Edinburgh Tram developments

[90019]

Five out of eight grievances were upheld against Ian Craig.

 

[kylemore]

There’s three stages to the tram scheme. Design, delivery and operation.

The design seems to have been pretty good (considering it was just one line, rather than attempting to build a whole "network") – the first line was intended to serve the Airport, the two main “out of town” shopping centres, the centre of the city, a couple of train stations, the bus station, major employment areas, a Park And Ride site, a sports stadium and the biggest “suburb” (without getting into arguments about whether Leith is its own place or part of the big city).

For one line, that seems to tick a lot of boxes! I’m struggling to think of how they could have designed one simple route that’d have provided more. Any other route would probably involve following bus routes (which slows the tram down, disrupts existing traffic further and begs the question “what was the point in building a tram that just follows the existing bus route?”).

Delivery? A shambles, obviously. The main problems seem to be that the council tried to do everything at once and tried to cut too many corners. If they’d focussed resources on the western end, they could have had a line from the Airport to Edinburgh Park (connecting the Airport to heavy rail) in operation whilst the section to Haymarket was under construction... then, once Haymarket was operational, the section through Princes Street could be built – and so on and so on until the full line to Leith was up and running. Instead, we had many years of diversions and disruption along the whole length of the proposed route – rather than focussing resources on individual areas. So, I can see why people are angry with the way the project was run (which caused the Leith section to be put on hold), but that has to be seen separately from the design and the operation of it.

As far as the operational side goes, it seems to be working okay. It’s had less of an impact upon bus routes than had previously been suggested, it’s managing to attract new passengers without just poaching them from bus routes (obviously some tram passengers are upgrading from the bus, but the tram is also attracting people who weren’t using the bus – however good Lothian Buses are). It’s certainly doing a lot better in its early days than the Sheffield system was!

There’s a fair bit of bluff and bluster on this thread from people trying to find a reason to complain about the design and operational side but I’m not sure what the problem is with those two aspects...

Complaints re the press release? Of course any press release from any organisation is going to focus on the positive – it’s no surprise that TiE are making their figures sound as good as possible – that’s what any organisation would do. There’ll be some churn in the figures, there always is – I don’t think anyone expected previous PR (in the pre-tram days) to say brutally honest things like “numbers only went up because First reduced their competing services” or "there was growth last year, but pretty much all from pensioners on free passes" or “the rise in flat fare to £1.50 saw a drop in short distance passengers but growth on longer distance journeys hid this” or “the new passengers generated by the 104/113 to East Lothian masked the reduction in the Muirhouse area passengers”. Anyone thinking that a TiE press release should focus on the negatives doesn’t understand how PR works...

There’s always been churn on bus routes, services to some places increase whilst others reduce. This generally happens without much wailing (look at the reduction on the Sherrifhall route when the 48/X48 and 86 were withdrawn...), but the moment the peak only X12 was withdrawn, it seems to made some hysterical!

There’s complaints that the tram figures only look good because the opening saw the withdrawal of a bus service (aforementioned peak only X12 to Ingleston Park & Ride), yet there are also complaints on this thread about how few people were using peak time trams out of the city towards Ingleston (so if these trams were only carrying half a dozen people – based on anecdotes on this thread – then the numbers using the tram weren’t just because of passengers who’d previously have been on the X12).

Worth remembering that the biggest reduction for Ingleston was when the all day 48/X48 (every fifteen minutes direct with peak extras) were replaced by a twenty minute extension of the 12 (via a slower route, serving the Gyle) and peak X12 – yet these changes/reductions saw nothing like the same number of complaints!

The tram fare to the Airport is apparently unfair (compared to the tram fare to the stop before, Ingleston), yet nobody was complaining when the bus fare to the Airport (on the fastest service - AirLink) was considerably more than the bus fare to Ingleston (ignoring the circuitous 35 that took twice as long to get to the Airport – i.e. not a route for longer distance passengers). Essentially, the moment it’s an excuse to moan about the tram, it becomes an issue...

And, imagine if the tram were only charging £1.50 to the Airport? There’d be complaints that this was undercutting the long established (but more expensive) Airlink buses and putting the flagship bus service in jeopardy.

Again, there’s complaints that the tram doesn’t directly duplicate bus routes (i.e. following the AirLink route past the Zoo and stopping at Waverley) but also complaints that it runs in areas that already have bus routes (and therefore duplicates them!)...

...there’s complaints that the tram route doesn’t just run along main roads (like the A8) and complaints that it causes a hazard for cyclists on the roads that it does run on (as a cyclist in Sheffield, I’ve never had an accident due to tram tracks – they are an obstacle that you need to be aware of but urban cycling involves lots of obstacles to be aware of).

The tram isn’t “integrated” with heavy rail? Apart from at Haymarket, you mean? And Edinburgh Park? Given that the vast majority of Edinburgh trains (maybe 90%?) serve Haymarket, is this really the end of the world? Are there large numbers of people coming to Waverley on “English” trains (i.e. the handful that don’t serve Haymarket) heading for the Airport? Do many people come from Newcastle to shop at the Gyle? Doubt it...

If I were travelling from most places in Scotland (Dundee/ Falkirk/ Glasgow etc) to the Gyle/ RBS/ Airport (etc) then why would I want to sit on a train all the way past Haymarket to Waverley only to sit on a tram from Waverley to Haymarket anyway? Surely I’d just get off at Haymarket (or even Edinburgh Park)! The “Waverley” stuff feels like a red herring, another grumble for the sake of grumbling.

The Edinburgh situation will stop other cities from building their own schemes? No, I think that the drastic cuts to Local Government budgets (so that our Town Halls won’t be able to provide anything other than Social Care – even if/when the economy is fully recovered, the days of ambitious Local Government initiatives are in the past).

But, even so, why should the badly managed Edinburgh scheme stop future ones? The badly managed Cambridgeshire Busway hasn’t stopped that scheme being a success once it opened, and hasn’t stopped Greater Manchester from wanting their own busway.

There’s no end of badly managed railway schemes that are seriously delayed/ significantly over-budget but that doesn’t seem to stop the appetite for more (nobody is suggesting that the messed up schemes at Tweedbank or Todmorden will mean no other railway reopenings/ reinstatements happen – nobody is treating the over-running engineering works over the recent festive period as reason not to do so again in future years), so I don’t buy the “it’s Edinburgh’s fault that no more tram systems will be built” argument.

So, whilst I’m not defending the “delivery” aspect, I think that the complaints about the design and the operation are generally wide of the mark (and often contradictory!). Interesting that nobody has any sensible solutions for alternative tram routes...

So there's nothing to get our knickers in a twist over then?

The World's most expensive Tram line per mile by some margin surely?

Not a matter for concern?

What makes me and others who post on here very angry is the thought of what £800m could have achieved in the hands of people who knew what they were doing.

 

[gswindale]

So there's nothing to get our knickers in a twist over then?

The World's most expensive Tram line per mile by some margin surely?

Not a matter for concern?

What makes me and others who post on here very angry is the thought of what £800m could have achieved in the hands of people who knew what they were doing.

To pick up on your points.
Clearly the delivery was/is an issue and questions need to be asked as to why it was such a financial disaster.


There are however a lot of projects where costs spiralled out of control, but have eventually been deemed a success.

The tram is there now. Getting rid of it is clearly a stupid idea as that will cost even more money and cause even more disruption along the existing route.

Best thing to do now is to let it settle in for a couple of years and then look at how to extend it usefully and efficiently - maybe getting in people involved in the Manchester/Sheffield (and possibly Nottingham).

Average usage figures will always be skewed by special events etc. A month by month comparison over a much longer period of time is needed to get an accurate picture as to how all used or not it is. Let us compare the usage for next August against last August in due course to see if the novelty/tourist effect has indeed worn off by the time of the next Edinburgh festival.

 

[edwin_m]

To pick up on your points.
Best thing to do now is to let it settle in for a couple of years and then look at how to extend it usefully and efficiently - maybe getting in people involved in the Manchester/Sheffield (and possibly Nottingham).

Manchester probably, but not Sheffield. Supertram was built over 20 years ago and anyone senior on the project at that time will have retired by now. Also it was considered unsuccessful at the time, though I don't remember if this was due to cost overruns (there were certainly problems with low patronage).

The construction people at Nottingham aren't covering themselves with glory either. It's at least six months late and the disruption has been much greater than most people expected, considering there was no construction in the city centre.

 

[Haydn1971]

Agreed, I'm 44 this year and I worked as a technician on the detail design of SYLRT, Sheffield Supertram, the senior traffic/signals guys have retired now, theres some traffic guys left but these were at middling design roles at the time, there's a couple of transportation engineers still around but with one foot into retirement. From memory, the people with a finger in the route planning done in the early 80's retired in the mid 90's.

Metrolink & Tramlink is still being worked on, mostly by Consultancy employees, some are ex local authority people, some have always been in the private sector.

 

[Busaholic]

Wouldn't it be true to say the only unadulterated success in modern tramways in Britain has been Manchester, nitpicking about passenger numbers on the Ashton extension aside and perhaps Salford Quays? I would have included Nottingham as well until recent construction problems. Sheffield and Croydon seem to be better regarded now than in the inital few years while Birmingham seems to continue to disappoint almost everybody.I'm not including Tyne and Wear as it plays to different rules anyway. My assessments are based on passenger popularity as well as things like construction difficulties/cost overruns and enthusiast sentiment. There, cat among the pigeons, over to you. Ediinburgh I've only travelled on via video and so I'm not going to get personally involved in how it's doing,etc.

 

[edwin_m]

Wouldn't it be true to say the only unadulterated success in modern tramways in Britain has been Manchester, nitpicking about passenger numbers on the Ashton extension aside and perhaps Salford Quays? I would have included Nottingham as well until recent construction problems. Sheffield and Croydon seem to be better regarded now than in the inital few years while Birmingham seems to continue to disappoint almost everybody.I'm not including Tyne and Wear as it plays to different rules anyway. My assessments are based on passenger popularity as well as things like construction difficulties/cost overruns and enthusiast sentiment. There, cat among the pigeons, over to you. Ediinburgh I've only travelled on via video and so I'm not going to get personally involved in how it's doing,etc.

Nottingham was pretty successful, though less so when it lost interavailable ticketing, but I hope when it opens it will recover its reputation as I don't think the routes suffer from the kinds of problem reported here for Edinburgh. Croydon was always pretty well regarded in terms of routeing and patronage, though it suffered financially from the operator not getting the revenue they expected due to bus competition (even in a regulated system...) and technically from the contractor having cut a few corners.

 

[po8crg]

Wouldn't it be true to say the only unadulterated success in modern tramways in Britain has been Manchester, nitpicking about passenger numbers on the Ashton extension aside and perhaps Salford Quays? I would have included Nottingham as well until recent construction problems. Sheffield and Croydon seem to be better regarded now than in the initial few years while Birmingham seems to continue to disappoint almost everybody. I'm not including Tyne and Wear as it plays to different rules anyway. My assessments are based on passenger popularity as well as things like construction difficulties/cost overruns and enthusiast sentiment. There, cat among the pigeons, over to you. Edinburgh I've only travelled on via video and so I'm not going to get personally involved in how it's doing, etc.

Tyne and Wear is more comparable to the Docklands Light Railway than to a tramway.

Manchester took a few years to really build its popularity, but it was so long ago - construction started in 1990 - that the construction difficulties of Phase One (the Altrincham-Navigation Road line was closed for six months in 1991; it had been announced as one month) have largely been forgotten. The Eccles service also took time to build up (mostly because Salford Quays was still being built when it started - and it took MediaCity to really bring in the money).

I think that tramways take time to build up, as people adapt their travel habits to use the new line, as the housing market adjusts, and as developers see areas along the tram route as more attractive, so construction goes up.

Now, I'm not defending the construction or design of Edinburgh's tram - it's not a city I know well at all; the construction project seems to have been catastrophically badly managed, at best; the design seems to have paid all the costs of penetrating the city centre for the sake of only one out-of-town branch - but if it can manage a half-decent patronage then it might get forgiven in a decade or two.

 

[Busaholic]

Nottingham was pretty successful, though less so when it lost interavailable ticketing, but I hope when it opens it will recover its reputation as I don't think the routes suffer from the kinds of problem reported here for Edinburgh. Croydon was always pretty well regarded in terms of routeing and patronage, though it suffered financially from the operator not getting the revenue they expected due to bus competition (even in a regulated system...) and technically from the contractor having cut a few corners.

I don't think you're quite right about Croydon. The huge delay in actually getting services started after construction had finished together with the disruption to the George Street area which has never recovered (I've known Croydon for sixty years!) didn't help and then there was the disparity between the numbers using the system and the fares collected, also a problem on London's bendybuses at the time! Bus competition over the main stretches of route was virtually eliminated from day one, the one exception being a token direct service from Homestead Way in New Addington to West Croydon which was continued after public protest, mostly so that pensioners and parents with young kids from the NA estate didn't have to change at the tram terminus, but that soon ended. The Wimbledon branch has been the one that exceeded all expectations, but that of course replaced a run-down and poorly advertised NR service rather than buses. Actually, I believe London Transport/TfL overdid the cull of bus services into Croydon - the 54 used to provide a direct service from many places in S.E. London despite long journey times and making passengers change mode at Elmers End or Beckenham Junction (with short walk) usually only adds to that time. IF the Crystal Palace branch ever gets built and given that it will have to share the same pair of tracks between Croydon and Elmers End as the other services, I can envisage a time when the 54 has to get extended again just to cope with the number of passengers!

The Nottingham decline you mention was of course self-inflicted, politically speaking, 'free market' thinking, using the word loosely, trumping common sense.

 

[kylemore]

Wouldn't it be true to say the only unadulterated success in modern tramways in Britain has been Manchester, nitpicking about passenger numbers on the Ashton extension aside and perhaps Salford Quays? I would have included Nottingham as well until recent construction problems. Sheffield and Croydon seem to be better regarded now than in the inital few years while Birmingham seems to continue to disappoint almost everybody.I'm not including Tyne and Wear as it plays to different rules anyway. My assessments are based on passenger popularity as well as things like construction difficulties/cost overruns and enthusiast sentiment. There, cat among the pigeons, over to you. Ediinburgh I've only travelled on via video and so I'm not going to get personally involved in how it's doing,etc.

My personal preference for Edinburgh would have been a Tyne and Wear clone using the large amount of abandoned suburban rail infrastructure - most of which is still intact ie. not built on - and the South suburban. Eventually it could have been extended out to the likes of Penicuik etc. A cut and cover tunnel along Princes street would probably have been required. £800m in the right hands could have gone a long way to achieving that.

The first Edinburgh Council Tram scheme in the late 80s/early 90s contained elements of that and was a better thought out scheme than the one eventually built - in the big re-organisation from Regions to smaller Councils in the early 90s much expertise took the redundancy and left, leaving behind a load of rubbish to a large extent - particularly in Edinburgh Council's Public Tranport Unit - with the results we are now having to live with.

 

[AngusH]

in the big re-organisation from Regions to smaller Councils in the early 90s much expertise took the redundancy and left

I hadn't heard about that before, but it doesn't sound too good.

Did they leave because there was less hope for new transport schemes or because the smaller departments didn't have enough "job slots" for people at their levels?

 

[Leki]

My personal preference for Edinburgh would have been a Tyne and Wear clone using the large amount of abandoned suburban rail infrastructure - most of which is still intact ie. not built on - and the South suburban. Eventually it could have been extended out to the likes of Penicuik etc. A cut and cover tunnel along Princes street would probably have been required. £800m in the right hands could have gone a long way to achieving that.

You need to read up on the risks and cost of tunneling.

The only useful ex-rail alignment is the Granton line, which is already part of the postponed tram plans.

Regarding the south sub, you rubbish the tram route yet support reuse of a railway line that closed to passengers well before the Beeching cuts because the route was so indirect and cumbersome?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

There’s three stages to the tram scheme. Design, delivery and operation.

The design seems to have been pretty good (considering it was just one line, rather than attempting to build a whole "network") – the first line was intended to serve the Airport, the two main “out of town” shopping centres, the centre of the city, a couple of train stations, the bus station, major employment areas, a Park And Ride site, a sports stadium and the biggest “suburb” (without getting into arguments about whether Leith is its own place or part of the big city).

For one line, that seems to tick a lot of boxes! I’m struggling to think of how they could have designed one simple route that’d have provided more. Any other route would probably involve following bus routes (which slows the tram down, disrupts existing traffic further and begs the question “what was the point in building a tram that just follows the existing bus route?”).

Delivery? A shambles, obviously. The main problems seem to be that the council tried to do everything at once and tried to cut too many corners. If they’d focussed resources on the western end, they could have had a line from the Airport to Edinburgh Park (connecting the Airport to heavy rail) in operation whilst the section to Haymarket was under construction... then, once Haymarket was operational, the section through Princes Street could be built – and so on and so on until the full line to Leith was up and running. Instead, we had many years of diversions and disruption along the whole length of the proposed route – rather than focussing resources on individual areas. So, I can see why people are angry with the way the project was run (which caused the Leith section to be put on hold), but that has to be seen separately from the design and the operation of it.

As far as the operational side goes, it seems to be working okay. It’s had less of an impact upon bus routes than had previously been suggested, it’s managing to attract new passengers without just poaching them from bus routes (obviously some tram passengers are upgrading from the bus, but the tram is also attracting people who weren’t using the bus – however good Lothian Buses are). It’s certainly doing a lot better in its early days than the Sheffield system was!

There’s a fair bit of bluff and bluster on this thread from people trying to find a reason to complain about the design and operational side but I’m not sure what the problem is with those two aspects...

Complaints re the press release? Of course any press release from any organisation is going to focus on the positive – it’s no surprise that TiE are making their figures sound as good as possible – that’s what any organisation would do. There’ll be some churn in the figures, there always is – I don’t think anyone expected previous PR (in the pre-tram days) to say brutally honest things like “numbers only went up because First reduced their competing services” or "there was growth last year, but pretty much all from pensioners on free passes" or “the rise in flat fare to £1.50 saw a drop in short distance passengers but growth on longer distance journeys hid this” or “the new passengers generated by the 104/113 to East Lothian masked the reduction in the Muirhouse area passengers”. Anyone thinking that a TiE press release should focus on the negatives doesn’t understand how PR works...

There’s always been churn on bus routes, services to some places increase whilst others reduce. This generally happens without much wailing (look at the reduction on the Sherrifhall route when the 48/X48 and 86 were withdrawn...), but the moment the peak only X12 was withdrawn, it seems to made some hysterical!

There’s complaints that the tram figures only look good because the opening saw the withdrawal of a bus service (aforementioned peak only X12 to Ingleston Park & Ride), yet there are also complaints on this thread about how few people were using peak time trams out of the city towards Ingleston (so if these trams were only carrying half a dozen people – based on anecdotes on this thread – then the numbers using the tram weren’t just because of passengers who’d previously have been on the X12).

Worth remembering that the biggest reduction for Ingleston was when the all day 48/X48 (every fifteen minutes direct with peak extras) were replaced by a twenty minute extension of the 12 (via a slower route, serving the Gyle) and peak X12 – yet these changes/reductions saw nothing like the same number of complaints!

The tram fare to the Airport is apparently unfair (compared to the tram fare to the stop before, Ingleston), yet nobody was complaining when the bus fare to the Airport (on the fastest service - AirLink) was considerably more than the bus fare to Ingleston (ignoring the circuitous 35 that took twice as long to get to the Airport – i.e. not a route for longer distance passengers). Essentially, the moment it’s an excuse to moan about the tram, it becomes an issue...

And, imagine if the tram were only charging £1.50 to the Airport? There’d be complaints that this was undercutting the long established (but more expensive) Airlink buses and putting the flagship bus service in jeopardy.

Again, there’s complaints that the tram doesn’t directly duplicate bus routes (i.e. following the AirLink route past the Zoo and stopping at Waverley) but also complaints that it runs in areas that already have bus routes (and therefore duplicates them!)...

...there’s complaints that the tram route doesn’t just run along main roads (like the A8) and complaints that it causes a hazard for cyclists on the roads that it does run on (as a cyclist in Sheffield, I’ve never had an accident due to tram tracks – they are an obstacle that you need to be aware of but urban cycling involves lots of obstacles to be aware of).

The tram isn’t “integrated” with heavy rail? Apart from at Haymarket, you mean? And Edinburgh Park? Given that the vast majority of Edinburgh trains (maybe 90%?) serve Haymarket, is this really the end of the world? Are there large numbers of people coming to Waverley on “English” trains (i.e. the handful that don’t serve Haymarket) heading for the Airport? Do many people come from Newcastle to shop at the Gyle? Doubt it...

If I were travelling from most places in Scotland (Dundee/ Falkirk/ Glasgow etc) to the Gyle/ RBS/ Airport (etc) then why would I want to sit on a train all the way past Haymarket to Waverley only to sit on a tram from Waverley to Haymarket anyway? Surely I’d just get off at Haymarket (or even Edinburgh Park)! The “Waverley” stuff feels like a red herring, another grumble for the sake of grumbling.

The Edinburgh situation will stop other cities from building their own schemes? No, I think that the drastic cuts to Local Government budgets (so that our Town Halls won’t be able to provide anything other than Social Care – even if/when the economy is fully recovered, the days of ambitious Local Government initiatives are in the past).

But, even so, why should the badly managed Edinburgh scheme stop future ones? The badly managed Cambridgeshire Busway hasn’t stopped that scheme being a success once it opened, and hasn’t stopped Greater Manchester from wanting their own busway.

There’s no end of badly managed railway schemes that are seriously delayed/ significantly over-budget but that doesn’t seem to stop the appetite for more (nobody is suggesting that the messed up schemes at Tweedbank or Todmorden will mean no other railway reopenings/ reinstatements happen – nobody is treating the over-running engineering works over the recent festive period as reason not to do so again in future years), so I don’t buy the “it’s Edinburgh’s fault that no more tram systems will be built” argument.

So, whilst I’m not defending the “delivery” aspect, I think that the complaints about the design and the operation are generally wide of the mark (and often contradictory!). Interesting that nobody has any sensible solutions for alternative tram routes...

Great post - every critic should read this!

 

[tbtc]

So there's nothing to get our knickers in a twist over then?

The World's most expensive Tram line per mile by some margin surely?

Not a matter for concern?

Hardly surprising if it’s the most expensive Tram line per mile, given that it’s a new build (these things are always getting more expensive to construct), it’s in a fairly expensive city/country and that the costs include groundwork and vehicles for the Leith end of the route too.

But the obvious frustrations with the “delivery” aspect aside, the rest of the complaints about the Edinburgh tram are mainly contradictory. On this thread I’ve been told that:

• It doesn’t go anywhere near where tourists would want to visit
• The passenger figures only look good because it opened during the Festival, so were boosted by lots of tourists using it

• It doesn’t serve any areas of high density housing
• It should run along the A8, through the relatively low density of Corstorphine

• It duplicates existing bus services
• It doesn’t duplicate existing bus services enough

• It slows down existing traffic like buses due to the on-street running
• It should have been designed along roads that are already very busy (e.g. through Gorgie)

I'm surprised I've not been told that the doors and both too wide and too narrow, and that the stops are too close together and too far apart!

I don’t mind dealing with constructive criticism, but the moaners can’t even make their minds up about why they hate the design and operation of the tram.

Other than that, the complaints seem to be toward the “complaining for the sake of it” end of the spectrum (It doesn’t integrate with heavy rail? It doesn’t stop close enough to the bus station?) rather than anything constructive. I think that people are using their unhappiness with the delivery of the project to lash out at other aspects of the design and operation.

I’m certainly not defending the delivery of the tram (though a little perspective about other rail based construction projects which went over budget and/or were descoped wouldn’t go amiss).

To pick up on your points.
Clearly the delivery was/is an issue and questions need to be asked as to why it was such a financial disaster.


There are however a lot of projects where costs spiralled out of control, but have eventually been deemed a success.

The tram is there now. Getting rid of it is clearly a stupid idea as that will cost even more money and cause even more disruption along the existing route.

Best thing to do now is to let it settle in for a couple of years and then look at how to extend it usefully and efficiently

I agree – we need to see the “delivery” problems as separate from the “design” and “operation” – the future ought to be about seeing how it settles down and then using the passenger volumes as justification for extending to Leith (or not) – given that the expensive City Centre bit has already been done, as well as quite a bit of the groundwork for Leith.

The construction people at Nottingham aren't covering themselves with glory either. It's at least six months late and the disruption has been much greater than most people expected, considering there was no construction in the city centre.

Interesting you say this, given that Nottingham’s problems haven’t had the same national bad press as some other schemes.

Wouldn't it be true to say the only unadulterated success in modern tramways in Britain has been Manchester, nitpicking about passenger numbers on the Ashton extension aside and perhaps Salford Quays?

At least Manchester had an existing base to build on (the two regular train services that it directly replaced), so there was an initial passenger demand.

That’s not been the case on most other new systems or extensions, which had had to start from scratch (Croydon to Wimbledon and Newcastle to Sunderland being two obvious exceptions, directly replacing a train service).

Sheffield and Croydon seem to be better regarded now than in the inital few years

Sheffield’s design was fairly poor (a couple of stubby branches to Herdings Park and Malin Bridge that were “neither nowt nor summat”), not helped by the geography of this hilly city and exacerbated by the same council that built the tram deciding to tear down various high rise developments that the tram was routed to serve (Kelvin Flats, Norfolk Park...), which meant that the demand wasn’t as big as intended.

The initial ticketing was a real mess – you had to buy unvalidated tickets at tram stops and then validate them before boarding – no conductors meant that few bothered with the rigmarole of buying a ticket), but now there are conductors on board every service (and you can buy tickets when you board, as well as on Stagecoach buses etc).

There then followed a long period of bus competition (Mainline versus Andrews/ Yorkshire Terrier/ South Riding/ Sheffield Omnibus etc) which the tram got caught up in – which wasted a lot of resources.

The bus competition has thankfully been resolved, with Stagecoach (who took over Yorkshire Traction, who owned the sucessor company to Andrews/ Yorkshire Terrier/ South Riding/ Sheffield Omnibus) now providing integrated ticketing and running three “tram feeder” bus services every ten minutes to Middlewood, Malin Bridge and Crystal Peaks (the Middlewood one had to be upgraded from Solos to single deckers to cope with demand).

This co-ordination means some areas have lost their bus service (Middlewood used to get a double decker every five minutes from the city, but now gets an hourly Optare Solo only as far as Hillsborough – even then by an indirect route – Norfolk Park has lost all bus services), but it’s much more efficient overall.

My personal preference for Edinburgh would have been a Tyne and Wear clone using the large amount of abandoned suburban rail infrastructure - most of which is still intact ie. not built on - and the South suburban. Eventually it could have been extended out to the likes of Penicuik etc. A cut and cover tunnel along Princes street would probably have been required. £800m in the right hands could have gone a long way to achieving that

A cut and cover tunnel under Princes Street certainly wouldn’t have been cheap, and any service round the “sub” would struggle to be competitive with buses for journeys like City – Morningside/ Cameron Toll due to the obvious circuitous nature of the route.

Plus you then get into the complications of running on the same track as heavy rail (meaning you’d presumably need a more expensive bit of kit), pathing trams between freight trains, passengers standing at tram stops with freight trains etc.

And, £800m could have bought a fantastic system from the Airport to Leith, if it had been managed properly – any other routing would have been managed by the same numpties who were in charge of delivering the current line – the problem is with those who badly built it, not with the design of the line that we now have.

 

[kylemore]

Hardly surprising if it’s the most expensive Tram line per mile, given that it’s a new build (these things are always getting more expensive to construct), it’s in a fairly expensive city/country and that the costs include groundwork and vehicles for the Leith end of the route too.

But the obvious frustrations with the “delivery” aspect aside, the rest of the complaints about the Edinburgh tram are mainly contradictory. On this thread I’ve been told that:

• It doesn’t go anywhere near where tourists would want to visit
• The passenger figures only look good because it opened during the Festival, so were boosted by lots of tourists using it

• It doesn’t serve any areas of high density housing
• It should run along the A8, through the relatively low density of Corstorphine

• It duplicates existing bus services
• It doesn’t duplicate existing bus services enough

• It slows down existing traffic like buses due to the on-street running
• It should have been designed along roads that are already very busy (e.g. through Gorgie)

I'm surprised I've not been told that the doors and both too wide and too narrow, and that the stops are too close together and too far apart!

I don’t mind dealing with constructive criticism, but the moaners can’t even make their minds up about why they hate the design and operation of the tram.

Other than that, the complaints seem to be toward the “complaining for the sake of it” end of the spectrum (It doesn’t integrate with heavy rail? It doesn’t stop close enough to the bus station?) rather than anything constructive. I think that people are using their unhappiness with the delivery of the project to lash out at other aspects of the design and operation.


A cut and cover tunnel under Princes Street certainly wouldn’t have been cheap, and any service round the “sub” would struggle to be competitive with buses for journeys like City – Morningside/ Cameron Toll due to the obvious circuitous nature of the route.

.

I once read a very interesting interview with a German Transport planner regarding the criteria for investing in new Tramlines, and extensions to existing Tram networks - simply put - once an existing bus corridor had reached saturation level - it was considered for conversion to Tram.

Here in the UK it's more complicated - decisions that should be made simply on proven transport requirements - as exampled above - become mired in considerations of, for instance, "urban renewal", renewal which may or not happen as planned or cost constraints which may mean that cheap alignments rather than effective alignments are chosen.

The main bus corridors in Edinburgh are not relieved by this Tram - relief of existing Bus corridors should have been the starting point - which is why I believe the Leith Walk part of the scheme WAS a sensible application of the Tram enabling not only a reduction in bus mileage (perhaps for re-direction to developing parts of the city) but also an overall increase in passenger capacity due to the enormous advantages of a street tramway in these conditions.

Purely because the depot was planned where the land was cheapest ie. in the west the sensible bit WASN'T BUILT!

Let's put this really simply - here we have an £800m City Centre to Airport Link that FAILS because the existing City Centre to Airport Link continues at the same level and is widely perceived as being the REAL Airport link as usage figures will prove.

And as a Tram Line heading to the west of the City it also FAILS as it fails to relieve either of the two main Bus Corridors to the west.

Yes it's a nice looking bit of icing on the cake - but £800m would have been better spent providing real transport solutions.

Wanting investment in BOTH "Metro" style solutions and in the bus and/or tram street network (don't tell me that a "Metro" station at Morningside Clock would not become a busy hub complimenting the busy street network above whether it be tram or bus) is not contradictory - they're both part of an effective mix -just look at your average German City.

Doubting the viabilty of what a modern Metro system as part of an integrated City Transport Network in Edinburgh could do just because the LMS/LNER/BR progressively withdrew their clapped out suburban steam services from the 1930s on is just a little bit silly.

And there's the keyword - Integration - No UK Tram system (even well planned ones) will ever reach it's full potential while Bus services are still de-regulated. Yes where the buses and the trams end up under the same ownership as in Sheffield that's great - but these things should not be left up to "accident".

 

[Deerfold]

Yes it's a nice looking bit of icing on the cake - but £800m would have been better spent providing real transport solutions.

I don't think anyone's arguing about that. But it's been spent. Yes, it need to be looked into to avoid making the same mistakes again. Digging up the tram wouldn't bring any of that £800m back.

We need to look at long term use - if it's covering its operating costs (or moving towards that) it's probably worth keeping, if it isn't then perhaps there's an argument for closing it down - I don't see that it's clear either way at the moment.

 

[edwin_m]

And there's the keyword - Integration - No UK Tram system (even well planned ones) will ever reach it's full potential while Bus services are still de-regulated. Yes where the buses and the trams end up under the same ownership as in Sheffield that's great - but these things should not be left up to "accident".

Common ownership doesn't help much because there's always the possibility of a competitor moving in, as I understand First was doing a few years back. Hence you need a tramline that buses can't compete with, which probably means a fast alignment, which in turn can mean one that misses some key destinations.

Only a regulated system enshrined in law will fix this, and until that happens there is always a risk that UK tramways outside London will be less cost-effective than they otherwise would.

 

[Leki]

I once read a very interesting interview with a German Transport planner regarding the criteria for investing in new Tramlines, and extensions to existing Tram networks - simply put - once an existing bus corridor had reached saturation level - it was considered for conversion to Tram.

Here in the UK it's more complicated - decisions that should be made simply on proven transport requirements - as exampled above - become mired in considerations of, for instance, "urban renewal", renewal which may or not happen as planned or cost constraints which may mean that cheap alignments rather than effective alignments are chosen.

Wanting investment in BOTH "Metro" style solutions and in the bus and/or tram street network (don't tell me that a "Metro" station at Morningside Clock would not become a busy hub complimenting the busy street network above whether it be tram or bus) is not contradictory - they're both part of an effective mix -just look at your average German City.

Doubting the viabilty of what a modern Metro system as part of an integrated City Transport Network in Edinburgh could do just because the LMS/LNER/BR progressively withdrew their clapped out suburban steam services from the 1930s on is just a little bit silly.

What is contradictory is being unsupportive of the present line (with a proven passenger base) because it 'doesn't replace a saturated bus corridor', yet advocating reopening the South Suburban circular rail line when there is such little demand for equivalent circular bus services.

Let's put this really simply - here we have an £800m City Centre to Airport Link that FAILS because the existing City Centre to Airport Link continues at the same level and is widely perceived as being the REAL Airport link as usage figures will prove.

And as a Tram Line heading to the west of the City it also FAILS as it fails to relieve either of the two main Bus Corridors to the west.

We're going round in circles with this.

If the trams can sustain a new passenger base on top of the buses maintaining theirs, then that is the absolute best case scenario. Your attempt to contort that into a negative is exactly what tbtc very thoroughly explained.

Trams aren't supposed to replace buses but to add new capacity and to take away from unsustainable transport choices. Just because bus routes aren't being slashed, doesn't mean that the buses aren't feeling the benefit of trunk passenger movements being taken elsewhere and indeed benefitting from less private car congestion.

Maybe also ask people who work at Edinburgh Park, who come in from Bathgate or who live along the route what the 'real' way to the airport is.

 

[SteveP29]

Rode the Edinburgh Tram yesterday, the trams and stops seem tidy, the ticketing was fairly easy to understand, but there needs to be a lot of work done on getting the tram prioritised over other traffic - the time we just sat waiting was pretty mediocre compared to my experiences here in Sheffield.

Try being in the traffic off route and waiting and waiting. Tram has priority over all traffic on the route and rarely waits at junctions, except on Princes Street.
I regularly wait over 15 minutes in the traffic on Dalry Road every morning as trams are given priority, 20 minutes to travel a quarter of a mile (I'm in a bus btw)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The 60 cyclists involved are only a small portion of the overall falls caused by the tramline, many of which go unreported.

Because many are sensible enough just to pick themselves up and say 'oh ****, I fell off my bike' and get going again

 

[kylemore]

What is contradictory is being unsupportive of the present line (with a proven passenger base) because it 'doesn't replace a saturated bus corridor', yet advocating reopening the South Suburban circular rail line when there is such little demand for equivalent circular bus services.



We're going round in circles with this.

If the trams can sustain a new passenger base on top of the buses maintaining theirs, then that is the absolute best case scenario. Your attempt to contort that into a negative is exactly what tbtc very thoroughly explained.

Trams aren't supposed to replace buses but to add new capacity and to take away from unsustainable transport choices. Just because bus routes aren't being slashed, doesn't mean that the buses aren't feeling the benefit of trunk passenger movements being taken elsewhere and indeed benefitting from less private car congestion.

Maybe also ask people who work at Edinburgh Park, who come in from Bathgate or who live along the route what the 'real' way to the airport is.

You're right we'll probably not agree on this one and perhaps it's better to agree to disagree in a friendly manner!

As I've said before if the Leith side is built then that should go some way to alleviate the failings (in my view) of the project.

I mentioned the German point of view because they have dozens of successful dense Tram networks and we in the UK don't, therefore they must be doing something right that we aren't. Having a regulated framework is a help for a start.

I do think there should be a connection between Tram development and existing bus corridors - the point here is evolution - that the Tram is a logical step up from the Bus when demand justifies is to me a sensible point of view.

Sometimes however in the UK the Tram is seen as a cheap way of having a "Metro" style system without relation to the existing bus network and that is not in my view a recipe for success.

 

[edwin_m]

I mentioned the German point of view because they have dozens of successful dense Tram networks and we in the UK don't, therefore they must be doing something right that we aren't. Having a regulated framework is a help for a start.

There are many reasons for successful tramways in Germany and surrounding countries but unfortunately they can't necessarily be replicated here:

- Tramways retained and developed in the mid-20th century, unlike UK and other countries that abandoned them and then had to start from scratch.

- Broad agreement between political parties about the importance of public transport and the best way of improving it (something notably lacking in Edinburgh!). Assisted by a system of government that moreorless requires coalitions and therefore makes radical changes of policy less likely.

- Greater economic prosperity and/or political attitudes making more money available for projects of this type, both for enhancement and as a revenue subsidy.

- Federal government so that responsibility for major regional schemes rests at the appropriate regional level (Edinburgh sort of has that).

- Possibly, reduced costs of owning a car but higher costs of using it, so people tend to choose whether car or public transport is most appropriate for a particular journey.

- Regulated environment with co-operation between transport operators, so buses are used where they are most appropriate on uncongested suburban and rural routes, but almost all major corridors are heavy or light rail and in most city centres a bus is a rare sight.

 

[tbtc]

I once read a very interesting interview with a German Transport planner regarding the criteria for investing in new Tramlines, and extensions to existing Tram networks - simply put - once an existing bus corridor had reached saturation level - it was considered for conversion to Tram.

Here in the UK it's more complicated - decisions that should be made simply on proven transport requirements - as exampled above - become mired in considerations of, for instance, "urban renewal", renewal which may or not happen as planned or cost constraints which may mean that cheap alignments rather than effective alignments are chosen.

The main bus corridors in Edinburgh are not relieved by this Tram - relief of existing Bus corridors should have been the starting point - which is why I believe the Leith Walk part of the scheme WAS a sensible application of the Tram enabling not only a reduction in bus mileage (perhaps for re-direction to developing parts of the city) but also an overall increase in passenger capacity due to the enormous advantages of a street tramway in these conditions.

Purely because the depot was planned where the land was cheapest ie. in the west the sensible bit WASN'T BUILT!

Let's put this really simply - here we have an £800m City Centre to Airport Link that FAILS because the existing City Centre to Airport Link continues at the same level and is widely perceived as being the REAL Airport link as usage figures will prove.

And as a Tram Line heading to the west of the City it also FAILS as it fails to relieve either of the two main Bus Corridors to the west.

Yes it's a nice looking bit of icing on the cake - but £800m would have been better spent providing real transport solutions

£800m could have built a great route on the Airport – Leith axis though – you seem to be (deliberately?) confusing the obvious problems with the delivery with the design - the ridiculous delays/ overspends/ descoping were because of those in charge of delivery rather than inherent to the chosen route.

Any alternative route would have had the same numpties in charge, so the idea that any alternative route would have been built on time and on budget doesn’t wash with me.

I’m perfectly happy to argue one route over another, but that’s a whole different argument to the overspend/delays caused by poor delivery. If they couldn’t build a line through the relatively empty corridor in west Edinburgh that you’ve complained about (a route that didn’t conflict with heavy rail, no tunnels, nothing particularly complicated compared to other UK schemes) then would you trust the same people to build a tunnel under Princes Street and integrating TramTrains with heavy rail infrastructure round the “sub”?

You’ve stated that the tram ought to have been seen as the “next stage” for a successful frequent bus service, and I agree. Presumably that’s why the tram was designed to broadly follow the 22 (most frequent bus service LRT/ Lothian Buses have ever operated?) between Ocean Terminal, Leith Walk, Princes Street, Broomhouse and the offices/shops at the Gyle? With the added bonus of serving five other popular destinations that the 22 doesn’t serve:

• Haymarket station
• Edinburgh Park
• RBS HQ
• Ingleston P&R
• Airport

So, the tram was intended to generally replicate the busiest bus route in Edinburgh with the added advantage of service a couple of railway stations, the headquarters of one of Edinburgh’s biggest employers, a Park & Ride and the Airport (i.e. cherry picking the best bits of a couple of other busy bus routes) – that looks a pretty good route on paper.

What’s the alternative?

• Interfere with heavy rail by running TramTrains on the “sub”? Look at how long it’s taken for studies before we’re going to get a short section of shared running between light rail and heavy rail in Rotherham!
• A “cut and cover” tunnel under Edinburgh’s busiest street?
• Running along disused railway alignments sounds a nice idea on paper, but won’t serve many people
• Whilst Edinburgh has lots of bus passengers, they generally don’t want to travel in circles and generally don’t take many journeys entirely outside the city centre (which is why the old 1/6, 14/47, 32/52, 34/35, 42/46 etc are no longer with us). A tram between Morningside and Cameron Toll isn’t going to be very busy, if the “every twenty minute” number 38 bus is anything to go by.

The problem is that the delivery of the tram was so botched that people are now using it as an excuse to complain about other unrelated aspects (or are so annoyed with the delivery that they are taking out their frustrations at fairly sensible bits of the projects.

Complaining that you could have got a lot more for your £800m with a different scheme is a strawman argument as you could have got a lot more for your £800m if the chosen scheme had been correctly managed (and we’d have had trams in Leith years ago, if it had gone to plan).

As I said, I’ll argue about the merits of alternative routes, but please don’t pretend that any other scheme would have been trouble free, given it’d have had the same people in charge. I’m not proud of the overspend, I’m not defending the delays/overspend, but the “anti” camp need to stop conflating these obvious problems with the design of the tram route and the operation of the truncated route – pretending that any alternative route would have avoided all of the delays/overspends/political infighting doesn’t help anyone

 

[alexf380]

There's a news item on the lb website showing diversions around Murrayfield for the Scotland vs Wales game. The cynic inside me thinks it's to funnel people onto the tram. Are the roads really likely to be bad enough to warrant diversions or is it as I thought?

 

[90019]

It's the same diversions that are always on for the rugby, as the Police close the road from Haymarket Terrace along to Corstorphine Road outisde Murrayfield.
There will be the usual rush buses, in particular the X12s running between Murrayfield and Ingliston P&R.


I must admit, this is the one thing I miss about the 12s, as rugby days were always a fairly enjoyable experience. A stark contrast to driving the 1 when there's football on, which I absolutely loathe.

 

[alexf380]

I see, thanks! I normally stay away from that side of town on rugby days so I wouldn't know.

 

[work-traveller]

...The design seems to have been pretty good (considering it was just one line, rather than attempting to build a whole "network")...

But do remember that phase 1b (Granton via Roseburn) had a complete design produced/delivered to CEC at the same time as phase 1a - i.e. 2007. It's been gathering dust in CEC's offices ever since.

The only element of phase 1b that ever got built was Russell Road Bridge - specifically the future provision for a future west chord onto the Roseburn Corridor:

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete.php?id=47526

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete.php?id=48857

 

[Blindtraveler]

Well here we go, Monday morning and no service York Place>Shandwick Place due to a broken down tram.

 

[gswindale]

How many "tram failures" have there been since it stated running?

 

[Blindtraveler]

TBF The failure rate is pritty good, mind you with a qualitty manufacturer like this what else would one expect? The issue I have is the ammount of time recovery takes and how quickly things grind to a hault owing to the conjested nature of the city anyway.

 

[thealexweb]

How many "tram failures" have there been since it stated running?

I think there was one on Monday at about 8am, with trams working as far as West End. As a result the flow of traffic through Princes street was fantastic. My 37 got down Princes street in under five minutes compared to the usual 10-15 minutes it takes since the trams started.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Con rast that with the 2nd from last daytime 37 towards Silverknows, 23:07 at Waverley steps, no traffic about but yet it still took 10 minutes to the West end due to tram trafficlight prioritty bla bla bla bla!