There's a NEW type of railway system that's on trial in Coventry City Centre. Called 'VLR' it stands for Very Light Rail, and is a cheaper, lighter and quick...
Pros: Cheaper to install as you don’t have to rip up the whole road, capable of cornering at around 15kph. Low initial cost.
Cons: Battery powered, with a 70km range, with a max capacity of 60 people. Driven by humans.
This does not sound like something anyone needs and it appears to be designed to share the road with private vehicles (hence the focus on speed and cornering) which means it will get stuck in traffic.
When you’re paying humans to drive something, the benefit comes not in how fast it corners but in how many people can be transported at once. Even if it’s a straight line at 20kph, it’s still better to have big LRTs hauling upwards of 2000 people, stopping at intersections to let them switch to another LRT going in another direction.
The one benefit I can see here is the low cost of installing these tracks, it could be used to trial a route served by a tram (negating the cornering feature), but even then, a bus has near zero infrastructure requirements and can move more people than this for the same price.
This does not sound like something anyone needs and it appears to be designed to share the road with private vehicles (hence the focus on speed and cornering) which means it will get stuck in traffic.
When you’re paying humans to drive something, the benefit comes not in how fast it corners but in how many people can be transported at once. Even if it’s a straight line at 20kph, it’s still better to have big LRTs hauling upwards of 2000 people, stopping at intersections to let them switch to another LRT going in another direction.
The one benefit I can see here is the low cost of installing these tracks, it could be used to trial a route served by a tram (negating the cornering feature), but even then, a bus has near zero infrastructure requirements and can move more people than this for the same price.
If you need a
why go with a small tram and not with a bus?