Berlin’s Amazing Trams and What We Could Learn from Them

trams are an awesome technology that takes the best of trains and buses and puts them together to create something which is more than the sum of its parts with much of the infrastructural Simplicity and flexibility of a bus but with the capacity robustness and efficiency of a train much like other forms of Transit no two tram systems are the same and when I was in Berlin recently I remembered how good trams can be if operations infrastructure and vehicles all come together the trams in Berlin got me thinking about but Toronto or really any City with trams or light rail should be thinking about if it wants more than just trams but good trams to be clear these two systems are quite different Berlin moves around twice as many people every year and it has well over twice the mileage but Berlin actually only has marginally more stops and this highlights that so many of the differences between different transit systems are often policy choices and those policy choices mean that the trams in Berlin are faster more consistent more reliable and over all just better than the street cars in Toronto but Toronto could make the street cars better so what does Berlin do so right let's take a [Music] look welcome to RM Transit a Channel about trams and what actually makes them good I want to talk about trams a lot more in 2024 because while I think they're a great technology I think they're often misapplied as I talked about in a video last year and I actually think how trams are planned and implemented has a huge impact on how good they actually are part of the reason I think people so often like Subways is that they're relatively simple in their implementation tunnels trains little interaction between routes and no interaction with other types of traffic mean that Subways are just kind of hard to get wrong that means the gap between the quality of Transit you get from the best Subway system and the worst subway system well it's not actually that large trams on the other hand are incredibly contingent on their planning and operation as well as wider policy decisions that impact how trams interact with the city for me the standout features of Berlin's tram system start with the trams themselves Berlin's tram system is one that's evolved over time and like many older systems portions of the network use Loops to turn trams around and that means about half of the tram Fleet in Berlin is single-ended with a cab at only one end of the tram so that they can travel in Only One Direction in service and that's fine when you have turning loops and that variability is kind of a Hallmark of Berlin's system there are also some older trams kicking around and 40 m 7 segment units that provide way more capacity than any bus is ever going to by comparison in Toronto there's a fully homogeneous Fleet but that means that new extensions need to be built with space consuming loops and without easy Island platforms I'll also say that the vehicles on Toronto's Network aren't as visually attractive at least in my opinion and have more dated LED next stop signs compared to the beautiful LCD ones in Berlin not only do those LCD screens provide far better and more information than the LED ones in Toronto but older Berlin trams have better screens than newer Toronto street cars and even the Toronto street cars being delivered right now in 2023 don't have LCD next stop screens and Toronto's homogeneous Fleet approach will reorder hundreds of street cars at one period and then none for years and years afterwards creates other issues a problem specific to one model of street car will impact the entire fleet and with something as specialized as trams in North America large infrequent orders actually probably don't provide the economies of scale you might imagine looking at the network Berlin clearly has a lot of mileage but a lot of that is inflated by long Suburban lines in East Berlin where trams are primarily concentrated the urban parts of Toronto and Berlin systems are actually much closer together in terms of scale than you might think but the quality of the infrastructure is not the same same Berlin has a network designed entirely for pandag graphs like most modern tram and Light Rail systems and it's actually increased the voltage of its system from 600 volts like Toronto uses up to 750 for more power and better performance in Toronto almost the entire network is Pantagraph compatible but compatible is the key word here since large parts of the network still use dual Pantagraph and trolley pole infrastructure a lot of the benefits of pentagraph and the lower operating costs are yet to be seen so something I noticed when traveling around Berlin is how many stops and terminating Loops will have an array of multiple tracks where trams can stop and lay over since in Toronto only a small handful of Loops have more than just a single track where trams can stop that means you often see queuing up to go into a loop in Toronto which means street cars often back onto the sidewalks and block the road the switches are different too in Berlin dual point switches that is where there are two switch blades which align with both rails are used this means a quieter smoother ride but also less wear on the trams and the rails they also have points indicators so operators can easily see which direction a switch is pointed without having to visually inspect the points which can be really hard to see the switches can also easily be changed with a modern remote control system in Toronto it's bad embarrassingly bad most if not all of these switches on the entire network except at one of the maintenance facilities are single point and because of a dated and unreliable control system a lack of points indicators and the single point switches the TTC has a policy of having street cars slow down to a crawl before going through any switch which is a big issue on a rootle Bina that has a lot of switches what's crazier is that the TTC hasn't gotten rid of more switches when it's obvious that switch means slow less switches means fast and the tram tracks in Berlin are prettier as well green track is used really widely and that's great for Aesthetics but also a whole bunch of other reasons that I talked about in a previous video in Toronto there is green track but only on select parts of the Eglington LRT to help maintain the false distinction that some in Toronto are obsessed with between street car old and street car new there is some talk about maybe doing green track in the Portlands but for now it's just that talk and that's bad it's also interesting to see how much more flexible and pragmatic the tram rots in Berlin are well the vast majority of the Toronto street car Network sees two tracks running in the Center portion of a road in Berlin you see all kinds of different Arrangements including having tracks split apart so that trams can bypass left turning Vehicles something Toronto street car riders waiting for left turning cars certainly wish they had as well as dedicated RightWay traveling in One Direction and mixed traffic in the other and even running trains through pedestrianized areas like Alexander plats there are also places where Tram routes split and each travel Direction operates on a different street this makes it easy to create turning Loops without having trans go off Street and then back on which can often lead to delays and other problems this is done by placing the loop between rather than off to the side of the tracks the actual stops that you wait for the tram at couldn't be more different either in Berlin tram stops typically have large defined platforms often with ticket machines whereas in Toronto the vast majority of stops are just a pull on the sidewalk you have to walk into the street to get on the street car and it's not entirely clear where the street car is actually going to stop so you often have to do a little jog over to get to the car the stops in Berlin are also just so much more civilized there are these large poles which mark them from a distance so they're easy to see and on the polls you can get real-time information service disruption info local Maps as well as actual schedules imagine that in Toronto service disruptions are usually just tied or zip tied or pasted to some random object near the stop it's not great now Berlin doesn't have any underground tram stations which is kind of a neat feature of the Toronto street car system but the truth is putting your trams underground is something that's probably to be avoided in all but the most congested areas for one it costs a ton of money but you're also probably not getting Subway level service or capacity it's also just not really necessary the tram stop at Berlin hot funhoff is just outside the front door and if it's raining there's a pedestrian tunnel that connects the main station with the tram stop and the Bus Loop which means you don't have to get wet and you can easily Connect into the station without having to cross the street even though the trams aren't Underground it's easier to just make the people go underground I think the biggest thing you notice in Berlin is that these stop spacings are significantly wider which is something that's going to be pretty obvious when you note that both systems have a similar number of stops but Berlin system has twice the mileage in Berlin the first tram I got on I was wondering if it was some weird Express or out of service vehicle because it felt like a long time before we made a stop but that meant it was very fast I actually think the bigger stop spacing is critical to stops in Berlin just being so much nicer it's just easier to make each individual stop better when you have fewer of them in Toronto you do have way more stops but none of them are very nice and the truth is that you could combine two Toronto stops and it would still typically have less amenity than a single Berlin tram stop there is a bigger impact of the wider stop spacing though and that gets us into our last topic of comparison the speed the trams in Berlin are so fast compared to Toronto for one you don't stop nearly as often so the trams are able to get up to speed and then maintain it since Berlin like a lot of European cities has way less signalized intersections than Toronto you also stop at a lot less traffic lights this is all despite the fact that a lot of Berlin's Network operates in mixed traffic which only SS my somewhat controversial belief that the key to making trams fast isn't really getting rid of cars but just good operations heck in Alexander plats where there are no Cars TRS actually travel pretty slowly for obvious reasons I also feel feel like in Berlin the drivers are around 20% more aggressive curves are taken faster and you also feel more acceleration and deceleration going into an out of stops the servic is also arranged very differently a lot more of Berlin's network has multiple overlapping routes which operate and they're actually also different types of services such as the M series Metro trams which offer the most frequent service this special branding of a certain series of routs which receive better service is exactly the type of thing I suggested for Toronto's bus Network a few weeks back now what's interesting is that on paper the schedules for Berlin's trams were pitiful compared to Toronto every 10 minutes is pretty infrequent but what was remarkable in Berlin was that trams actually came on schedule most of the time to the minute on schedule when you know that there's going to be a clock phase tram coming at every 6 Minute mark it makes traveling so so easy you go out to the stop a minute in advance and get on your tram and it's easy and at worst you're waiting 10 minutes for the next tram it's a great experience and so obviously better than in Toronto where the route is spammed with street cars but they might be 15 20 or 30 minutes apart even if the supposed frequency is much higher what's pretty clear is that despite the current lackluster state of the Toronto street cars there are a number of actionable things which could be done to learn from Berlin and make the network better one more aggressive operations with better switches a better switch control system and points indicators two a stop reduction and enhancement program get rid of the stops that are extremely close to one another and enhance the busiest stops on the network to make trams faster and to make the waiting experience better three a long-term plan to increase street car voltages lengthen Vehicles eventually to seven segments widen curve radi as much as possible to enable higher speeds as well as enabling double-ended cars four small regular orders of street cars with modern amenities ideally for multiple manufacturers to keep multiple options open in the future and provide more competitive bids five an aim for a less frequent but more consistent schedule with enhanced layover and operations management infrastructure including inline turning loops and more layover space if Toronto could learn from Berlin and other cities it could take the street cars which are often seen as a cool historical gimmick for the majority of people who drive and make them the actual backbone of the city's Transportation infrastructure thanks for [Music] watching [Music] d

Channel: RMTransit

Views: 167,160

Keywords: transit, transportation, rail, railway, railfan, public transit, public transport, public transportation, train, subway, metro, underground, rail transport, urban planning, berlin, toronto, tram, tramway, trams, toronto streetcar, streetcar

Id: xYiVvGAWAX4

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 06 2024