what are the advantages of these things as - /n/

Anonymous10/30/25, 04:32No.2057440

What are the advantages of these things as opposed to, idk, a bus?

185

Replies

Anon10/30/25, 04:48No.2057441

Great photo op for local leaders and politicians You can brag about it on social media (although you seldom if ever use it)

Anon10/30/25, 05:21No.2057444

It's on rails which I assume aren't shared with vehicles, and doesn't need a battery charge.

Anon10/30/25, 05:34No.2057445

It doesn't get stuck in traffic and most very rarely stops at red lights. Trains are the future.

Anon10/30/25, 12:11No.2057454

Less pollution, quieter, smoother ride, more passengers, disabled people friendly, faster than bus, cheaper than metro.

Anon10/30/25, 12:23No.2057456

why are you here? it takes you 4 hours to get to anywhere that an airplane will land deliberately, you're scared of the coast so no boats obviously, bicycles are for homos, trains are for commies, so... you're here because /o/ is too fast and no one pays attention when you act out like a special needs child?

Anon10/30/25, 12:41No.2057462

Simple: HIGHER CAPACITY.Higher capacity per vehicle and consequently per corridor or per occupied area. Also cheaper in proportion to the capacity offered than the same capacity with buses.Modern trams of largest size can carry over 400 pax, biarticulated buses only get to 180. And those are very cumbersome. Not everywhere will use such large trams, but usually in all scenarios trams will be larger than the largest buses you can realistically use. A tight european downtown with 1st gen tram will have smaller trams, but still smaller buses. In practice, trams have *at least* 2:1 capacity advantage over buses, usually more.Means: You run a tram every 5 minutes gets you same capacity as 2 or 3 buses every 5 minutes. If you run 2 or 3 buses every 5 minutes you can't give them good signal priority (because it wouldn't give enough time to other traffic signal phases, for dumb people: the crossing street doesn't get enough green light). Also difficult to have a bus arrive every 1-2 minutes at the stop, because it may take up to a minute for boarding. Buses won't be perfectly spaced so they bunch up which means they lose time. Plus you have more vehicles, more drivers, etc.Getting similar capacity on one corridor with buses as with a tram is very impractical. You get slower and less regular service, probably double stops (where two buses stop at the same time and people have to run to their bus).On a secondary level trams tend to be more comfortable and attractive for people, they generally are always built with private ROW or other priority (bus could have that but often doesn't because due to low capacity it's not seen as economical), and they give an impression of commitment to higher quality service which attracts riders.>tl;dr tram gets higher capacity on any single corridor than bus line(s) ever could.

Anon10/30/25, 16:10No.2057470

Less noise. >inb4 electric bus

Anon10/31/25, 00:30No.2057491

>Yes but that wasn't mentioned in the quoted posts.I don't care about that but if you think about it, it's more costly having 12 buses with 12 drivers than having 2 trains with 6 train cars each one and only 2 drivers.

Anon11/01/25, 19:19No.2057599

The rail factor, it actually attracts automobile drivers. Shops, businesses and housing rise in value in proximity of it. Then there's legal quirks. Collide with a bus and it's just a big car. Collide with a tram and it's automatically your fault.

Anon11/02/25, 04:25No.2057617

tires bad https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/where-rubber-meets-road-epa-researchers-study-environmental-and-health-impacts-tires

Anon11/02/25, 08:23No.2057638

Buses are really rough and go through long circuitous roots. It can take 30 minutes to go 5km as the crow flies. Trams are gentle and go straight. They're much better for getting between suburbs.

Anon11/02/25, 08:26No.2057639

One oft-overlooked advantage is durability. It's not uncommon to see 50 year old trams running regular (i.e. not tourist) lines in many cities. Buses end up beat to shit after about 20 years.

Anon11/02/25, 21:30No.2057685

It's not really an argument either way, but I hate the le flexibility meme about buses, referring to the route. It's often presented as an advantage that you can change lines around with relative ease, and of course if you really need to change a line routing then ofc the bus will be easier to do. But more often than not it's actually better that a line *can't* be moved around. What often happens is that bus lines are changed to accommodate car traffic routings, and the bus line will get a worse route so that car traffic can be more easily managed (eg. One-way streets). If you have a tram this can't be so easily done and keeping the tram line where it is will weigh more than the necessity of re-ordering car traffic.So in a way, the fixed and inflexible infrastructure can actually be an advantage over more flexibility.

Anon11/03/25, 09:46No.2057712

can carry massive capacity easy to electrify without having to deal with batteries looks eco reasonably economical if used intensively may be capable of using abandoned actual train-lines outside the city (cheaper than a real train and with direct connection into the city center)

Anon11/03/25, 16:21No.2057738

I feel more confident that I'm getting on the correct vehicle when I see it has to follow rails

Anon11/04/25, 02:01No.2057794

More room, less shaking and more on time.

Anon11/04/25, 08:29No.2057806

Efficiency, size, reliability, running costs, much easier to automate, and, by default, separate tracks it doesn't have to share with cars.

Anon11/04/25, 10:49No.2057813

Auckland New Zealand here. Well in Auckland we have busses, many are driven by 3rd world immigrants that seem to think they're a battering ram. I hear of cars getting fucked up by these busses weekly. They also break down constantly. A tram or small commuter train has alot of benefits especially 1 being the driver can't play demolition Darby with the vehicle easily. You can also just have a Train service rather than say "AT" that sprung up around our bus system to be arguably one of the most dysfunctional services in the world. It's so bad its a likely contributing factor that will put the National Government out of office next election.

Anon11/14/25, 18:48No.2058852

More space and easier access when transporting bigger stuff.

Anon11/15/25, 04:40No.2058885

Stability. Bus drivers are retards who can't drive to save their lives, it's perfect if you want to get sick

Anon11/15/25, 10:05No.2058899

You will never be a real train

Anon11/19/25, 14:28No.2059163

>What are the advantages of these things as opposed to, idk, a bus? It pleases autism. That’s the only one.

Anon11/22/25, 16:53No.2059401

trains are much MUCH cooler than busses

Anon11/22/25, 19:43No.2059425

electrification, basically, but now that batteries are good enough even for bendy buses its kinda meh

Anon11/23/25, 03:58No.2059498

Idk. Larger passenger load. Quieter.

Anon11/23/25, 04:23No.2059501

It's a lot easier to work out where it goes

Anon12/02/25, 22:16No.2060158

A much, much better ride. Not having to deal with potholes is a godsend.

Anon12/04/25, 07:36No.2060236

helps melburnian special snowflakes feel unique

Anon12/05/25, 08:21No.2060312

The main advantage is not being held up in traffic. Sure that TECHNICALLY can be done with bus lanes but cage-driving retardoids will hog the bus lane. That does not have the sense of impending doom that hogging the tram track does. The best way to speed up your transit vehicle is to have it in a separate, dedicated lane that cannot be blocked by retards. As such, the logical conclusion for all public transit is, and always was, the suspended monorail. But they don't want you to know that.

Anon01/06/26, 23:24No.2062764

I live in a small European city of 100k inhabitants, I wish we had trams but even our busses suck

Anon01/08/26, 16:52No.2062867

I don't know, unlike a bus it isn't absolute dogshit.I don't know if this is also true where you other anons live, but here buses are notoriously unreliable and often just arrive and depart way too early/not at all. I don't trust public transport unless it has rails.Also, it isn't stuck in traffic as often as a bus I guess.

Anon01/08/26, 18:14No.2062875

Inflexibility, which sounds like a bad thing, but with a train on rails, you can be mostly assured that the route isn't going to change. People become regular riders when they can be assured the route won't suddenly change by a few blocks here, a few blocks there, and a loop added to the end that increases trip time by 15 minutes. When I lived in Atlanta, the transit system modified bus routes twice a year.

Anon01/12/26, 13:41No.2063172

I think that trams are extremely versatile. Some countries are already using trams as metro lines, and the MTA in New York is in the process of getting a 100% grade separated light rail line called the Interborough Express (IBX) in the works.The problem is that Line 6 in Toronto was implemented in the worst way possible: a streetcar on a fucking suburban arterial road.Even a light rail line between Long Thanh International Airport and a future HSR station in Vietnam is being considered.

Anon01/12/26, 16:36No.2063183

In other words - give me a world before the bus, back when every city had its expansive tram network.

Anon01/17/26, 09:18No.2063534

Everything a tram does, a monorail does better.

Anon01/19/26, 21:55No.2063758

Monorail does NOT please autism, because it has just one (1) (mono) rail, while other forms of railway have two rails PLUS overhead wires in many cases. Trams even used to have trolleypoles which increase the autistic pleasure they cause. Tram being integrated into the street pleases autism much more than some elevated monorail. Fact!

Anon02/07/26, 15:09No.2065220

All are outweighed by one car being able to block it. So until the most vicious possible enforcement on that (which will never happen), buses it is.

Anon03/06/26, 22:34No.2067115

Can we all agree at least that building new tracks just to run replica trolleys on them is a insane waste of money? So many American cities do that and I will never understand what's the point.

Anon03/07/26, 04:21No.2067140

Meth addicts can harvest the catenary wires for more fixes.

Anon03/28/26, 17:06No.2068938

Development potential. It's stupid but there's more value seen in a poorly run light rail than a well run bus system.

Anon03/30/26, 17:14No.2069097

higher capacity higher efficiency lower maintenance per kilo of meat transported

Anon03/31/26, 17:21No.2069184

Steel wheels on steel rails are more efficient than rubber on road. Trams have lower running costs than buses, with a higher initial investment. They're also quieter, easier to board, less likely to get into an accident, more comfortable to ride. I live in Melbourne, riding the tram feels comfortable and smooth, riding the bus feels like getting tossed inside a salad spinner.

Anon03/31/26, 19:31No.2069195

Do tramways generally require less maintenance than roadways?

Anon05/10/26, 04:30No.2072880

More expensive, slower, and gets stuck way more often

Anon05/10/26, 17:16No.2072939

They are shit, the blind can't see them and the deaf can't hear them

Anon06/25/26, 17:32No.2076800

Rail is smooooooth, and maximally energy efficient.

Anon06/25/26, 21:50No.2076826

This was a 2 mile experiment that failed. It's been shut down.

Anon06/26/26, 00:19No.2076836

If they just could switch to rubber wheels to go around a badly parked car...

Anon06/26/26, 11:54No.2076880

Cannot change the route ever Broken down tram blocks the whole line Cyclists, pedestriant, drivers crushed in low speed accidents instead of bouncing off Power failure means whole line stops. Cost billion upon billion. Vs Buses that just work but are considered plebby due to permitting use by ethnic minorities.Tram was obsolute by 1947 and they got rid of them for good reason.

Anon06/29/26, 13:33No.2077065

I like how in every single place that has trams people will agree that they are much nicer then you have the American urbanist autists disliking it for no reason

Anon06/30/26, 04:02No.2077121

They are much pleasanter to travel with. For one thing, they move in straight lines like chads, and don't wander around like retarded buses. I don't always use public transportation but when I do I always look for a tram first.

Anon07/03/26, 03:49No.2077273

almost 50% of bus operating costs go toward covering drivers' salaries

Anon07/27/26, 11:36No.2078487

>>Lower friction and rolling resistance ( same thing) for steel on steel than rubber on asphalt. ( 1/7 th ) - therefore less energy needed to move the same amount of tonnage. -- See photo of a single hosre pulling many tonnes >>Less cost per Km travelled / passenger mile than other forms or transport >>Much less pollution and lends itself to any form of propulsion easily and can offset pollution ( move pollution away from point of use).Downside is large outlay in costs to set up and retarded managers and destroy an entire system in just a few years . IE my city they "saved money" by tearing up abandoned tracks and foregoing maintenance of vehicles . So they had scrap huge numbers of vehicles and if route was blocked they had no alternative to by pass the problem area .

Anon07/27/26, 13:35No.2078489

green, faster constant speed, dedicated line

Anon07/30/26, 01:35No.2078643

The future of transportation is clearly trains and planes. I've even read that in the future there will be trains so fast that they could replace planes but that is far into the future.The best thing they have is the dedicated line, no matter what they don't have traffic problems.

Anon07/31/26, 00:47No.2078700

>Tram goes DING DING >Bus can only go beep beep It's quite obvious, OP

Anon07/31/26, 12:42No.2078725

Take up an entire lane Costly to maintain Not very useful most of the time, but somewhat useful during rush hour Extremely inefficient

Anon07/31/26, 19:59No.2078762

A bus only gets your elected politician a few K at most to sway the purchasing contract.That monstrosity gets them millions for funneling billions of tax dollars to their totally not mob construction buddies.

Anon08/18/26, 18:47No.2079964

easy. they're simply cooler

Anon09/08/26, 06:57No.2081578

When I worked at Telstra in Melbourne, my boomer coworkers always hated trams with a passion. >you could fit 3 more cars in there!! How many people does a tram carry?