said to be by operator choice, although double overhead is more
realistic than a battery or diesel option. |
Ansaldo-Breda
Stream The most complex system, but
with the potential to replace inferred visually disruptive overhead. Uses
a magnetic pick-up to collect power, from a flexible conductor in a 300mm
x 600mmm trench. |
Bombardier GLT The most tram-like device, but
with rubber tyres. Utilising conventional rapid transit overhead but a
guiding and current returning buried mono rail, this tbus has also been
proposed with trolleybus overhead. |
| cost - high flexibilty - high capacity - medium status - project only http://www.atco.org.uk/news/ news983/mtravel.htm |
cost - medium flexibilty - high capacity - high status - prototype building http://www.matra-transport.fr/gb/civis/index.html |
cost - high flexibilty - medium capacity - medium status - Treiste trial http://www.ansaldo stream.com/English/technol.htm |
cost - low flexibilty - low capacity - high status - trial built http://transport.bombardier.com/htmen/pr_2_23.htm |
Marcopolo/Volvo/Powertronics The Volvo B10M chassis with a
Marcopolo body is being used in the "Fura-Fila" (Queue Jumper) guided
trolleybus system that is now in the prototype stage and expected to enter
revenue service on a suburban bus corridor in Sao Paulo later this year.
Marcopolo, Volvo, and Powertronics of Brazil developed the prototype,
which has been tested on its own track for the past year. The full system
is expected to be completed by 2002 with a total of 450 vehicles, each of
which is eighty-two feet long and will have a capacity of 270 passengers.
While Brazil’s current economic problems may make this projection overly
optimistic, the prototype LVT has operated successfully on a test track
since early last year. The test track is configured with various curves
and grades, and the prototype clocked up some 7,000 road kilometers under
simulated fully and partially loaded conditions. The private operator, Sao
Paulo Transporte S.A., plans for its first 8.5-km, partially elevated
route—between Dom Pedro Park in downtown Sao Paulo and the Sacoma district
to the southeast—to enter full operation this year with a total of 31
vehicles. Thirteen more vehicles will be added in the second phase, when
the extended route will be served by 11 platform stations. The complete
system will include extensions of the initial route, several other
commuter routes from the downtown area, and a circular connecting link.
According to the figures obtained from company executives, construction
costs of the bi-articulated trolleybus system are significantly lower than
those of other alternatives in one of the world’s largest cities, which
now has a metropolitan area population of 17 million and is growing
rapidly. Building costs have been estimated at £9.5 million per kilometer,
or £15 million per mile. A similar system using light rail would run the
equivalent of £25 million per kilometer (£40 million per mile), while
subway extensions in Sao Paulo were estimated by local officials to cost
upwards of £63 million/km (£100 million/ mile). Other reasons favoring the
non-polluting LVT include environmental concerns, domestic manufacture,
and the current operation of a mostly over-age trolleybus fleet totaling
nearly 500 vehicles. |
Going Green the trolleybus
way Propelling a vehicle by
electricity from a large fixed power plant is MUCH more environmentally
friendly than by an on board diesel or natural gas engine, or a fossil
fuel powered fuel cell or whatever. Fossil fuels can be burned in modern
power stations perhaps TWICE as efficiently as on board a vehicle. Thus
only about HALF the amount of fossil fuel has to be burned and about HALF
the amount of the green house gas pollutant Carbon Dioxide [CO2] is
produced. Other pollutants such as sulphur and nitrogen oxides, Carbon
Monoxide [CO], and particulates [smoke] from power stations are minute
compared with vehicle engines. In addition of course, they are not
discharged straight in the street for people to breath! If the power
station is not fossil fuelled but solar, wind, wave, water, biomass, etc.,
fuelled, then the central generation of power is incomparably
environmentally better than burning fossil fuels on vehicles. In the case of rail applications, where the additional infrastructure required for the distribution of electric power tends to be a small proportion of other costs, electric propulsion is usually the norm nowadays. For urban bus routes, and looking at whole life costs, the infrastructure required for electric propulsion can be funded from reduced operating costs. In other words, trolleybuses offer very significant environmental advantages over diesel, natural gas, hydrocarbon fuel cell, etc, buses, but without incurring a cost penalty. Fuel cells fuelled by hydrogen produced off-board by renewable sources may provide an ultimate 'green' transport, but the technology and the infrastructure have yet to be fully developed. The environmental case for the trolleybus is that not only is it a TRUE zero emission vehicle, it produces much less greenhouse gas [CO2] as well as very much less in the way of other ['minor'] pollutants like nitrogen or sulphur oxides. The trolleybus is also very quiet. The issue of fuel cell versus trolley vehicles is really a red herring - the best way in the future to use fuel cells will probably to put big fuel cells in power stations, rather than small ones on vehicles, where the distribution infrastructure costs can be recouped from operating savings with electric vehicles i.e urban [trolley]bus routes. Irvine Bell |