[sustran] Re: Electric Trolley Buses vs. Diesel

Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory edelman at greenidea.eu
Thu Jun 18 02:03:02 JST 2009


Hi,

Peter Lutman wrote:
> Dear Todd,
>  
> While you have a point about the various combinations of fuel / motive 
> power, so many of these appear to 'gimmicks' or even actively 
> dangerous that they hardly merit serious research.
WHEN cars took to the roads for the first time, they had all sorts of 
problems with their engines. People used to have to walk down the street 
in front of them with a warning flag. Going back a bit, horses left 
lovely organiser fertilizer around which now has to be replaced by 
petroleum based stuff. Things can work well or not so well in both 
directions.
> There are systems which clearly lead the way. Arnhem in Holland and 
> Lyons in France use trolleybuses with car engines driving a generator 
> for the occasional off-wire diversion.
Also in some parts of Slovakia and the Czech Republic,
> San Francisco uses batteries for the same reason, but given the 21% 
> slopes, I doubt whether they would get a laden bus up the 1 or 24 routes.
THANKS, didnt know about that.
> And of course Vancouver which has renewed its large fleet is another 
> system using batteries as the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU).
> In China Beijing and Guangzhou (both flat cities) also use battery 
> APUs and, like the others mentioned, are extremely popular and 
> efficient 'leader' systems.
GOOD
> In France, Nancy decided to install guided trolleybuses (steered in 
> the suburbs) and the guidance rail system caused major problems. Even 
> after months of testing, the guided sections of the system are slow 
> and noisy. Caen installed a wholly guided system, so they could use a 
> pantograph to collect the 600V power and the single guidance rail as 
> the negative earth return. Even they have had a recent spectacular 
> derailment causing a 2-day suspension of service. These are further 
> examples of 'gimmicks' just to be different which can be ignored.
> Economically, one needs sufficient demand to justify 6 journeys per 
> hour over most of the system to justify the power supply 
> infrastructure for trolleybus operation.
SOUNDS good.
> With APUs short extensions can be tried without extending the overhead 
> (Guangzhou serves a new suburban bus interchange successfully in this 
> way with routes 109-112).
OK
> Visual Noise as Todd describes it, is not a negative but rather a 
> positive element. The rails and wires for a tramway show potential 
> users that there is public transport infrastructure and contribute to 
> its appeal. (According to the LRTA website, when Liverpool, UK, 
> replaced its tramway system with diesel buses only 70% of the tram 
> patronage was retained by public transport). Similarly the overhead 
> wires attract people to trolleybus routes which in many instances have 
> attracted 16-20% gains in patronage when replacing diesel buses on the 
> same route.
YES, of course it is positive for the way you describe but just as an 
additional benefit. I think rails make the case for trams. Picking a 
trolley should be decided "blind".
> Of course the smooth, silent, comfortable ride will also be a help in 
> achieving this, so the Chinese experiments in Shanghai with 
> super-capacitor electric buses which top-up their charge at every 
> third bus stop may still improve on their diesel counterparts.
OH, I didnt know that method of using ultracaps was already being used 
in China... I just knew about its proposed or theoretical application in 
Europe. Thanks.
> Obviously there will be many lower demand routes which can only 
> economically be served by hydrocarbon fuelled buses. I am all in 
> favour of clean, low sulphur diesel fuel.
FROM what petroleum source? Oilsands? Iraq?
> Again, however, the LPG/CNG/Hydrogen/Hybrid alternatives generally 
> appear 'gimmicky' and in Swiss and USA cities where there have been 
> spectacular explosions with some of these alternative fuels they 
> appear to have significant safety drawbacks. Is it really worth 
> researching modes which fail to achieve their targeted benefits and 
> are generally avoided by most commercial bus operators?
CNG buses are used all over for years... how many explosions in that time?
> Richard M Soberman wrote a report considering the economic aspects of 
> reintroducing trolley buses in Toronto (January 2009), and while some 
> of his conclusions may be arguable (trolleybuses and their 
> infrastructure can last three times as long as diesel vehicles) there 
> may be useful data there. It might also be worth considering 
> management attitudes and abilities and their impact on the economics 
> of different modes with particular reference to Edmonton's hasty 
> abandonment of its electric system and tearing down millions of 
> dollars worth of infrastructure.
NYC and Prague also removed their trolley bus systems.... not sure what 
reports exist.

- T
>  
>  
> Peter Lutman FCILT
>
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>  
>  
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory
>     <mailto:edelman at greenidea.eu>
>     *To:* sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
>     <mailto:sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>
>     *Cc:* Simon Bishop <mailto:simon.bishop at dimts.in> ; Chris Cherry
>     <mailto:cherry at utk.edu>
>     *Sent:* Wednesday, June 17, 2009 8:48 AM
>     *Subject:* [sustran] Re: Electric Trolley Buses vs. Diesel
>
>     Hi Chris,
>
>     While I am sure your paper will have have useful results, a
>     comparison between trolley and Diesel buses only seems a little
>     old fashioned.
>
>     Better, it seems, would be one between those with on- or
>     "off-board" traction, i.e. trolley buses with different sources of
>     energy AND buses which carry their own engine, or indeed engine
>     and motors. For the latter I am speaking of course of the various
>     types of Diesel used in Diesel-engined buses, but also
>     CNG/Bio-methane buses and Diesel-electrics with and without
>     ultracapacitors. Or even methane-electrics, if they exist. There
>     are also trolleys with supplemental engines to get through
>     non-wired areas, but while becoming more common (see Skoda
>     transportation) are not a true "hybrid". All of these are present
>     in greater or lesser numbers in actual daily use, and, given the
>     relatively short lifespan of buses, appear as new solutions so
>     often in cities as to be almost untrackable.
>
>     I lived in San Francisco for a long time and found trolley buses
>     vastly superior in terms of audible noise compared to the Diesels
>     there, but somewhat inferior in terms of visual noise, i.e. all
>     the wires and the poles to support them.
>
>     I am also curious about trolley buses and transmission-loss, i.e
>     the relative energy efficiency of electric-powered buses in
>     regards to the actual physical location of a power source. This
>     sort of look of course also applies to buses with on-board power,
>     i.e. is the fuel from recycled waste cooking oil ? (and how much
>     energy is embedded in that) or imported across vast distances,
>     e.g. natural gas from Russia to Western Europe....
>
>     But also it seems that in systems with both trolley buses and
>     Diesels, etc. the former would have higher occupancy rates as they
>     would tend to operate more in central areas. This also affects
>     effects.
>
>     - T
>
>
>


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