South Wales 'Metro' updates

[Del1977]

Sounds very much like a variant on the "profitable core" that politicians and civil servants desperately scrambled to find without success from the early 60's onwards.

Indeed the more I read your posts with their underlying theme of supposed fiscal responsibility of light rail conversion the more I am convinced that you are pursuing a fools errand chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of a non subsidy public transport system. Public transport provides wider benefits away from the supposed negative of silo thinking subsidy. The railway doesn't live in a bubble in interacts with the wider world yet conventional cost benefit analysis is poor at recognising the societal cost of not having quality public transport especially in urban areas. If vallley lines didn't bring in those commuters every day into central Cardiff the road network down the A470 and across the M4 Interchange at Coryton would descend into total gridlock damaging the economy of the whole of South Wales. Yet the value of this is not factored into any calculations.

Public transport is not just about how cheap you can provide it.

The problem though with your analysis, is that you overlook the problem of the scarcity of resources.

Passengers are resistant to paying more and Governments are not keen to subsidise more without political pressure.

It's up to Welsh politicians to persuade passengers to pay more or for taxpayers in SW to pay more.

Until then, it is a case of getting the most bang for the buck out of the money available. If the Metro programme is operationally cheaper, it'll free up finite resources to provide new or enhance other services.


Given you often mention the Coryton interchange and the A470 as crunch points, this suggests the plan of the WAG to start with the Valley Lines north of QS is the right one.

 

[Bletchleyite]

LVT means landowners (and not tenants - another lovely effect) pay a proportion of their land value as a regular tax

Tenants pay it too, they just pay it through their rent, just as they pay something like a service charge in a block of flats that way too rather than directly.

Your statement is like saying my lodger doesn't pay for Council Tax (which is a sort-of-pseudo-land-value-tax-ish), heating, water and electricity. Of course he does, it's just part of his rent, and they were all taken into account when I decided what to charge him. If the cost of one or all of those increased substantially I'd have to consider increasing his rent to cover it, just as a landlord would do if he had to start paying a new tax for his tenant.

 

[gareth950]

The problem though with your analysis, is that you overlook the problem of the scarcity of resources.

Passengers are resistant to paying more and Conservative Governments are not keen refuse to subsidise more without political pressure.

It's up to Welsh politicians to persuade passengers to pay more or for taxpayers in SW to pay more, which will not happen because of Wales' historic under-funding through the Barnett formula.

Until then, it is a case of getting the most bang for the buck out of the money available. If the Metro programme is operationally cheaper, it'll free up finite resources to provide new or enhance other services.

Given you often mention the Coryton interchange and the A470 as crunch points, this suggests the plan of the WAG to start with the Valley Lines north of QS is the right one.

In bold, I've corrected your post for you.

There are crunch points from east, west, north and south coming into Cardiff. Traffic often barely moves through Dinas Powys and a by-pass is being called for, when what is really needed is 6 car trains from Cardiff to Barry and the Vale.. Oh wait, too much nasty subsidy involved........2 car 150s for the foreseeable it is then.

 

[Dai Corner]

In bold, I've corrected your post for you.

There are crunch points from east, west, north and south coming into Cardiff. Traffic often barely moves through Dinas Powys and a by-pass is being called for, when what is really needed is 6 car trains from Cardiff to Barry and the Vale.. Oh wait, too much subsidy involved........

Or take a step back, look afresh at the problem and not have everyone crowding into Cardiff to work in offices that could be located nearer where they live. If you can have a call centre in India, say, you can have one in Mountain Ash, Barry, Pontypool or Caerphilly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Or take a step back, look afresh at the problem and not have everyone crowding into Cardiff to work in offices that could be located nearer where they live. If you can have a call centre in India, say, you can have one in Mountain Ash, Barry, Pontypool or Caerphilly.

Or have them work from home.

 

[gareth950]

Or take a step back, look afresh at the problem and not have everyone crowding into Cardiff to work in offices that could be located nearer where they live. If you can have a call centre in India, say, you can have one in Mountain Ash, Barry, Pontypool or Caerphilly.

Tell that to Cardiff's city planners and Cardiff Council before the Brains brewery site and St David's House is turned into yet more high rise office blocks.
Too late.............

 

[Dai Corner]

Or have them work from home.

Indeed. I think BT (or whatever they were called then) pioneered this many years ago with directory enquiries.

 

[Dai Corner]

Tell that to Cardiff's city planners and Cardiff Council before the Brains brewery site and St David's House is turned into yet more high rise office blocks.
Too late.............

I hope they're paying substantial S106 contributions towards the Metro and road building!

 

[Del1977]

In bold, I've corrected your post for you.

There are crunch points from east, west, north and south coming into Cardiff. Traffic often barely moves through Dinas Powys and a by-pass is being called for, when what is really needed is 6 car trains from Cardiff to Barry and the Vale.. Oh wait, too much nasty subsidy involved........2 car 150s for the foreseeable it is then.

If it's the evil Tories not subsidising the SW Metro enough, then the Labour-controlled WAG can subsidise it, or tax local people more to pay for it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed. I think BT (or whatever they were called then) pioneered this many years ago with directory enquiries.

Much easier to do now of course, as you don't need any special tech to do it, it can be done in software quite easily on any standard PC.

 

[gareth950]

If it's the evil Tories not subsidising the SW Metro enough, then the Labour-controlled WAG can subsidise it, or tax local people more to pay for it.

The Conservatives have the same attitude to subisidising PT and the rail network in the whole of the UK, not just Wales. Everything has to be treated as a business, when PT fulfils a much needed social and environmental need.
Just look at how the loss of TfL's grant in 2015 is now affecting future plans due to revenue falling.

The neo-liberal small state obessesion is not fit for purpose. Health, transport, education etc are basic social, public, environmental, economic etc needs that the state should meet.

 

[Del1977]

The Conservatives have the same attitude to subisidising PT and the rail network in the whole of the UK, not just Wales. Everything has to be treated as a business, when PT fulfils a much needed social and environmental need.
Just look at how the loss of TfL's grant in 2015 is now affecting future plans due to revenue falling.

The neo-liberal small state obessesion is not fit for purpose. Health, transport, education etc are basic social, public, environmental, economic etc needs that the state should meet.

Right, but my point - which you've ignored - is that unlike Surrey, say, Wales has a regional assembly and can raise its own money too. What's stopping Cardiff Bay charging £100 per household on council tax for the SW Metro project?

 

[Gareth Marston]

The problem though with your analysis, is that you overlook the problem of the scarcity of resources.

Passengers are resistant to paying more and Governments are not keen to subsidise more without political pressure.

It's up to Welsh politicians to persuade passengers to pay more or for taxpayers in SW to pay more.

Until then, it is a case of getting the most bang for the buck out of the money available. If the Metro programme is operationally cheaper, it'll free up finite resources to provide new or enhance other services.


Given you often mention the Coryton interchange and the A470 as crunch points, this suggests the plan of the WAG to start with the Valley Lines north of QS is the right one.

As has been pointed out the Coryton Interchange is but one of several pinch points in and around Cardiff - the key point is the current heavy rail system is at beyond capacity at peak times and therefore its effective point whereby it helps keep these interchanges usable has been reached at least with Pacers and 150's in current quantity's.

As to bang for bucks its clear looking at TfW's plans that the entire budget for infrastructure is being sunk into LRT conversion of Core Valley Lines which comprises of c 40% of the current Cardiff commuter network and address's none of the extensions/add ons that the Metro supposedly promised as a solution to the whole region. Looking at it holistically there's no extensions, no new LRT lines , 60% of the current system stays as DMU Heavy Rail at current frequencies. And will people flock to stand for over 10 miles on Light Rail Cars as an alternative to driving at peak times? The whole thing will be a farce if in its opening weeks the complaints flood in about standing over long distances, of course you can shout high frequency and double up trams but that comes with increased operational costs. What money will be left over for elsewhere?

The reality is that TfW's plans are more of a whimper in transport terms rather than a bang looking at the whole region. However they satisfy the political criteria of the current Welsh Labour administration of gaining control over something from Westminster, presenting something shiny and new to Joe public they can proclaim as a great success within the confines of the financial straitjacket caused by their obsession with archaic and ineffective big tickets road schemes.

 

[Gareth Marston]

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-43059755

A former adviser to UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has told the BBC Wales Live programme building a relief road was not something a Labour government should be doing.

Steve Howell, who previously ran a business in Cardiff, said it would be a mistake if Mr Jones tried to "push it through" at this stage of his tenure as first minister.

Mr Howell was Mr Corbyn's deputy director of strategy and communications during last year's general election campaign.

Mr Howell thinks a relief road would push traffic congestion to other parts of the road network and the money should be spent on the South Wales Metro public transport project instead.

"It is the reality that it is the relief road versus the Metro," he said.

"This will use up the entire capital budget that's available to Wales."

He said the M4 is "not environmentally sustainable" and is "not even going to do the job it claims it's going to do in terms of reducing congestion".

The crux of the matter a flawed conversion of part of Valley Lines to Light Rail or a proper Metro project for the whole city region?

It seems the chickens cant be counted to back bulldozing the M4 project through.

 

[Del1977]

As to bang for bucks its clear looking at TfW's plans that the entire budget for infrastructure is being sunk into LRT conversion of Core Valley Lines which comprises of c 40% of the current Cardiff commuter network and address's none of the extensions/add ons that the Metro supposedly promised as a solution to the whole region. Looking at it holistically there's no extensions, no new LRT lines , 60% of the current system stays as DMU Heavy Rail at current frequencies. And will people flock to stand for over 10 miles on Light Rail Cars as an alternative to driving at peak times? The whole thing will be a farce if in its opening weeks the complaints flood in about standing over long distances, of course you can shout high frequency and double up trams but that comes with increased operational costs. What money will be left over for elsewhere?

I'm not sure you're consistent with the strands of your arguments. On the one hand you're saying that the roads are jammed running in to Cardiff, then on the other hand, the current people who are choosing not to use the jammed roads will all then be driving if they don't like the new trams/trains, whatever.

Do you really think that people will look at new 'shiny trains' and think, "Damn, I'd much rather have kept the Pacers".

Nothing has been announced about diesel frequencies on lines not being converted.

 

[Gareth Marston]

That isn't where I'm coming from, at all.

The most effective way to fund public transportation (and, as it happens, all public expenditure) is to have a land value tax. Good public expenditure (whether it be public libraries or defence or social security systems) ultimately increase the value of land. The fixed supply of land is an absolute, and is essentially what defines a state in the first place. Land is pretty much unique in economic terms and it is well understood by proper economists that taxes on land value are economically efficient unlike almost all other taxes.

The mechanism by which LVT can fund public spending is that this public spending increases the economic usefulness of the land it serves. If you provide good public transport in the Valleys, it'll make them nicer places to live with better access to jobs, education and entertainment. These increase land values, and as LVT means landowners (and not tenants - another lovely effect) pay a proportion of their land value as a regular tax, it causes tax receipts to increase.

What does this have to do with LR? Because the tax receipt increase comes from the economic effect of the public spending, not the amount of public spending itself. What I've been saying is that LR can be used in the Valleys to create a system with either the equivalent, or more, benefit of any possible HR system but for less money. If we had the perfect funding system implemented, this would still be true. Unless you can prove that HR is going to increase land values by more than its increase in costs, there's no case to be made for it. There are, however, plenty of cases where that will be true. If you tried to turn busier and faster HR networks (e.g. London commuter routes) into LR you could plausibly end up reducing land values and tax receipts if the end result is a worse transportation system.

As we have been pointing out TfW's plans for LRT Conversion is only going to be for c40% of current heavy rail network and then the funding drys up This LRT Conversion is only going to be of benefit for 3.5 out of 10 Unitary Authority Areas in South Wales (and even then not the entire Authority areas). A network for the Cardiff City Region it is not.

The notion that Land Values will rise in the Rhondda, Cynon, Taff and Rhymeny Valleys rests entirely on the premise that people will find acceptable a designed standing area at peak times on trams traveling for over 30 minutes to places like Pontypridd and beyond when the biggest current complaint is overcrowding and standing at peak times. Providing enough trams to counter this then increases your operational costs substantially and then the cost advantages of Light Rail are eroded.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Nothing has been announced about diesel frequencies on lines not being converted.

Please read the TfW documents and previous posts - yes they have - the schemes to double frequency on the Maesteg and Ebbw Vale branches have been kicked into the long grass as have the proposed turn backs at Abergavenny and Chepstow. So that means the current frequencies are staying for the short to medium term. As to Vale services and City line they now have to be found terminal platform space at Central caused by the core valley lines split they will not be able to run at increased frequencies as they are no longer running Cross city.

 

[Llanigraham]

Right, but my point - which you've ignored - is that unlike Surrey, say, Wales has a regional assembly and can raise its own money too. What's stopping Cardiff Bay charging £100 per household on council tax for the SW Metro project?

Under what powers will they do that?
And if you haven't realised, Council Tax is raised by COUNCILS, not the Regional Government. I am sure that we Powys County Council residents were be very concerned if we all had to pay £100 a year extra, and I shudder to think of the uproar that would arise from Gwynedd!

 

[Gareth Marston]

I'm not sure you're consistent with the strands of your arguments. On the one hand you're saying that the roads are jammed running in to Cardiff, then on the other hand, the current people who are choosing not to use the jammed roads will all then be driving if they don't like the new trams/trains, whatever.

Do you really think that people will look at new 'shiny trains' and think, "Damn, I'd much rather have kept the Pacers".

People currently know that the Valley Lines have a reputation for being overcrowded at peak times and therefore choose not to use the train (even at non peak times) as they reason when sitting in traffic congestion at least you have a seat and can listen to music in your car this is not the London commuter market where there is no effective choice. Cardiff and Valleys is not a captive market. These people then increase traffic congestion on the roads into Cardiff.

Now when the shiny new light rail system is opened and remember there will have been platitudes in buckets from Welsh Government telling everybody how world class it is everybody will flock to use it at first and then when they find out that its not the masses of extra seats they think they've been promised but a Light Rail car with plenty of bespoke standing capacity the gloss will soon wear off. All you need is a few people standing all the way from Queen St to Porth and word will soon be out that despite the pain, £ and promises you still have to stand to Cardiff and your effectively back to where you are now.

The public consultation was very clear about concerns over getting seat being a top priority , people haven't asked for bespoke standing space.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Light rail doesn't have to mean standing if you use a more classic design of vehicle like the Sheffield cars, which despite being the oldest now in service in the UK are in my mind by far the best.

The Sheffield tram-trains have been built to a near identical design save for being low floor throughout.

 

[Dai Corner]

Under what powers will they do that?
And if you haven't realised, Council Tax is raised by COUNCILS, not the Regional Government. I am sure that we Powys County Council residents were be very concerned if we all had to pay £100 a year extra, and I shudder to think of the uproar that would arise from Gwynedd!

90% (ish) of Council income comes from the Welsh Government so what's to stop them saying 'we're cutting your grant and spending the money on the metro* instead. You'll need to put council tax up"?

* or the new M4 or any other expensive scheme.

 

[CardiffKid]

90% (ish) of Council income comes from the Welsh Government so what's to stop them saying 'we're cutting your grant and spending the money on the metro* instead. You'll need to put council tax up"?

* or the new M4 or any other expensive scheme.

That would ultimately be a political decision and it would mean that schools and social services would suffer. And that's something no politician is going to do.

(We all know that transport takes a back seat anyway.)

 

[Del1977]

Under what powers will they do that?
And if you haven't realised, Council Tax is raised by COUNCILS, not the Regional Government. I am sure that we Powys County Council residents were be very concerned if we all had to pay £100 a year extra, and I shudder to think of the uproar that would arise from Gwynedd!

I know who raises Council Tax, Llanigraham. And I would suggest that any tax raising for the Metro takes place in the county boroughs that benefit.

But what you say gets to the heart of the problem: The idea people in Gwynedd and Powys might have to pay more for infrastructure in other parts of Wales is met with absolute horror, but the idea that people in London or anywhere else fund it through central taxation is just fine.

People currently know that the Valley Lines have a reputation for being overcrowded at peak times and therefore choose not to use the train (even at non peak times) as they reason when sitting in traffic congestion at least you have a seat and can listen to music in your car this is not the London commuter market where there is no effective choice. Cardiff and Valleys is not a captive market. These people then increase traffic congestion on the roads into Cardiff.

Then even if we follow your plan of EMUs, then there's no guarantee that people will flock to these services as by your own admissions:

1. There isn't a captive market, and sitting in your own car listening to music will always be attractive to some, and,
2. People are in fact willing to put up with traffic congestion, even when the trains are empty off-peak, as even though there is congestion, it's nothing compared to the road congestion elsewhere, e.g. London.

That would ultimately be a political decision and it would mean that schools and social services would suffer. And that's something no politician is going to do.

(We all know that transport takes a back seat anyway.)

And this is also something that is the case at UK level.

 

[Dai Corner]

That would ultimately be a political decision and it would mean that schools and social services would suffer. And that's something no politician is going to do.

(We all know that transport takes a back seat anyway.)

Making such decisions is something the Welsh Government should be doing. Rather than "We'd like to do this but the UK Government won't give us the money" I would like to hear "This will cost an extra £100 on your Council/Income/whatever Tax. Do you still want us to do it?"

 

[Gareth Marston]

Then even if we follow your plan of EMUs, then there's no guarantee that people will flock to these services as by your own admissions:

1. There isn't a captive market, and sitting in your own car listening to music will always be attractive to some, and,
2. People are in fact willing to put up with traffic congestion, even when the trains are empty off-peak, as even though there is congestion, it's nothing compared to the road congestion elsewhere, e.g. London.

There has to be a step change in provision to change peoples perceptions and the biggest perception hurdle to overcome is overcrowding. People associate standing with overcrowding in South Wales therefore bespoke standing space on trams/low seat numbers of the typical UK Metro system are going to be counter productive as people will not associate it with the problem having been solved. In other words the Light Rail system will just be a big disappointment as no ones listened to the public's concerns. Completing CASR with 3 car modern DMU's like CAF Civity will be a step change as people will get a 66%increase in seats on today's provision plus better standing space - a very large fleet of trams tail chasing each other is needed to compete. Any Light Rail system will be struggling even the Class 399's with their c90 seats per unit because of how many of them you need and the easiest thing to cut back on to keep costs down is the number of units in the fleet...

Stick a tram on a new route then its a different ball game as people will not be comparing it against current provision failings.

 

[Llanigraham]

I know who raises Council Tax, Llanigraham. And I would suggest that any tax raising for the Metro takes place in the county boroughs that benefit.

But that isn't what you said, is it? You said "council tax" not general taxation.
And at the moment the Assembly do not have any tax raising powers.

But what you say gets to the heart of the problem: The idea people in Gwynedd and Powys might have to pay more for infrastructure in other parts of Wales is met with absolute horror, but the idea that people in London or anywhere else fund it through central taxation is just fine.

[/QUOTE]

And again, you didn't mention tax but Council Tax and the people of Londdon do not support the population of any other place with their COUNCIL tax.

 

[NotATrainspott]

Tenants pay it too, they just pay it through their rent, just as they pay something like a service charge in a block of flats that way too rather than directly.

Your statement is like saying my lodger doesn't pay for Council Tax (which is a sort-of-pseudo-land-value-tax-ish), heating, water and electricity. Of course he does, it's just part of his rent, and they were all taken into account when I decided what to charge him. If the cost of one or all of those increased substantially I'd have to consider increasing his rent to cover it, just as a landlord would do if he had to start paying a new tax for his tenant.

No, that's not true. The unique economics of land mean that landlords cannot pass on the costs of an LVT. While it might seem superficially similar to Council Tax, it is night and day from an economic perspective.

As we have been pointing out TfW's plans for LRT Conversion is only going to be for c40% of current heavy rail network and then the funding drys up This LRT Conversion is only going to be of benefit for 3.5 out of 10 Unitary Authority Areas in South Wales (and even then not the entire Authority areas). A network for the Cardiff City Region it is not.

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. You've picked the slant on the statistics which you want to serve your argument. Another, equally or more valid, slant on those same statistics is about the percentage of passenger journeys that would be covered by the SWM. The Pareto principle means that a small part of the rail network is responsible for a large proportion of all journeys - this statement is valid on essentially all levels. A system serving a small proportion of places in South Wales would carry a disproportionately large portion of travellers, and it's the number of travellers which makes the business case.

The notion that Land Values will rise in the Rhondda, Cynon, Taff and Rhymeny Valleys rests entirely on the premise that people will find acceptable a designed standing area at peak times on trams traveling for over 30 minutes to places like Pontypridd and beyond when the biggest current complaint is overcrowding and standing at peak times. Providing enough trams to counter this then increases your operational costs substantially and then the cost advantages of Light Rail are eroded.

There has to be a step change in provision to change peoples perceptions and the biggest perception hurdle to overcome is overcrowding. People associate standing with overcrowding in South Wales therefore bespoke standing space on trams/low seat numbers of the typical UK Metro system are going to be counter productive as people will not associate it with the problem having been solved. In other words the Light Rail system will just be a big disappointment as no ones listened to the public's concerns. Completing CASR with 3 car modern DMU's like CAF Civity will be a step change as people will get a 66%increase in seats on today's provision plus better standing space - a very large fleet of trams tail chasing each other is needed to compete. Any Light Rail system will be struggling even the Class 399's with their c90 seats per unit because of how many of them you need and the easiest thing to cut back on to keep costs down is the number of units in the fleet...

Stick a tram on a new route then its a different ball game as people will not be comparing it against current provision failings.

Why would HR be cheaper at providing the same capacity?

Sure, a single Class 195 2x24m DMU will have more seats than a Metrolink M5000. Is that really a surprise? One of them is 48m long, and the other is 28m. What matters is how much each seat costs. An LR fleet will have a lower cost per seat than an HR fleet, especially a DMU one. That's before any other operational fixed cost savings. An off-peak 2-car DMU will have HR driving and guard costs which have to be divided up between the few people on board. The same capacity of LR train would only have LR driving costs. The higher fixed costs of an HR system are a problem when the vast majority of services throughout the day only need to be a few carriages long. There's simply no need to run long formations throughout the whole day. Excess capacity on a single service doesn't have any benefits for passengers - what they want instead is lower fares and/or higher frequencies. Therefore, there will always be a push for higher frequencies over longer trains, making the problem of high fixed costs on HR that bit more problematic.

Do you just reject the idea that the minimum SWM LR vehicle will be 50m? Do you reject the idea that they'll ever run doubled in service?

 

[Llanigraham]

But we don't have "Land Value Tax" and I see no proposals to introduce anything like it, so why you are mentioning it I do not understand.

"Parento principle"; never heard of it so perhaps you could explain it?

 

[gareth950]

No, that's not true. The unique economics of land mean that landlords cannot pass on the costs of an LVT. While it might seem superficially similar to Council Tax, it is night and day from an economic perspective.

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. You've picked the slant on the statistics which you want to serve your argument. Another, equally or more valid, slant on those same statistics is about the percentage of passenger journeys that would be covered by the SWM. The Pareto principle means that a small part of the rail network is responsible for a large proportion of all journeys - this statement is valid on essentially all levels. A system serving a small proportion of places in South Wales would carry a disproportionately large portion of travellers, and it's the number of travellers which makes the business case.

Why would HR be cheaper at providing the same capacity?

Sure, a single Class 195 2x24m DMU will have more seats than a Metrolink M5000. Is that really a surprise? One of them is 48m long, and the other is 28m. What matters is how much each seat costs. An LR fleet will have a lower cost per seat than an HR fleet, especially a DMU one. That's before any other operational fixed cost savings. An off-peak 2-car DMU will have HR driving and guard costs which have to be divided up between the few people on board. The same capacity of LR train would only have LR driving costs. The higher fixed costs of an HR system are a problem when the vast majority of services throughout the day only need to be a few carriages long. There's simply no need to run long formations throughout the whole day. Excess capacity on a single service doesn't have any benefits for passengers - what they want instead is lower fares and/or higher frequencies. Therefore, there will always be a push for higher frequencies over longer trains, making the problem of high fixed costs on HR that bit more problematic.

Do you just reject the idea that the minimum SWM LR vehicle will be 50m? Do you reject the idea that they'll ever run doubled in service?

You can persistently argue about economics all you like, but the number one compliant from passengers and commuters above all else on the Cardiff & Valleys local routes is not having a seat. Followed by poor Sunday service frequencies. Even from Radyr people expect to have a seat. If people don't get a seat, their expectations won't have been met and the SWM project, esp LR conversion, will have failed to meet commuter expectations.

If 50m trams are going to run doubled up (or even on their own), street running won't be possible, which takes away the biggest part of the argument for LR conversion, so the only benefit is 4tph to the HoV instead of in the peak, 6 car 2tph. There's still going to be a crush for the tram that gets people into Cardiff for their 9am start at the office.

 

[Del1977]

You can persistently argue about economics all you like, but the number one compliant from passengers and commuters above all else on the Cardiff & Valleys local routes is not having a seat. Followed by poor Sunday service frequencies. Even from Radyr people expect to have a seat. If people don't get a seat, their expectations won't have been met and the SWM project, esp LR conversion, will have failed to meet commuter expectations.

If 50m trams are going to run doubled up (or even on their own), street running won't be possible, which takes away the biggest part of the argument for LR conversion, so the only benefit is 4tph to the HoV instead of in the peak, 6 car 2tph. There's still going to be a crush for the tram that gets people into Cardiff for their 9am start at the office.

Expecting a seat from Radyr, 10 minutes from the city centre at peak commuting hours is absurd. No system operates this way with guaranteed seats and no standing for a 10 minute ride.