A report tonight on Seven News Melbourne, on proposed trackless trams within Melbourne’s south-east. What do you think?
An articulated bus isn’t a tram.
It will be similar to Brisbane Metro which has just commenced construction.
You’ve misspelt bus
The operator of Melbourne’s Skybus service, Kinetic, has won a new 9-year bus franchise contract from the Victorian Government, effective from January 31 next year to June 2031. It will take over from Transdev, which currently runs a third of Melbourne’s bus network, including services between the CBD and Doncaster/Templestowe area, plus the orbital routes 901, 902 and 903.
The news came the day after Kinetic announced that it would indefinitely suspend the Skybus service between Auckland Airport and the CBD, due to the city’s lockdown and the loss of international visitors.
At the start of this month and until the end, Transperth has just launched the Golden SmartRider competition that was announced a while ago. This type of SmartRider will allow free travel on all Transperth/PTA WA services for a year if you have been chosen as the winner with the winner announced each week.
https://www.transperth.wa.gov.au/SmartRider/Golden-SmartRider
A section of the Hurstbridge Line was closed over the weekend for works and this train with a Steamrail Victoria logo was on the track, picture below posted by Jane Holmes (@missjaneradio) on Instagram. I saw it myself when I happened to be passing through Fairfield/Alphington over the weekend, quite a rare find.
Won’t matter at the present time, but if the service is still suspended when they reopen (hopefully sooner rather than later) boy it will be a massive taxi fare to get to the city. So glad when I was there in 2018 that they ran a service at 1AM which saved me a decent amount of coin.
cost me $100 NZ to get from AKL to victoria street (near sky city) in 2019
Swan Transit/Transit Systems Australia is taking over the TransGoldfields network in Kalgoorlie effective tomorrow (10th October) as they were selected during the tendering process, taking over Path Transit/Keolis Downer which has served the town for a decade.
The biggest problem, by far, with these types of ‘trackless trams’ that operate on an optical guidance system (which is visible in those animations) is that the road surface becomes damaged extremely quickly because the tyre contact path for every single vehicle is identical.
Also, unless the system is guaranteed to work 100% of the time (obviously because you don’t want 3 carriage buses flying over a median strip and into oncoming traffic just because some roadworkers left survey marks on the road), you’ll still need a driver behind the wheel. You might as well just let the human drive the 6 carriage long vehicle, like what’s happening for Brisbane Metro.
I’m sure operating in general traffic lanes is actually quite feasible with a steering system that causes each carriage to follow the exact same path as the leading cars, but I reckon politicians would get too much blowback from terrified steering wheel jockeys.
Herald Sun reports that the cost of Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop could cost up to $120 billion if the whole project is built underground.
Does Victoria even have that kind of money?
Victoria will have to borrow money to help fund the construction.
[Perth]
A proposed bus network for the Airport Line OR Forrestfield-Airport Link has been revealed, outlining some of the proposed changes to bus services in the inner east, Perth Airport and Kalamunda areas.
Intended for Perth as part of an upcoming trial for electric buses, the first Volvo BZL ever built is currently in Perth and was seen in the industrial area of Kewdale today.
The end of the lockdown in Melbourne at midnight Friday means the resumption of Night Network service. There are significant changes to the network this year, with many existing Night Bus routes replaced by a regular route which runs as a 24-hour service on weekends, or existing nearby Night Network train or tram services.
Selected services resumed last night with the full network in operation on October 29.
Here is the new Night Network map.
An article by Australian Bus & Coach about the new Volvo BZL Electric Bus range which includes an overview of the specs.