I like trolleys! But, they are far from perfect - figuring out the flaws in various transit technologies is critical to figuring out what to use where. Snowy mountain towns should clearly go with trolleys if starting a system today, but if you are a warm and flat location I think battery buses have a lot of advantages! Thanks for all the insightful comments!
Has anybody yet mentioned the increased weight of battery buses compared to trolleys? I'll just link this comment I saw on reddit: old.reddit.com/r/urbanplanning/comments/m6zujm/why_trolleybuses_may_not_be_the_right_solution/grbu2b2/
@@carkawalakhatulistiwa yes, trolley busses are cheaper than trams, but trams are much more cost effective because they can hold more people and they travel on rails.
I think there is a real benefit in lifetime carbon emissions when we minimize the quantity of batteries in any vehicle. I still think we should expand trolleybus networks even if it would reduce the required battery capacity on each bus by just half. I've also been worried lately about how big EV batteries are getting. Some brands are even talking about 200KwH in sports cars and SUV's. People assume that the longest range option is the best, but the bigger the battery, the higher the lifetime emissions.
also, busses do not need a huge range. They usually go around in a loop and could quickcharge at the end of every stop or even at every major stop, many inner city bus lines maybe need to go like 10km on a single charge
Yeah. Battery busses have just so many more issues than trolley busses. There’s a reason overhead wires have existed for so long, and will continue to exist. Battery busses have their niche uses, but overall trolley busses are far superior
Seems exaggerated to me. I live in Salzburg where we have a trolleybus system since 1940. In the last 20 years they really expanded the network and even changed a few bus lines into trolleybus lines. Since a trolleybus can last up to 30 years if well maintained, and the overheads up to 50 years it is of course something for long term use. The efficiency is so much better, and with IMC-Technology it is also no problem anymore to drive with out overhead lines. Of course dewiring can happen, but it's not very often nor drastic.
de-wiring with old Škoda trolleys (built in the 80s) was drastic. Because unlike newer ones, these came to a sudden stop. One had to hold on at all times. :P
I still thinking what's the advantage of trolleybus than tram and ordinary buses (beside the fleets r more longlasting than electric bus coz the battery for bus isn't pretty good)? r they more fast/reliable/able to carry more passengers?
@Muhammad Fariz I would say for most busy lines use a tram, afterwards a double articulated trolleybus which is unbeatable on steep hilly roads and have the huge benefit that it doesn't need any expensive charging points, or ran out of its battery. As well you never have to change batteries every few years which is quite expensive and not good for the environment compared to a catenary which lasts at least half a century. So that makes it reliable, faster (without charging), you don't need more drivers/busses as with battery powered ones, and you could use a double articulated trolleybus (200 passengers) for maximum capacity. I would say it is the best system after the tram.
Reliability of the Trolleys: I haven't experienced a single problem in years here in Zurich. Maybe a lack of maintenance in Vancouver? Also, the switches can be automated to prevent wrong switching. And lastly, modern trolley buses have large batteries to drive multiple stations without overhead wires. This allows complicated junctions to be passed with the trolleys lowered, so no speed reduction necessary. This also greatly improves efficiency of the infrastructure, because you build the overhead wires only where they are easy to install and are used by multiple lines.
The maintenance is there in Vancouver, perhaps Zurich has better gear. A lot of the other points you bring up still don’t exist on legacy systems unfortunately but I’d love to see it.
@@RMTransit Trolleybuses in Seattle are the best buses for the steep hills. Unfortunately, their batteries are weak so they must pull over to recover from bounced poles. Bellevue nearby has one route run by battery Proterra buses, but Idk about the whole system's progress with those. Vancouver has steep terrain where ridership is too low to have warranted trolleybuses when they were popular?
@@RMTransit It probably is to the more modern equipment on Zurüchs, or really any swiss trolley networks, those aren't some newly built systems btw (all dating back to the 30s and 40s) but they probably did see more investment than comparative north american systems.
Most European cities that have trolleybus systems use Kummler and Matter high speed flexi overhead. I see the San Francisco is slowly upgrade their trolleybus overhead with Kummler and Matter equipment.
@@RMTransit - Vancouver stills use the old OB (Ohio Brass) rigged overhead. I see San Fransisco is slowly replacing their old OB overhead with Kummler and Matter flexi high speed overhead.
@@TheEricksu most older soviet designs from like the 1960s have diesel engines to disconnect from wires for like 3 minutes before reconnecting back if the road is in meintance or stuff that will block the way of the trolleybus so they have to change path..... Isn't it weird that the CO2 emissions per capita of the US is 15 while mexico is only 3 ????? Also good job to Mexico
here in san francisco out trolleybuses are great!! Ever since they got the new buses, they operate faster and they can climb hills better than any bus. I do agree it doesn't work for every route, but when it works it works. Also if the builders of the trolleybuses can have shoes that don't pop off the wire if you go over a junction to fast that will improve the reliability so much.
Think trolleybuses are also more feasible as internal shuttle buses for the National University of Singapore, whose main campus is built on Kent Ridge (& thus the roads are pretty steep (up to ~6% gradient)). We previously used coaches for such services but their acceleration is pretty sluggish; they've since been replaced by Volvo B9L commuter buses that accelerate faster but can be a bit noisy (I've heard of hostel residents being woken up by it). Only possible issues I see are justifying it's economic viability (as shuttle bus demand is significantly less during weekends & university holidays, since the campus' location is quite isolated), and wanting to maintain service to the satellite (& actually original) Bt Timah Campus ~6km away might be cost-ineffective (due to the need to stretch overhead wires all the way there. Maybe that service could be replaced by allowing free travel by students on our MRT (subway/metro) to the station nearest to that satellite campus, funded by students' miscellaneous fees). Currently the buses also have to travel ~10km off-site to the operator's (ComfortDelgro) HQ for servicing & refueling I think, which wouldn't be cost-effectively possible with trolleybuses, but since trolleybuses have simpler drivetrains I'm thinking it might then become more economically viable to do the servicing on-site instead (the fleet size of ~32x buses might be big enough to justify that I guess, & you also get to save on the dead mileage that's currently required to travel off-site for servicing)
Hybrid trolleybuses already work in Poland. These trolleybuses do not require any special quirks as they can switch on route directly on a bus stop. So the future is now :)
@@ggrrffasmr3018 they are a battery bus with trolleys. Just like explained in the video, it charges on the main route and then goes on to serve parts of town that are not electrified.
I just watched your video Alan after seeing this one. I would tend to agree with the points you brought up in yours about why trolley buses are better then battery electric buses especially for cities that already have a trolley system. Vancouver is one such place where they are starting to bring in battery electric buses but hopefully they do not intend to eliminate their trolley system as I think that would be a mistake. Translink should instead look at where they could expand the trolley network as there are a few corridors where it could be beneficial.
@@kahluacoke my hometown in Western Europe is currently integrating battery trolleys into their existing fleet of trolleys (replaced trams in the 50s) and diesels and are using them on all sorts of cool routes for example on a regional service to the next town and back or up and down hill routes as diesel replacement and on trolley lines with construction going on as battery and back switches better than the old generator startup and needing a guy to rewire the bus at the back. All trolleys here are at least articulated, many doubly so, and thus they’re reasonably limited to 8+1 lines, 3 of which are fully wired with 2 further having inherited partial wiring when they redrew the lines a couple of years back but all bendy lines have significant parts of shared lines with wiring and thus I‘ve personally seen battery trolleys on all but two of them, though compared to before the line redraw they actually removed some wires. And the 2ish miles of expected wiring aren’t on the lines where I haven’t seen battery trolleys operating in revenue service… If Vancouver could take similar advantage of their existing infrastructure, I‘m sure they could electrify a significant part of their local services without having to worry about running out of juice
Interesting take on trolleybuses. I'm not convinced battery buses are the answer. The Vancouver trolley buses, for example, between them carry about 1/3 of all the bus traffic in british columbia. They are heavily used. I don't believe battery buses are able to carry that volume with current technology. Battery buses also use rare earth metals for the batteries, so they're really not that sustainable. Also charging batteries is still not efficient and can end up using more power than a trolley bus. BC has to go all electric. So it will be either battery or trolley. I believe that trolley buses on heavy used local routes, or even hybrid trolley battery that can run on and off wire are the future. Vancouver has committed to replacing the trolleybus fleet at least one more time when the current fleet is up for replacement as the infrastructure is in good shape and extensive. Dewiring isn't a big issues as turnouts have been improved. Vancouver uses 15 degree turnouts instead of the older 30 degree. New sensor technology helps keep the shoes on the wire. If there is threat of ice some buses are fitted with ice cutter shoes to cut the ice off the lines, and are run overnight so the lines are clear for the morning rush (most trolleybus routes have 24 hr bus service so there is little downtime). And all Vancouver trolley buses are fitted with batteries and can run a short distance off wire. This is used when maintenance is being done on the wires and the bus pulls down the trolleys, goes around on battery, then reconnects after.
Battery buses used in Toronto have been used very intensively (no different from Vancouver) without any issues. Yes they use rare earth metals, but they also have a LOT of benefits over trolleys - lack of infrastructure being the biggest.
We would need to know the financial cost of maintaining trolley infrastructure vs cost of replacing batteries. I bet the trolley is cheaper and using trolleys means more lithium for cars.
@@leoncchow I’m sure you have also seen the phenomenon that in winter your phone battery dies more quickly than in summer. So winter is actually an advantage of trolleybuses compared to battery buses. Bergen (Norway), Landskrona (Sweden), Tallinn (Estonia), Saint Petersburg and many other Russian towns, Zurich and many other Swiss towns, etc. all have proper winters, with tons of snow and below freezing degrees and have functional trolleybus networks.
@@sxflyer5410 Maybe it does in Europe, but would the benefits really be worth considering outside Europe, where the supply of trolleybuses and trolleybus parts is more limited?
In Mexico City we have trolley buses that also have batteries, they are hybrids and are great, they can deviate, and reconnect to the line automatically when they are near them, and it has proven to be useful when there’s manifestations in the city center
From Seattle, which has one of the other two major trolleybus systems on the West Coast. Dewiring is not a significant problem with modern trolleybuses, unlike older trolleybuses. The problem with non-trolley electric buses is that their batteries have to carry their own weight, which can be substantial, increasing the power required to drive the bus, need a recharging network, and are not good on hills or on busy quick-turnaround routes. Modern trolleys also have batteries, to allow short off-wire runs, but which are nowhere near as heavy as for electric buses, due to having to store less energy. Electric buses will also add to street repaving costs due to their additional weight. "Operational efficiency" is a shibboleth often used by managers to justify getting rid of trolleybuses because they complicate their job, not because they aren't cost-effective or don't serve the public. They've tried to get rid of trolleybuses three times in Seattle and each time public outcry stopped it.
Its not about operational efficiency, it's about efficiency broadly, and the comments re. dewiring are accurate. Seattle uses the same trolleybuses as Vancouver.
In my region we’ve almost completely switched to battery buses and i just wish we’d instead opted to invest more into a trolley system…. Buses breaking down due to drivers forgetting to charge, batteries running out much quicker than normal without reason, having to switch to a different bus in the middle of the line in winter because of battery capacity issues (it wasn’t even that cold, it didnt even freeze). This doesn’t even take into account the massive amount or rare earth metals that have to be used and my main concern, the batteries degrading over time. If the buses already struggle to operate at peak capacity when they’re new, it’s gonna be hell in 5 years time…. And to the people saying « well at least it’s clean electric », most countries still rely on fossil fuels for a major part of their electricity network. And lastly, the fast charging points for the buses use more power than complete neighbourhoods…. to have this system work, fast charging is required but this is also wildly inefficient. No transit system is perfect, but battery buses are especially flawed in their current form.
How does battery recycling factor into the cost? Obviously heavy use of lithium ion cells is going to require a steady supply of them and a clear way to renew them into new batteries. This is going to be an issue anyway because of electric cars, but I do think transit agencies have the opportunity to set an example
Love your content. I live in Bucharest where we got an extensive system of over 60 normal bus lines and 15 trolleybus lines. And the troleybuses run pretty well even though they’re 30 years old
I lived in cities with trolleybuses before when I was little. They are great! Silent, powerful acceleration, excellent hill climbing abilities... A joy to ride and look at their twin poles negotiating curves and crossings & switches! Way more fun than buses 😂
I live in lovely city of Bratislava, Slovakia with population of 500 000 people. We use 3 modes of transport (buses, trolleybuses, trams). Trams are generally used for highest capacity (where there is sufficiently flat terrain). There are basically 2 usecases for TB: 1. High frequency lines: less than 10 minutes frequency (often times more than one line on the most of the system). 2. Steep terrains where regular buses transition systems will get worn down in few short years. It is definitely not a big deal to have dedicated depot and maintenance facility for TB. Few facts: # Trams: 200 # Trolley buses: 150 # Diesel Buses: 600 There are 5 depots some of them combined, 2 of them that serves trolley buses. There are even cities such small as 100 000 people that still uses TBs. Almost half of their fleet is actually TBs. On the other hand, only very niche applications are used by battery electric buses such as line going trough forest/park. Please take into consideration other parts of the world than North America, worst public transit region of the world. Sometimes, your first principle reasoning, which you most of the time use, does not reflect in the real world.
Overall i think the video is well done and provides a lot of useful information! However, one small thing that could be improved is that by the end, the viewer is left with the impression that we have a definitive conclusion: that trolley buses have been rendered irrelevant. This is achieved using the familiar format of, "Well there may be advantages X, but there's also disadvantages Y" which gives the impression of symmetry, aka the disadvantages cancel out the advantages. This may well be true, but we need further information to establish that. For instance, the video mentions that trolley buses can save money by using electricity instead of fossil fuels, by increasing vehicle lifespans, and by reducing maintenance costs, but doesn't say how big these savings potentially are. It then mentions the costs from infrastructure, logistical issues and operational inflexibility, but doesn't mention the magnitude of these costs. Without specifics to compare, the viewer is left to assume that they balance one another when in reality one (either advantages or disadvantages) could fully outweigh the other. Rather than having the viewer assume, I'd prefer to see actual numbers compared, perhaps using a specific city as a case study. If this is considered beyond the video scope, then simply taking a neutral tone rather than arguing a position would also work. Also, the video does't mention that many of the additional logistical challenges with trolley buses such as training staff for their unique maintenance applies to battery buses too. And battery buses have other issues such as challenges in extreme cold. Some have separate fossil fuel heaters for passenger comfort to avoid draining the batteries for instance. But overall, cool and information video! Keep up the great work :D
@@RMTransit Oh I didn't mean to suggest that you said that explicitly, I just mean that as a viewer, I got the impression that you meant for us to form that conclusion. Often times the information a person chooses to present or omit and the order, tone, and emphasis by which it's presented speak as loudly as overt statements. For instance, if someone said to you, "Well sure, technology X may have advantage A, but sadly what you often don't hear is that it also has disadvantages B, C, D & E." Many people would hear this as a rebuke or debunk of technology X even if this wasn't explicitly stated. But if advantage A saves $1 million while and disadvantages B, C, D & E each cost $10k, that context would be useful. But as I said, this was just a small note in an overall great video! I'm a long time viewer who has mainly enjoyed the content and any criticism is intended solely to be constructive. 💕
The video also does not explain about the [mining] pollution caused to produce batteries, and to finally dispose of them. Battery vehicles waste a percentage of their energy from the weight they carry around with themselves. Overall, environmentally, trolleybuses are the most friendly. The argument about multiple routes is very weak, the world's largest network (albeit long shut down), comprised of some 68 routes, and a fleet of over 1,800 double decked vehicles. Good maintenance of the wiring on the trolleybus trunk routes was key, high standards to allow high-speed passage of the collector wheels through the overhead frogs and crossings, thus mitigating against the risk of dewirements.
@@RMTransit The entire premise is that trolley buses aren't as good as battery buses. You made it pretty clear, usually by anecdotal stories, what your point was.
When I studied in a city with trolleybuses and regular buses, the trolley was always the preferred mode of transportation. When I moved to a city with trams, trolleys and busses, the preferred transport option became trams. Now, while living in a city that also has a metro, trams are still my most preferred option, mostly because Prague is really beautiful and you cant enjoy that fifty feet under and also because the tram network here is so wast, that you can go almost anywhere interesting in the city with it. But I believe that the major reason for the relative failure of trolleys in North America is due to the lack of housing dense enough to make suburban lines (economically) sustainable. With that, at least for a part of most journeys has to be taken by car (poor walkability doesn't help) and once you are in a car... well you stay there. So in the end the ridership depends on low-income people. Whereas in Eastern Europe, we didn't have that for a long time (or, to be more specific, we only had low-income people, living in mass housing). In the last twenty years, the situation changed drastically with the introduction of the sprawl and as a result sub urbanisation poses all the same problems as in America, but so far they are mitigated by the existence of a relatively working city fabric that can still support a strong network. Also, the trolleys and equipment for them are still being manufactured and developed here. As for their future, I wouldn't be anywhere near as sceptic as you are: They are way lighter than electric busses, have a very long service life and since electric cars will be mandated in Europe over the next few years, we can expect skyrocketing costs of rare earth materials batteries are made off. For this cost reason alone I believe that independent electric traction will stay a niche, only used where it will make the most sense, while the trolley will soldier on. Also, if you have a dedicated BRT, it is very easy and relatively cheap to upgrade it to a trolleybus service, once the demand is established, especially in comparison to upgrading it to light rail or even metro.
I believe trolley buses make sense in certain more localized situations. Cities such as San Francisco with very steep hills, trolley buses have better traction than diesel or hybrid buses. Also, for densely populated urban cores located in older cities, such as the US Northeast, trolley buses make sense as many streets are not wide enough for buses to pass (I also think street running streetcars are also good in some of those circumstances). But if you look at newer cities, such as those in the US Sunbelt, which have lots of motorways and wide, multi-lane trunk boulevards, they don't make sense.
Or perhaps the sunbelt cities were built stupidly due to the required cost of maintaining the highways and stoads instead of having denser cities better for foot traffic.
@@paulbukowiecki1213 The Achilles's Heel of many of the Sunbelt cities will be the cost of maintaining aging infrastructure. The population density compared to many of the highways and stroads is too low, and with increases in fuel efficiency and e-vehicles, many will have to take a serious look at tolling. Then of course there is the issue of electrical and water/sewerage systems which are typically less efficient due to lack of street grids, and finally the over reliance on subdivisions which will age less than gracefully and when they do so will not be able to accommodate higher density construction.
Great advantages of trolleybuses is that they do not use batteries. Batteries are the main problem with EVs (and of course electric busus). They are heavy, making the vehicle heavy and needing more power, and they need time to recharge. A trolleybus does not have these issues. It is lighter, and thus also needs less power. Maybe a good solution could be something between both ? Geneva's TOSA system, for example ?
Maybe they are in Europe where there is still a market for standarized trolleybuses and still a good supply of trolleybuses, but what about elsewhere, where a market for trolleybuses no longer exists?
In Kaunas/Lithuania, we used to have a party trolleybus that would circle around downtown. Party music inside and it gets you to the next bar. It was very easy to setup DJ equipment inside and to have cold drinks! I wonder if they still do that!
I saw a video titled along the lines of "trolleybuses don't need to be slow", and the buses had the wire junctions and the corners smoother. The buses took the corners at a speed diesel buses would. It might cost more, but it looks possible to eliminate the issues with cornering. Trolley-poles at high speeds aren't that much of an issue on good wires, look at the Electroliner- it did 180km/h without de-wiring in trials but they stopped it because the level crossing gates wouldn't shut in time. So, I think de-wiring isn't an issue if designed right. Are they going to design it right? (probably a hard no...)
The city I grew up in, a small one, roughly 100,000 people now, called Pleven, had its trolleys since 1985 and network is only growing and upgrading. Now there are 18 routes, 4 of them recently opened, 60 new hybrid and small-battery trolleys (allowing them to run several kms on battery), a few old Russian one, one to be restored as a historical vehicle, 15 all-battery buses to serve in industrial areas. The last ones were just bought and will replace previous diesel bus routes. If well planned, this might be the one of few or may be the only all-electric bus fleet in Europe. Also happy that every time I visit the city, all buses seems to be pretty busy, full with people even outside rush hours.
trolleybus can be a good solution to expand zero emission fleet for cities already have some network. Beijing rapidly adopted battery-electric buses that have a trolley on it. If a third of the route is covered by trolley wire, then the bus can recharge for the rest of the trip. A large reason why trolley bus is considered infeasible is that North American manufacturers are too small to advance the technology, while the market is sealed-off from overseas solutions. Many trolley buses in China is developed by CRRC zhuzhou, who also manufactures rail equipments.
Just the fact that trolleybuses do not need batteries to operate makes them vastly superior to battery electric buses in terms of ecology, safety and the ,,human cost"
SEPTA in Philadelphia and MUNI in San Francisco have these on specific routes. There's a level of flexibility for route extensions, however the cable must be available along a certain segment.
@@dangelohartley5977 Plus MBTA in Boston. That makes only 5 trolleybus systems out of what were once about 50 across the U.S. In Canada, of 15 systems, only Vancouver remains. Plus 2 in Mexico: Mexico City and Guadalajara.
I mean I would use them instead of a 100% mixed traffic streetcar. Since they have the advantages of not being stopped by a parked car and the rails aren't there to cause a problem for bicyclists.
You throw the cars out, and cyclists can exist fine together with trams, since trams don’t "weave" as buses do. Manhole covers & road markings are just as bad as trams tracks, plus, you have to learn to cross the tracks at a large angle. I would prefer having a cyclist in the middle of my track, having about 1,4 meters to wiggle about in, than having them on the side, having only 30 centimetres to wiggle. That said, if there’s room to park cars next to a tram line, throw the cars out and build a bike track.
I remember riding Brillo trolleys to get to High school on Oak St in the 1960s. Also downtown on Hamilton St. a lady bus driver went straight instead of turning onto Robson. She had to back the trolley thru the switch. I still remember her saying 'Oh, I wish I was on Cambie' Back then the Oak & Cambie routes were combined. Great channel. Cheers.
About 5 years ago in Seattle a crazed junkie climbed a big tree downtown by Macys and lived in it for over a day, they had to push the trolley buses through with trucks since the wires were deenergized.
Trolleybuses are quite popular in post-USSR countries and in Eastern Europe. However, Russia also decided to reduce trolleybus systems. For example, trolleys were disappeared in Moscow and Perm. Perm is resonancing millioner city in recent years with reducing of trams and trolleybuses system. Hello, degradation! Russia and Kazakhstan also, are currently experiencing the situation which was in US and Western Europe in 60's and 70's with reducing of public transport and building more highways. It is good to mention that each year hundreds of km new roads are constructing in Moscow triggering more and more traffic jams. Some wide streets with pedestrian crossings and boulevards became urban highways with 6-8 lanes for each way! That's awful! I mentioned also capital of Kazakhstan-Astana with 1 million people, where no any rail transport(trams, commuter rail, subway, LRT) and complicated bus systems(BRT, trolleybuses), only conventional buses with fortunately good frequency 10-15 mins))
Well, Russia is a specific case due to overcentralization - Kremlin controls all the cash flows, so we have rich Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan, and poor other cities. Typical Russian city just don't have enough money to maintain trolleybus and tram systems. And usually they don't have municipal buses, because they are gone in early 00s and was replaced by "marshrutkas". In Moscow idiotic major Sergey Sobyanin demolished the largest trolleybus network in the world due to a very simple reason - HE DON'T LIKE TROLLEYBUSES. Moscow authorities doesn't care about citizens opinion, they do whatever they want and nobody can stop it. Can you imagine things like this somewhere in EU or North America?
I like the video (as good as all your videos), but I think you should at least mention some flaws of battery buses (like range). Here in Salzburg there are 12 trolleybus lines (though 2 of them don't operate on the weekend) and the latest line extension brought battery trolleybuses so they can drive a part of the line without wires - I think it's a good solution.
I think there are ways to rewire without the driver having to get out of the bus now. We have them in Seattle, although the bus has to be aligned well.
Battery is extremely antiecofriendly. Lithium mining drains and pollutes massive areas. And we still don't have efficient and ecofiendly technology of battery recycling. Each battery must be disassembled by hands which is unbelievably expensive and dangerous process so noone does it. Instead it can be burned or left to pollute our soil. I prefer all troubles with trolleybus instead.
Awesome video. You mentioned the advantage of using dual pantographs instead of trolley poles in wiring and de-wiring operations which is obvious, but the dual pantograph requires a wider ROW compared to single pantographs on trams and trolley poles due to increased lateral clearance requirements. This will limit the ability to install them on tight city streets especially going around turns. Along wide arterials though, I do see an overall advantage with dual pantographs when used in conjunction with Charge-in-motion buses using batteries outside junctions and away from the busy corridors.
Hey great video! I'm a trolly operator from said Canadian city. Essentially a trolly bus system only really makes sense like you said if you have the overhead network and associated systems/personnel in place (or if you plan to convert a tram network to bus). The main selling point for trolleys in a modern system for me would have to boil down to the environmental impact. Our busses don't have a battery (other than a very small emergency one) meaning you get all the benifits of zero emissions without the negative impact of battery disposal/production. We've got a number of battery busses in the fleet, they are decent but the technology isn't quite there yet for a system to effectively operate. Hahaha you don't even know the half of it when it comes to the quirks (limitations) when it comes to a trolley network. That said I love the trolleys and would have to say most of the operators that stay in the city proper do as well. With the current models due for replacement around the mid 2020's the current plan is to procure more. They may be the final generation with battery technology progressing very quickly though. Love your channels content. Let me know if you want any info about the network here in van from behind the barrier lol.
With improvements in battery technology especially when the solid state battery becomes commercially available in the next 2 years, will see trolleybus comeback due to increase operation flexibility EBTB's (electric battery tolleybus).
The problem with hydrogen engine that you waste a lot of electrcity by making and making hydrogen into fuel so no, hydrogen buses won't be an alternative for electric buses in a electrcity crysis
Dispelling myths would come with more hard data. Simply saying "battery tech is getting better" is weasel words. A cost breakdown for both options *today*, and lifecycle analysis is needed. To say batteries are getting better: how so? What is the trend, what emerging tech will we be seeing in the immediate future? This is what separates an opinion piece to a fact based news story.
I am temporarily living in san Francisco which of course has a current trolleybus system. Now Muni, or SFMTA) their transport system, already has the infrastructure (needless to say) Trolleybus do have the advange of not eeding to be charged as the 600 or 700 VDC would always be there. There is a snall system supplimenting with limited range lithium ion batteries that get chatrged off the wires as well. Muni has just spent millions (exact figure not known) of dollars on new New Flyer single and articulated buses -- which are from a Canadian company in Winipeg Manitoba -- and to get rid of these busses which have already been running just befgore COVID, as they would normally have a 20 year lifespan, it would be self defeating to close the system for a 100% battery-electric system. I am doing my part to encourage the SFMTA to keep the current trolleybus system in addition of having all the diesel buses replaced with battery-electrics. One disavantage of battery-electrics is in the remote event forgetting to recharge them that they would sit idle until being towed in the depot or charged supplemental from an exterior source. Remember trolleybuses do nt require charging for the main propulsion system. Wher I am from Switzerland has a large trolleybus network and I would like to see their intercity Postauto (the yellow buses with red trim) to be in part trolleybus as well as battery-electric, the best of both worlds. Geneva has trolleynuses I have ridden all their TC lines, and also developing fast charge e-buses from a small pantograph-like system that would tage only 15 seconds at limited bus stops, which together with the TC (trolley coaches) would still be extant be a great advantage for Geneva. There sre still places which are building a trolleybus infrastructure even today alongside e-buses. (also I personally like te geometric 'artt' of the trolleybus overhead wires, I would miss that with strictly e-buses)! This is my view.
The system about recharging battery buses on the go does exist. In Vienna Austria Batterie buses are on the 1a and 2a lines and when on a major tram network they charge from the overhead wires. Its great however they are only in the inner city and Veinna has a massive tram network so it would be easy to implement on some lines.
Pantograph type solutions are definitely better. There’s a reason a lot of modern trams go for the pantograph over the pole. Pole is difficult for junctions, pole can have issues staying on the wire and slows things down. Pantographs can be raised and lowered at will far easier than a pole. Although would still suffer the overtaking issue unless you have different wires for the bus stops and the continuing road, which might look a bit cursed but still doable.
Is it possible to make two separate connections with a pantograph? I see it most often with the pantograph connecting to the single, live overhead wire, and current returning through the rails as ground. Since trolleybuses have rubber wheels, they need two separate overhead connections
I've seen double pantographs being used experimentally for lorries on motorways in Europe. The problem is of course that pantographs are wide, and you must have enough of a gap between the wires to prevent a short. This results in infrastructure that looks more akin to heavy rail OHL, with big chunky pylons and gantries, probably not suitable for narrow urban streets. I don't think this solution will be feasible for regular buses, perhaps long distance coaches.
The thing I love best about trolley buses is how quiet they are. Regular buses, be they diesel or hybrid, are still really loud. Trolley buses are so quiet! Living on a main street myself, I would love if the bus was converted so it wouldn't be so loud. To me, that's a really good reason for their existence. Urban noise is a very under appreciated quality of life issue. As for trams... Strangely, where I live, the light rail trains are WAY quieter than the trams which are like rattle traps as they trumble over the rails. They're a smoother ride, too. Mind you, the trams and their infrastructure are newer than the light rail system, so I have no idea why this is.
On a note about familiarity, I used to work for a truck leasing company. We had three Compressed Natural Gas powered trucks. From a previous employer, I was the only person at the terminal familiar with them, so was called either off other work, and a few times on my day off, to come sort these matters out. Of course only having three of them, it was rare, and the company was very polite about it, but from a company standpoint, having just one guy familiar with these trucks led to delay.
I heart that in Arnhem The Netherlands they try tu use a trolley with accu, ass you explaint. To reconect with the line, the will do it ad the stop and probily ad the time it takes in the departure times
The poles are rewired automatically. Rather low tech method. There is a "stop here" mark on the street and boards just below the wires that ensure the poles are rewired. The bus just needs to control the speed of raising the poles. Quite simple actually.
I live in greater LA, so every time I'd see trolleybuses (like in San Francisco, or Philadelphia) I'd think to myself "huh, interesting." But I think it should be general intuition that switching to trolleybuses from traditional fuel/battery buses just doesn't make sense. good video!
exactly. Am from NYC the majority of our buses are hybrids. in my opinion trolley buses are a short term solution to zero emission mass transit. but once electric bus batteries improve and become greater reaching. the trolley buses will become obsolete.
Vancouver's Hastings has express lines that haven't been used in decades and are basically a hold over from when they ran an express trolley route. There's the R5 which replaced the 95 B Line which replaced the 135 service which replaced the 120. Anyway. They should extend the express lines to SFU where one of the primary benefits of trolleybus technology can really shine. Climbing hills. Trolley wires could even be extended to Burquitlam Station from SFU to allow the 143 to also capitalize on the hill climbing benefits the technology offers. There are a lot of places where trolleybuses could save a lot on maintenance in greater Vancouver, but have been seemingly prevented from expanding right before those benefits could be realized. Willingdon, South Burnaby, New Westminster, Canada Way just to name a few. Current trolleybus routes end right at places right where buses in those areas start from. Metrotown, Kootenay Loop, Boundary Loop. What a shame. What a lost opportunity.
A plugged in electric motor is such a simple device and reliable. A fan, a blender, ect. Batteries are still very expensive, heavy, and slow to charge. The only downside I see to trolley buses is maintaining the wires. Vancouver should be slowly expanding them. Marine drive in North Vancouver would be a good line.
An electric motor is reliable no matter what, batteries are not really inherently linked to the vehicle in a BEB. Maintaining the wires is an issue yes, but building whole new wire networks is something I think we need to think hard about.
What infuriates me is that battery buses aren’t even a zero emissions method of getting around. Getting lithium is often acquired with fossil fuel emitting mines, which by itself would be a problem, but combined with the fact that there are limited
yes, why do you even need batters on a bus or a train that have a fixed route? running a wire is much easier. you can also put a small diesel generator on them to avoid batteries completely (if you need to get off the grid for a few miles)
I like the hybrid idea. First build an infrastructure of battery busses, then build wires in busy areas so they can run while charging, then if the wires eventually cover enough area build larger busses that take advantage of the extra power and don't need a battery weighing them down.
I guess most people get frustrated that trolleybuses get ignored when talking about electrifying the buses. They clearly have the benefit of less resource consumption. But the flexibility of a bus is clearly lost so I would definitely not just write off battery-powered buses like some people do.
@@RMTransit Really? Though I guess a lot of people kinda just have been repeating the points made in his video and what Justin Roczniak has said on Twitter. So it's like an indirect response lol.
Not here in Hungary. They exist because of the oil crisis and they have replaced diesel bus lines. Electric buses are expensive and either have less capacity or low range. While trolleybuses have basically infinite range.
Batteries are way more damaging to the environment than what he is talking about. The rare earth extraction mining involved requires massive energy expenditure and when their short life span is up (5 yrs max) their recycling is also v complex and expensive.... and if batteries EV are in a collision they can cause massive fires v hard to put out, which a trolley bus would definitely not experience since no fuel tank or battery is present. So, Com'on man, get with the trolleys! & avoid batteries until a new tech comes along. See the comments where people in E Europe have been using them for more than decades and they agree it is a v quiet and clean system that simply WORKS with minimal maintenance.... which IS therefore more sustainable.
Every since trolleys were removed from Moscow with exactly the same excuses 2 years ago, the overall quality of public transportation has dropped significantly
On removable batteries, why dont we just replace a battery when it runs out of charge, recharging it at a base while the bus coninues running with a new battery
Boston just signed away the elimination of our trolleybus system. I think us, the people of Boston, had a strong holdout attempt for it to be overturned.
I've been following this channel for a few months, and was really surprised to hear a reference to my home town of Dayton, Ohio mentioned. It was actually only a few years ago that I realized how uncommon the electric trolly buses, that Dayton uses for a subset of their RTA bus routes, actually were. Only a handful of cities in the US using them. I generally agree with most of the points in the video, but we still like those trolly busses though.
I don't agree, i live in a city with a big trolley network and there are very few problems. Battery buses aren't the solution, they require huge and heavy batteries with low energy density which need rare materials to build.
Does anyone know of any study which look into the cost comparison between building and maintaining overhead wires vs. buying a lot of 200+ kwh lithium batteries and replacing them every 8 to 10 years? Common sence tells me the trolley line should be significantly cheaper in the long run as it's just a bunch of wires (and rectifiers but battery electric buses need those too). It would be interesting to know for sure though. But to be clear, I don't expect trolleys everywhere, on low demand routes, they would probably never beak even, however if a city needs a frequent service and does not quite have the money or the will to build overhead wires and rails for trams or if it has steep hills, trolleybuses seem to me as the second best solutions - you get most benefits of trams (mainly low operating cost) but you only need to build and maintain half the infrastructure. On the topic of a trolleybus passing another trolleybus, in Brno (Czechia) at trolleybus stops on main roads the wires split into two lines. One goes into the stop and the other one continues on. At the end of the stop the split-off wires merge with the main line. This way one trolleybus can pass anotherone, though one of those trolleybuses has to be in the stop.
One of the drawbacks of trolleys that *very* few people talk about is they don't mix well with bicycling infrastructure. It's easy to cross trolley tracks, but it's not easy to run parallel to them when you have to dodge, not just cars, but pedestrians and any kind of debris, ice, or potholes. If you're parallel to the tracks when you need to swerve, it's more difficult to hit them at a 90 degree angle, and if you hit them at the wrong angle your wheel can wipe out from under you. This is why I prefer trackless trolleys aka trolleybuses.
300 or so trolleybus systems were dismantled between 1965 and 1972 in: United States, England, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Holland and they did it for one reason: to convert car use in something essential to transport. 50 years doing a great business with the sale of cars and gasoline and what happens today before the imminent decline in oil ???, say the businessmen who want to continue with the business and we are going to invest in inefficient transportation that leaves a lot of money Battery cars and buses, ...... so let's discredit the trolleybus and sell from time to time spare parts for many buses, many batteries, many chargers and many charging stations.
Rewiring is not a problem at all for IMC trolleybuses - poles can be automatically lifted from driver's cab and connected to catenary using pole catchers (they are very simple, but effective) on a bus stop. Check out some videos with IMC trolleybuses on TH-cam from Budapest and St. Petersburg. So, In-Motion charge trolleybuses is a preferable option when you already have some infrastructure, because they are most cost-effective: you don't need to bring on board heavy battteries, you don't need to spend time for charging after every ~100 km, hence you need less drivers and less buses, because when battery bus is staying and spending time for charging, IMC trolleybus carries passengers.
In Zürich, Switzerland, there are three Trolleybus-Lines, that operate a part with no wire and use the in-motion-chargeing. (33&72 Hardplatz-Albisriederplatz, 83Hardplatz-Bahnhof Altstetten). When the trolleys rewire automaticly at a normal station, the stop only takes like 10 seconds more than a normal stop. I used the route very often during a practica in 2019
I am honestly indifferent to the idea of trolley buses, since it doesn't make sense to me that there's these wires up along the streets but the vehicles that use them don't run on rails. In other words, I think trams should be put in instead of a lowly bus. However, I do like the idea of electric buses running on battery power. Here in New Zealand, we used to have trams in quite a few big cities and regional centres, though I only saw trolley buses in the capital city; Wellington. As it stands now, the cities of Auckland and Tauranga do have battery-electric buses in small quantities.
China has been experimenting with supercapacitor-powered trolleybuses for a few years now. Basically, a bus stops at a stop, recharges its supercapacitor very quickly, and rides on until the next stop, where the same thing happens. Capacitors are cheaper than Li-ion batteries, and have much more charge-discharge cycles. Similar concept to the Belgian gyro-bus from 1950s.
I like trolleys, though I don't see enough on them and has had the fortune to only go on them on one occasion, when they still had them in Wellington, New Zealand. I think they're more suitable when they get more extensive right of way running, such as implementing them on Adelaide's O-Bahn and Brisbane's Busways. Those buses already run on dedicated infrastructure, so the trolley wires are just an additional bit and the buses rarely have to stray from a fixed path and aren't blocking other traffic.
Indeed, if U have a dedicated guideway Bus rapid transit system, then dual pentogrsph operation while charging battery for off wire use, makes perfect sense. (If there were free standing trolly segments, they could also carry poles for operation there.) While not relevant to current on and off wire busses, in New Jersey state of USA there were in 1930s a large fleet of DUSL MODE buses. These resrmplrd US school buses with a front gasoline engine for off wire use, and an electric motor for uses as trolly coach under wire. The gear box could allow switching between them. Clever system would allow generated to be disconnected from gas engine & clutched to 600v mother to charge battery. Heating was by engine coolent on gas motor, but under wire aheating could in engine block provided heat. These buses were most of the fleet. Some spent months as electrics, but often spent months in rural garages miles from overhead, apart from that in a garage. Connection to that allowed the motor to be kept warm, and battery topped up, for what was oft weeks and months away from wired routes. Little generally for concept today, except for Boston USA "Silver Line" that operated in tunnel under trolly poles, but as Diesel bus for most of route outside it.
Can Trollybusses be fitted with regenerative braking (charging battery whilst braking/going downhill) or even driving a flywheel under those circumstances which could recharge the batteries or be used to boost after a stop? (Question comes from me as a complete novice in the circumstances)
All trolleybusses have regenerative braking. They give energy to the wires. The energy of one bus that brakes is used for another bus that accelerates at the same time at the other end of the city.
Trolleybuses (with smaller batteries to allow easy route extension/add flexibility) for "express" routes that are to get between parts of the city fast, battery/natural gas buses for inner-district routes, that's my solution. Also, "fast" switches have to be installed so the trolleybuses don't have to slow down on switches.
One thing about battery packs that is often left out is refurbishing. It's done today, local company here does it on 1st Nissan Leaf battery packs. One replaces the degraded cells, wraps the pack up and... well not new. But not far off as well. At FRACTION of the cost of a new pack. Imagine that on bus packs. I guess bigger transit systems could even do that inhouse.
Trolleys are excellent for hilly places with steep acents. Back in the days, when diesel engines were not powerful enough, there were places in my country, where trolleys were the only public transport solution in cities, where slopes were too steep and curves were too tight. De-wiring does happen, but I myself witness it about once every two months in my city of Pilsen, which has a very heavy trolley operation.
Trolleybus technology is improving as seen in the latest generation of electric battery trolleybuses that allows up to 12-15kms of battery only operation, with batteries being recharged from existing overhead systems and regenerative braking, better onboard power management systems and can have better operating times if the overhead is a flexi high speed system. I noticed that Vancouver is still using the old OB (Ohio Brass) rigid overhead system, that slow down trolley bus operating speeds. Trolleybuses are also excellent for cities that hilly routes and rapid bus networks. Battery buses need to have high speed battery recharging networks which can be expensive to install. Also battery only buses are useless of cities that have hilly routes.
@@RMTransit - I seems that you some what 'anti trolleybus'. Trolleybuses are currently better technology than battery buses. That said, I am interested in how hydrogen buses will perform carrying a full of passengers up a hilly street like in Vancouver, San Fran, Seattle, Wellington, Dunedin, etc
Exactly! I can confirm that modern switches and crossings allow trolleybuses to pass at speeds identical to other vehicles. In dense urban areas, often with speed limited zones of 30 km/h, the trolleybus is not slower by any measurable amount, even with lots of switches and crossings. And there are switches for 50 km/h, which is the speed limit in urban areas in most of Europe. The biggest problem is that drivers were used to the old "slow" technology and keep teaching this to the younger generation and they pass it on on the next and so on. I have noticed this all too often. But things are improving. There might be remarkable noticeable differences between some cities, but they come down to the "mentality", not technology, as the technology is modern and near identical today. But in one city they keep driving slow, while in the other, they learned to move like a bus. It is very often just in the mind. I see big future for hybrid trolleybuses that can operate about 15 km off the grid and charge while driving. I read that it is enough if 60% of the route is electrified, the 60% being the lower limit. If you manage to get 75% or more, the battery can last a lot longer than on an electric bus.
@@erikziak1249 - I agree with you. Once a driver gains confidence and experience, then that get the feel of the bus, they know when to slow down around corners, etc, especially with Kummler and Matter flexi overhead compared to the older OB ridged overhead where a drivers to reduce speed to prevent dewirement on corners and through switches and crossovers.
In my area they recently trialled EVs with pantographs for overhead charging at termini. The bus can go out on a full charge, and on each turnaround it can go pan up for a couple of minutes against an overhead panel to recover a bit of charge. No need for wires everywhere.
I will say. The trolley buses in my area were built on former streetcar lines and the buses being the non bendy kind plus getting a wider range from the prior trolley clearances made it operate more efficient and easier (even swerve more) than the modern buses. The system ended in 1959 only due to electricity price skyrocketing and the buses being from 1938
Imao a trolley bus makes sense where the required capacity exides that of a regular bus, but is not enough to justify a streetcar or lightrail, but you want to keep the option open, when demand increases to upgrade it to a streetcar. With a trolley bus you already have done about 15% of the initial investment, installing catenary poles and such. I think I commented on this once before. Look into the Gyrobus, super interesting concept which sadly never took of. It has the advantages of a Trolley bus, without the trolley wires and not the disadvantage of the battery bus, that it has to carry the heavy lithium ion battery around. Also well, lithium mining not so great.
We can’t move to massive amounts of battery busses. We just don’t have the resources for everything to be battery powered. Really the thing I see most useful here is a hybrid system. You’ve got major roads with electric power above but busses with batteries for when they need to stop or go of main streets for a short time. This means you need a lot less battery capacity for most busses, you don’t have to set up a massive charging system at the depo And this doesn’t only apply to local routes but freeways can be equipped with overhead lines. Testing is happening right now
Hi Reece. They just spent I don't know how much to build trolley lines to bypass brosdway for quite a distance so they can build the broadway skytrain here in Vancouver. I'm wondering if buying some buses...diesel, battery...might not have been the better choice?
@@RMTransit Trolleybuses are pretty common in Switzerland, not just in Eastern Europe. In fact more Central European countries have many as well as quite large trolleybus systems, even interurban. Switzerland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary.... All Central Europe. It is rather Germany, Austria and Poland who are the exceptions here. They do have some networks, but compared the size of the countries, it is not that wide spread at all.
This is a big shock for me. So. - Battery is heavy, therefore bus will be too. Road cost are a bad thing. - Small battery for let's say 1 mile would solve most of the issues mentioned. (Yes battery buses with supercharge too) - Troley buses are better for property denvelopment, as they re fixed to route. City planning must go together with public transport. Just to mention a few.
I like trolleys! But, they are far from perfect - figuring out the flaws in various transit technologies is critical to figuring out what to use where. Snowy mountain towns should clearly go with trolleys if starting a system today, but if you are a warm and flat location I think battery buses have a lot of advantages! Thanks for all the insightful comments!
Has anybody yet mentioned the increased weight of battery buses compared to trolleys?
I'll just link this comment I saw on reddit: old.reddit.com/r/urbanplanning/comments/m6zujm/why_trolleybuses_may_not_be_the_right_solution/grbu2b2/
@@kalle911 Increased weight is an issue, but it's less of an issue than you might think!
Both systems are similar on flat ground.
@@chrismckellar9350 not in terms of infrastructure required!
@@RMTransit According to German Wikipedia, overhead wire costs about
1 Mio € per Kilometer (which is 1.9 Mio USD per mile.
I live in Kyiv and the trolleybuses, which are definitely not modern, work really well.
Eastern Europe loves it's trolleys!
Here in Bucharest too. I'm 24 and some of them are older than me, lamo
@@carkawalakhatulistiwa yes, trolley busses are cheaper than trams, but trams are much more cost effective because they can hold more people and they travel on rails.
@@RMTransit north america hate public transport
I hope you’re doing alright. Stay safe!
I think there is a real benefit in lifetime carbon emissions when we minimize the quantity of batteries in any vehicle. I still think we should expand trolleybus networks even if it would reduce the required battery capacity on each bus by just half.
I've also been worried lately about how big EV batteries are getting. Some brands are even talking about 200KwH in sports cars and SUV's. People assume that the longest range option is the best, but the bigger the battery, the higher the lifetime emissions.
Yup this is a real issue and stop-gap solutions aren't the best solution
Where does the electricity in the wires come from?
also, busses do not need a huge range. They usually go around in a loop and could quickcharge at the end of every stop or even at every major stop, many inner city bus lines maybe need to go like 10km on a single charge
Yeah. Battery busses have just so many more issues than trolley busses. There’s a reason overhead wires have existed for so long, and will continue to exist. Battery busses have their niche uses, but overall trolley busses are far superior
@@gctechs The same place as the electricity in the batteries.
Seems exaggerated to me.
I live in Salzburg where we have a trolleybus system since 1940. In the last 20 years they really expanded the network and even changed a few bus lines into trolleybus lines. Since a trolleybus can last up to 30 years if well maintained, and the overheads up to 50 years it is of course something for long term use. The efficiency is so much better, and with IMC-Technology it is also no problem anymore to drive with out overhead lines. Of course dewiring can happen, but it's not very often nor drastic.
de-wiring with old Škoda trolleys (built in the 80s) was drastic. Because unlike newer ones, these came to a sudden stop. One had to hold on at all times. :P
I still thinking what's the advantage of trolleybus than tram and ordinary buses (beside the fleets r more longlasting than electric bus coz the battery for bus isn't pretty good)? r they more fast/reliable/able to carry more passengers?
Also, is the trolleybus can share the same overhead wires with tram system?
@@kalle911 At least they always had trolley retriever for the worst case. Salzburg never had those
@Muhammad Fariz I would say for most busy lines use a tram, afterwards a double articulated trolleybus which is unbeatable on steep hilly roads and have the huge benefit that it doesn't need any expensive charging points, or ran out of its battery. As well you never have to change batteries every few years which is quite expensive and not good for the environment compared to a catenary which lasts at least half a century.
So that makes it reliable, faster (without charging), you don't need more drivers/busses as with battery powered ones, and you could use a double articulated trolleybus (200 passengers) for maximum capacity.
I would say it is the best system after the tram.
Reliability of the Trolleys: I haven't experienced a single problem in years here in Zurich. Maybe a lack of maintenance in Vancouver?
Also, the switches can be automated to prevent wrong switching.
And lastly, modern trolley buses have large batteries to drive multiple stations without overhead wires. This allows complicated junctions to be passed with the trolleys lowered, so no speed reduction necessary. This also greatly improves efficiency of the infrastructure, because you build the overhead wires only where they are easy to install and are used by multiple lines.
The maintenance is there in Vancouver, perhaps Zurich has better gear.
A lot of the other points you bring up still don’t exist on legacy systems unfortunately but I’d love to see it.
@@RMTransit Trolleybuses in Seattle are the best buses for the steep hills. Unfortunately, their batteries are weak so they must pull over to recover from bounced poles. Bellevue nearby has one route run by battery Proterra buses, but Idk about the whole system's progress with those. Vancouver has steep terrain where ridership is too low to have warranted trolleybuses when they were popular?
@@RMTransit It probably is to the more modern equipment on Zurüchs, or really any swiss trolley networks, those aren't some newly built systems btw (all dating back to the 30s and 40s) but they probably did see more investment than comparative north american systems.
Most European cities that have trolleybus systems use Kummler and Matter high speed flexi overhead. I see the San Francisco is slowly upgrade their trolleybus overhead with Kummler and Matter equipment.
@@RMTransit - Vancouver stills use the old OB (Ohio Brass) rigged overhead. I see San Fransisco is slowly replacing their old OB overhead with Kummler and Matter flexi high speed overhead.
I feel like this video should be titled “the trouble with North American trolley buses”
More like “the trouble with badly maintained, old, niche, North American trolley buses”
US and Canada*. In Mexico City they renewed their Trolley buses that include batteries and can automatically disconnect from the wires
@@TheEricksu most older soviet designs from like the 1960s have diesel engines to disconnect from wires for like 3 minutes before reconnecting back if the road is in meintance or stuff that will block the way of the trolleybus so they have to change path..... Isn't it weird that the CO2 emissions per capita of the US is 15 while mexico is only 3 ?????
Also good job to Mexico
here in san francisco out trolleybuses are great!! Ever since they got the new buses, they operate faster and they can climb hills better than any bus. I do agree it doesn't work for every route, but when it works it works. Also if the builders of the trolleybuses can have shoes that don't pop off the wire if you go over a junction to fast that will improve the reliability so much.
San Francisco is up grading their trolleybus overhead with Kummler and Matter flexi high speed overhead resulting in more efficiency.
Think trolleybuses are also more feasible as internal shuttle buses for the National University of Singapore, whose main campus is built on Kent Ridge (& thus the roads are pretty steep (up to ~6% gradient)). We previously used coaches for such services but their acceleration is pretty sluggish; they've since been replaced by Volvo B9L commuter buses that accelerate faster but can be a bit noisy (I've heard of hostel residents being woken up by it). Only possible issues I see are justifying it's economic viability (as shuttle bus demand is significantly less during weekends & university holidays, since the campus' location is quite isolated), and wanting to maintain service to the satellite (& actually original) Bt Timah Campus ~6km away might be cost-ineffective (due to the need to stretch overhead wires all the way there. Maybe that service could be replaced by allowing free travel by students on our MRT (subway/metro) to the station nearest to that satellite campus, funded by students' miscellaneous fees). Currently the buses also have to travel ~10km off-site to the operator's (ComfortDelgro) HQ for servicing & refueling I think, which wouldn't be cost-effectively possible with trolleybuses, but since trolleybuses have simpler drivetrains I'm thinking it might then become more economically viable to do the servicing on-site instead (the fleet size of ~32x buses might be big enough to justify that I guess, & you also get to save on the dead mileage that's currently required to travel off-site for servicing)
@@chrismckellar9350 No all city. In SF it will be long way for reconstruction on high speed trolleybus overhead.
@@kluculda - They have already started in trolleybus overhead renewal.
@@chrismckellar9350 exist some link with photo from renewal, please?
Hybrid trolleybuses already work in Poland. These trolleybuses do not require any special quirks as they can switch on route directly on a bus stop. So the future is now :)
Hybrid?
@@ggrrffasmr3018 they are a battery bus with trolleys. Just like explained in the video, it charges on the main route and then goes on to serve parts of town that are not electrified.
Great audio!
But now you have awakened the Trolley Bus cabal.
I seem to have indeed, Trolleybuses have some advantages for sure. But I think the fans out there look past the drawbacks a bit too quickly
I just watched your video Alan after seeing this one. I would tend to agree with the points you brought up in yours about why trolley buses are better then battery electric buses especially for cities that already have a trolley system. Vancouver is one such place where they are starting to bring in battery electric buses but hopefully they do not intend to eliminate their trolley system as I think that would be a mistake. Translink should instead look at where they could expand the trolley network as there are a few corridors where it could be beneficial.
We’re coming, but we just need to lay down the trolley lines
@@kahluacoke my hometown in Western Europe is currently integrating battery trolleys into their existing fleet of trolleys (replaced trams in the 50s) and diesels and are using them on all sorts of cool routes for example on a regional service to the next town and back or up and down hill routes as diesel replacement and on trolley lines with construction going on as battery and back switches better than the old generator startup and needing a guy to rewire the bus at the back. All trolleys here are at least articulated, many doubly so, and thus they’re reasonably limited to 8+1 lines, 3 of which are fully wired with 2 further having inherited partial wiring when they redrew the lines a couple of years back but all bendy lines have significant parts of shared lines with wiring and thus I‘ve personally seen battery trolleys on all but two of them, though compared to before the line redraw they actually removed some wires. And the 2ish miles of expected wiring aren’t on the lines where I haven’t seen battery trolleys operating in revenue service…
If Vancouver could take similar advantage of their existing infrastructure, I‘m sure they could electrify a significant part of their local services without having to worry about running out of juice
Noooo-
*big cube*
Interesting take on trolleybuses. I'm not convinced battery buses are the answer. The Vancouver trolley buses, for example, between them carry about 1/3 of all the bus traffic in british columbia. They are heavily used. I don't believe battery buses are able to carry that volume with current technology. Battery buses also use rare earth metals for the batteries, so they're really not that sustainable. Also charging batteries is still not efficient and can end up using more power than a trolley bus.
BC has to go all electric. So it will be either battery or trolley. I believe that trolley buses on heavy used local routes, or even hybrid trolley battery that can run on and off wire are the future. Vancouver has committed to replacing the trolleybus fleet at least one more time when the current fleet is up for replacement as the infrastructure is in good shape and extensive.
Dewiring isn't a big issues as turnouts have been improved. Vancouver uses 15 degree turnouts instead of the older 30 degree. New sensor technology helps keep the shoes on the wire. If there is threat of ice some buses are fitted with ice cutter shoes to cut the ice off the lines, and are run overnight so the lines are clear for the morning rush (most trolleybus routes have 24 hr bus service so there is little downtime). And all Vancouver trolley buses are fitted with batteries and can run a short distance off wire. This is used when maintenance is being done on the wires and the bus pulls down the trolleys, goes around on battery, then reconnects after.
Battery buses used in Toronto have been used very intensively (no different from Vancouver) without any issues. Yes they use rare earth metals, but they also have a LOT of benefits over trolleys - lack of infrastructure being the biggest.
We would need to know the financial cost of maintaining trolley infrastructure vs cost of replacing batteries. I bet the trolley is cheaper and using trolleys means more lithium for cars.
Neither Vancouver, Seattle, or San Francisco have winter. Winters of Toronto and Edmonton may have contributed to the demise of their trolley systems.
@@leoncchow I’m sure you have also seen the phenomenon that in winter your phone battery dies more quickly than in summer. So winter is actually an advantage of trolleybuses compared to battery buses.
Bergen (Norway), Landskrona (Sweden), Tallinn (Estonia), Saint Petersburg and many other Russian towns, Zurich and many other Swiss towns, etc. all have proper winters, with tons of snow and below freezing degrees and have functional trolleybus networks.
@@sxflyer5410 Maybe it does in Europe, but would the benefits really be worth considering outside Europe, where the supply of trolleybuses and trolleybus parts is more limited?
In Mexico City we have trolley buses that also have batteries, they are hybrids and are great, they can deviate, and reconnect to the line automatically when they are near them, and it has proven to be useful when there’s manifestations in the city center
From Seattle, which has one of the other two major trolleybus systems on the West Coast. Dewiring is not a significant problem with modern trolleybuses, unlike older trolleybuses. The problem with non-trolley electric buses is that their batteries have to carry their own weight, which can be substantial, increasing the power required to drive the bus, need a recharging network, and are not good on hills or on busy quick-turnaround routes. Modern trolleys also have batteries, to allow short off-wire runs, but which are nowhere near as heavy as for electric buses, due to having to store less energy. Electric buses will also add to street repaving costs due to their additional weight. "Operational efficiency" is a shibboleth often used by managers to justify getting rid of trolleybuses because they complicate their job, not because they aren't cost-effective or don't serve the public. They've tried to get rid of trolleybuses three times in Seattle and each time public outcry stopped it.
Its not about operational efficiency, it's about efficiency broadly, and the comments re. dewiring are accurate. Seattle uses the same trolleybuses as Vancouver.
In my region we’ve almost completely switched to battery buses and i just wish we’d instead opted to invest more into a trolley system…. Buses breaking down due to drivers forgetting to charge, batteries running out much quicker than normal without reason, having to switch to a different bus in the middle of the line in winter because of battery capacity issues (it wasn’t even that cold, it didnt even freeze). This doesn’t even take into account the massive amount or rare earth metals that have to be used and my main concern, the batteries degrading over time. If the buses already struggle to operate at peak capacity when they’re new, it’s gonna be hell in 5 years time…. And to the people saying « well at least it’s clean electric », most countries still rely on fossil fuels for a major part of their electricity network. And lastly, the fast charging points for the buses use more power than complete neighbourhoods…. to have this system work, fast charging is required but this is also wildly inefficient. No transit system is perfect, but battery buses are especially flawed in their current form.
Which city?
@@CharlsonS I live in the north of the netherlands, and almost all buses here switched to electric
How does battery recycling factor into the cost? Obviously heavy use of lithium ion cells is going to require a steady supply of them and a clear way to renew them into new batteries. This is going to be an issue anyway because of electric cars, but I do think transit agencies have the opportunity to set an example
yeahhhh, one overlooked benefit of wires is they don't entail overthrowing democratically elected governments in lithium-exporting countries
@@mw114 Lithium is not really the problem element
I totally agree with you, I think we just need to "rethink" the trolley systems in cities
Reece: Old fashion looking trains aren’t fine
R32: And I took that personally
cries in JR West 103/201 series
Its fine for trains to look old when they ARE old
Budd has entered the chat.
Taiwan's/ROC local (commuter rail) trains look quite old-ish for their age too IMO
Love your content. I live in Bucharest where we got an extensive system of over 60 normal bus lines and 15 trolleybus lines. And the troleybuses run pretty well even though they’re 30 years old
The oldest one are from 1997.
Iubesc troleibuzele.
@@Telecolor-in3cl which makes them around 30 :))
I lived in cities with trolleybuses before when I was little. They are great! Silent, powerful acceleration, excellent hill climbing abilities... A joy to ride and look at their twin poles negotiating curves and crossings & switches! Way more fun than buses 😂
I live in lovely city of Bratislava, Slovakia with population of 500 000 people. We use 3 modes of transport (buses, trolleybuses, trams).
Trams are generally used for highest capacity (where there is sufficiently flat terrain).
There are basically 2 usecases for TB:
1. High frequency lines: less than 10 minutes frequency (often times more than one line on the most of the system).
2. Steep terrains where regular buses transition systems will get worn down in few short years.
It is definitely not a big deal to have dedicated depot and maintenance facility for TB.
Few facts:
# Trams: 200
# Trolley buses: 150
# Diesel Buses: 600
There are 5 depots some of them combined, 2 of them that serves trolley buses.
There are even cities such small as 100 000 people that still uses TBs. Almost half of their fleet is actually TBs.
On the other hand, only very niche applications are used by battery electric buses such as line going trough forest/park.
Please take into consideration other parts of the world than North America, worst public transit region of the world. Sometimes, your first principle reasoning, which you most of the time use, does not reflect in the real world.
Overall i think the video is well done and provides a lot of useful information! However, one small thing that could be improved is that by the end, the viewer is left with the impression that we have a definitive conclusion: that trolley buses have been rendered irrelevant. This is achieved using the familiar format of, "Well there may be advantages X, but there's also disadvantages Y" which gives the impression of symmetry, aka the disadvantages cancel out the advantages. This may well be true, but we need further information to establish that. For instance, the video mentions that trolley buses can save money by using electricity instead of fossil fuels, by increasing vehicle lifespans, and by reducing maintenance costs, but doesn't say how big these savings potentially are. It then mentions the costs from infrastructure, logistical issues and operational inflexibility, but doesn't mention the magnitude of these costs. Without specifics to compare, the viewer is left to assume that they balance one another when in reality one (either advantages or disadvantages) could fully outweigh the other. Rather than having the viewer assume, I'd prefer to see actual numbers compared, perhaps using a specific city as a case study. If this is considered beyond the video scope, then simply taking a neutral tone rather than arguing a position would also work.
Also, the video does't mention that many of the additional logistical challenges with trolley buses such as training staff for their unique maintenance applies to battery buses too. And battery buses have other issues such as challenges in extreme cold. Some have separate fossil fuel heaters for passenger comfort to avoid draining the batteries for instance. But overall, cool and information video! Keep up the great work :D
I mean I don't think I said that Trolleybuses were irrelevant. I just said "don't expect one on every street"
@@RMTransit Oh I didn't mean to suggest that you said that explicitly, I just mean that as a viewer, I got the impression that you meant for us to form that conclusion. Often times the information a person chooses to present or omit and the order, tone, and emphasis by which it's presented speak as loudly as overt statements. For instance, if someone said to you, "Well sure, technology X may have advantage A, but sadly what you often don't hear is that it also has disadvantages B, C, D & E." Many people would hear this as a rebuke or debunk of technology X even if this wasn't explicitly stated. But if advantage A saves $1 million while and disadvantages B, C, D & E each cost $10k, that context would be useful. But as I said, this was just a small note in an overall great video! I'm a long time viewer who has mainly enjoyed the content and any criticism is intended solely to be constructive. 💕
The video also does not explain about the [mining] pollution caused to produce batteries, and to finally dispose of them. Battery vehicles waste a percentage of their energy from the weight they carry around with themselves. Overall, environmentally, trolleybuses are the most friendly. The argument about multiple routes is very weak, the world's largest network (albeit long shut down), comprised of some 68 routes, and a fleet of over 1,800 double decked vehicles. Good maintenance of the wiring on the trolleybus trunk routes was key, high standards to allow high-speed passage of the collector wheels through the overhead frogs and crossings, thus mitigating against the risk of dewirements.
@@RMTransit The entire premise is that trolley buses aren't as good as battery buses. You made it pretty clear, usually by anecdotal stories, what your point was.
@@robd8577 Could it they they aren't outside Europe where the supply of trolleybuses and trolleybus parts is very limited?
When I studied in a city with trolleybuses and regular buses, the trolley was always the preferred mode of transportation. When I moved to a city with trams, trolleys and busses, the preferred transport option became trams. Now, while living in a city that also has a metro, trams are still my most preferred option, mostly because Prague is really beautiful and you cant enjoy that fifty feet under and also because the tram network here is so wast, that you can go almost anywhere interesting in the city with it.
But I believe that the major reason for the relative failure of trolleys in North America is due to the lack of housing dense enough to make suburban lines (economically) sustainable. With that, at least for a part of most journeys has to be taken by car (poor walkability doesn't help) and once you are in a car... well you stay there. So in the end the ridership depends on low-income people. Whereas in Eastern Europe, we didn't have that for a long time (or, to be more specific, we only had low-income people, living in mass housing). In the last twenty years, the situation changed drastically with the introduction of the sprawl and as a result sub urbanisation poses all the same problems as in America, but so far they are mitigated by the existence of a relatively working city fabric that can still support a strong network. Also, the trolleys and equipment for them are still being manufactured and developed here.
As for their future, I wouldn't be anywhere near as sceptic as you are: They are way lighter than electric busses, have a very long service life and since electric cars will be mandated in Europe over the next few years, we can expect skyrocketing costs of rare earth materials batteries are made off. For this cost reason alone I believe that independent electric traction will stay a niche, only used where it will make the most sense, while the trolley will soldier on.
Also, if you have a dedicated BRT, it is very easy and relatively cheap to upgrade it to a trolleybus service, once the demand is established, especially in comparison to upgrading it to light rail or even metro.
I hope in Vancouver our trolley buses stick around for a long time!!
I believe trolley buses make sense in certain more localized situations. Cities such as San Francisco with very steep hills, trolley buses have better traction than diesel or hybrid buses. Also, for densely populated urban cores located in older cities, such as the US Northeast, trolley buses make sense as many streets are not wide enough for buses to pass (I also think street running streetcars are also good in some of those circumstances). But if you look at newer cities, such as those in the US Sunbelt, which have lots of motorways and wide, multi-lane trunk boulevards, they don't make sense.
Yes for sure, as with any tech there are certain cases where it's a no-brainer!
Or perhaps the sunbelt cities were built stupidly due to the required cost of maintaining the highways and stoads instead of having denser cities better for foot traffic.
@@paulbukowiecki1213 The Achilles's Heel of many of the Sunbelt cities will be the cost of maintaining aging infrastructure. The population density compared to many of the highways and stroads is too low, and with increases in fuel efficiency and e-vehicles, many will have to take a serious look at tolling. Then of course there is the issue of electrical and water/sewerage systems which are typically less efficient due to lack of street grids, and finally the over reliance on subdivisions which will age less than gracefully and when they do so will not be able to accommodate higher density construction.
Great advantages of trolleybuses is that they do not use batteries. Batteries are the main problem with EVs (and of course electric busus). They are heavy, making the vehicle heavy and needing more power, and they need time to recharge. A trolleybus does not have these issues. It is lighter, and thus also needs less power. Maybe a good solution could be something between both ? Geneva's TOSA system, for example ?
I think trolleys have some trouble but they are still way better than battery buses
Maybe they are in Europe where there is still a market for standarized trolleybuses and still a good supply of trolleybuses, but what about elsewhere, where a market for trolleybuses no longer exists?
In Kaunas/Lithuania, we used to have a party trolleybus that would circle around downtown. Party music inside and it gets you to the next bar. It was very easy to setup DJ equipment inside and to have cold drinks! I wonder if they still do that!
I saw a video titled along the lines of "trolleybuses don't need to be slow", and the buses had the wire junctions and the corners smoother. The buses took the corners at a speed diesel buses would. It might cost more, but it looks possible to eliminate the issues with cornering. Trolley-poles at high speeds aren't that much of an issue on good wires, look at the Electroliner- it did 180km/h without de-wiring in trials but they stopped it because the level crossing gates wouldn't shut in time.
So, I think de-wiring isn't an issue if designed right. Are they going to design it right? (probably a hard no...)
In Shanghai and Beijing, they have battery-powered trolleybuses - the best of both!
And in St. Petersburg
@@warmike всмысле? Что за троллейбусы на аккумуляторах?
@@LuchokPlay trolley busses with batteries so they can operate off wires for a period
The city I grew up in, a small one, roughly 100,000 people now, called Pleven, had its trolleys since 1985 and network is only growing and upgrading. Now there are 18 routes, 4 of them recently opened, 60 new hybrid and small-battery trolleys (allowing them to run several kms on battery), a few old Russian one, one to be restored as a historical vehicle, 15 all-battery buses to serve in industrial areas. The last ones were just bought and will replace previous diesel bus routes. If well planned, this might be the one of few or may be the only all-electric bus fleet in Europe. Also happy that every time I visit the city, all buses seems to be pretty busy, full with people even outside rush hours.
trolleybus can be a good solution to expand zero emission fleet for cities already have some network. Beijing rapidly adopted battery-electric buses that have a trolley on it. If a third of the route is covered by trolley wire, then the bus can recharge for the rest of the trip. A large reason why trolley bus is considered infeasible is that North American manufacturers are too small to advance the technology, while the market is sealed-off from overseas solutions. Many trolley buses in China is developed by CRRC zhuzhou, who also manufactures rail equipments.
Just the fact that trolleybuses do not need batteries to operate makes them vastly superior to battery electric buses in terms of ecology, safety and the ,,human cost"
SEPTA in Philadelphia and MUNI in San Francisco have these on specific routes. There's a level of flexibility for route extensions, however the cable must be available along a certain segment.
RTA in Dayton, Ohio and King County Metro in Seattle, Washington have trolley buses too.
Both of those systems use coaches with off wire capability via a small generator onboard.
@@dangelohartley5977 Plus MBTA in Boston. That makes only 5 trolleybus systems out of what were once about 50 across the U.S. In Canada, of 15 systems, only Vancouver remains. Plus 2 in Mexico: Mexico City and Guadalajara.
@@smwca123 I almost forgot about Boston
I mean I would use them instead of a 100% mixed traffic streetcar. Since they have the advantages of not being stopped by a parked car and the rails aren't there to cause a problem for bicyclists.
You throw the cars out, and cyclists can exist fine together with trams, since trams don’t "weave" as buses do. Manhole covers & road markings are just as bad as trams tracks, plus, you have to learn to cross the tracks at a large angle. I would prefer having a cyclist in the middle of my track, having about 1,4 meters to wiggle about in, than having them on the side, having only 30 centimetres to wiggle. That said, if there’s room to park cars next to a tram line, throw the cars out and build a bike track.
I remember riding Brillo trolleys to get to High school on Oak St in the 1960s. Also downtown on Hamilton St. a lady bus driver went straight instead of turning onto Robson. She had to back the trolley thru the switch. I still remember her saying 'Oh, I wish I was on Cambie' Back then the Oak & Cambie routes were combined. Great channel. Cheers.
*Brill
About 5 years ago in Seattle a crazed junkie climbed a big tree downtown by Macys and lived in it for over a day, they had to push the trolley buses through with trucks since the wires were deenergized.
@@Ponchoed that's a good one
0:22 Railfans who enjoy watching steam trains in action: *Are you sure about that?*
I hate steam trains. Never interested me for some reason
Agree, Trolley buses make most sense in dense urban areas with a combination of trams and trolleys using the same infrastructure
Trolleybuses are quite popular in post-USSR countries and in Eastern Europe. However, Russia also decided to reduce trolleybus systems. For example, trolleys were disappeared in Moscow and Perm. Perm is resonancing millioner city in recent years with reducing of trams and trolleybuses system. Hello, degradation! Russia and Kazakhstan also, are currently experiencing the situation which was in US and Western Europe in 60's and 70's with reducing of public transport and building more highways. It is good to mention that each year hundreds of km new roads are constructing in Moscow triggering more and more traffic jams. Some wide streets with pedestrian crossings and boulevards became urban highways with 6-8 lanes for each way! That's awful! I mentioned also capital of Kazakhstan-Astana with 1 million people, where no any rail transport(trams, commuter rail, subway, LRT) and complicated bus systems(BRT, trolleybuses), only conventional buses with fortunately good frequency 10-15 mins))
Well, Russia is a specific case due to overcentralization - Kremlin controls all the cash flows, so we have rich Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan, and poor other cities. Typical Russian city just don't have enough money to maintain trolleybus and tram systems. And usually they don't have municipal buses, because they are gone in early 00s and was replaced by "marshrutkas". In Moscow idiotic major Sergey Sobyanin demolished the largest trolleybus network in the world due to a very simple reason - HE DON'T LIKE TROLLEYBUSES. Moscow authorities doesn't care about citizens opinion, they do whatever they want and nobody can stop it. Can you imagine things like this somewhere in EU or North America?
@@SnarkOrel Are you from Russia? Yeah, sad.
I like the video (as good as all your videos), but I think you should at least mention some flaws of battery buses (like range).
Here in Salzburg there are 12 trolleybus lines (though 2 of them don't operate on the weekend) and the latest line extension brought battery trolleybuses so they can drive a part of the line without wires - I think it's a good solution.
An old man once told me how in his youth, kids would throw rocks at the trolley poles, good times had by all.
Such rebellious rapscalions.
Or pull the poles off the wires.
It's a problem with all infrastructure
I think there are ways to rewire without the driver having to get out of the bus now. We have them in Seattle, although the bus has to be aligned well.
Yeah, they exist but they aren’t super refined!
I got stuck behind a bus that had its wires pop off in UDistrict and the bus reconnected itself in like 2 minutes. It was pretty quick.
Battery is extremely antiecofriendly. Lithium mining drains and pollutes massive areas. And we still don't have efficient and ecofiendly technology of battery recycling. Each battery must be disassembled by hands which is unbelievably expensive and dangerous process so noone does it. Instead it can be burned or left to pollute our soil. I prefer all troubles with trolleybus instead.
Awesome video. You mentioned the advantage of using dual pantographs instead of trolley poles in wiring and de-wiring operations which is obvious, but the dual pantograph requires a wider ROW compared to single pantographs on trams and trolley poles due to increased lateral clearance requirements. This will limit the ability to install them on tight city streets especially going around turns. Along wide arterials though, I do see an overall advantage with dual pantographs when used in conjunction with Charge-in-motion buses using batteries outside junctions and away from the busy corridors.
Hey great video! I'm a trolly operator from said Canadian city. Essentially a trolly bus system only really makes sense like you said if you have the overhead network and associated systems/personnel in place (or if you plan to convert a tram network to bus). The main selling point for trolleys in a modern system for me would have to boil down to the environmental impact. Our busses don't have a battery (other than a very small emergency one) meaning you get all the benifits of zero emissions without the negative impact of battery disposal/production. We've got a number of battery busses in the fleet, they are decent but the technology isn't quite there yet for a system to effectively operate. Hahaha you don't even know the half of it when it comes to the quirks (limitations) when it comes to a trolley network. That said I love the trolleys and would have to say most of the operators that stay in the city proper do as well.
With the current models due for replacement around the mid 2020's the current plan is to procure more. They may be the final generation with battery technology progressing very quickly though.
Love your channels content. Let me know if you want any info about the network here in van from behind the barrier lol.
Great comment! Always love when ops comment on my videos - thanks for your essential service and your valuable insights!
With improvements in battery technology especially when the solid state battery becomes commercially available in the next 2 years, will see trolleybus comeback due to increase operation flexibility EBTB's (electric battery tolleybus).
The problem with hydrogen engine that you waste a lot of electrcity by making and making hydrogen into fuel so no, hydrogen buses won't be an alternative for electric buses in a electrcity crysis
Congrats on the fantastic audio quality. Shame you're using it to say such evil things :)
I don't really think it's evil, I am just trying to dispel some myths!
@@RMTransit - I gave me the impressions that a trolleybus system is not cool despite the improvement trolleybus technology.
Dispelling myths would come with more hard data. Simply saying "battery tech is getting better" is weasel words. A cost breakdown for both options *today*, and lifecycle analysis is needed. To say batteries are getting better: how so? What is the trend, what emerging tech will we be seeing in the immediate future? This is what separates an opinion piece to a fact based news story.
I am temporarily living in san Francisco which of course has a current trolleybus system. Now Muni, or SFMTA) their transport system, already has the infrastructure (needless to say) Trolleybus do have the advange of not eeding to be charged as the 600 or 700 VDC would always be there. There is a snall system supplimenting with limited range lithium ion batteries that get chatrged off the wires as well. Muni has just spent millions (exact figure not known) of dollars on new New Flyer single and articulated buses -- which are from a Canadian company in Winipeg Manitoba -- and to get rid of these busses which have already been running just befgore COVID, as they would normally have a 20 year lifespan, it would be self defeating to close the system for a 100% battery-electric system. I am doing my part to encourage the SFMTA to keep the current trolleybus system in addition of having all the diesel buses replaced with battery-electrics.
One disavantage of battery-electrics is in the remote event forgetting to recharge them that they would sit idle until being towed in the depot or charged supplemental from an exterior source. Remember trolleybuses do nt require charging for the main propulsion system. Wher I am from Switzerland has a large trolleybus network and I would like to see their intercity Postauto (the yellow buses with red trim) to be in part trolleybus as well as battery-electric, the best of both worlds. Geneva has trolleynuses I have ridden all their TC lines, and also developing fast charge e-buses from a small pantograph-like system that would tage only 15 seconds at limited bus stops, which together with the TC (trolley coaches) would still be extant be a great advantage for Geneva.
There sre still places which are building a trolleybus infrastructure even today alongside e-buses. (also I personally like te geometric 'artt' of the trolleybus overhead wires, I would miss that with strictly e-buses)! This is my view.
The system about recharging battery buses on the go does exist. In Vienna Austria Batterie buses are on the 1a and 2a lines and when on a major tram network they charge from the overhead wires. Its great however they are only in the inner city and Veinna has a massive tram network so it would be easy to implement on some lines.
Pantograph type solutions are definitely better. There’s a reason a lot of modern trams go for the pantograph over the pole.
Pole is difficult for junctions, pole can have issues staying on the wire and slows things down.
Pantographs can be raised and lowered at will far easier than a pole. Although would still suffer the overtaking issue unless you have different wires for the bus stops and the continuing road, which might look a bit cursed but still doable.
There must be a simple reason why buses never got pantographs
Is it possible to make two separate connections with a pantograph? I see it most often with the pantograph connecting to the single, live overhead wire, and current returning through the rails as ground. Since trolleybuses have rubber wheels, they need two separate overhead connections
@@mattwis86 the video mentions that there are buses in Europe that get around this issue by having pantographs side by side
I've seen double pantographs being used experimentally for lorries on motorways in Europe. The problem is of course that pantographs are wide, and you must have enough of a gap between the wires to prevent a short. This results in infrastructure that looks more akin to heavy rail OHL, with big chunky pylons and gantries, probably not suitable for narrow urban streets. I don't think this solution will be feasible for regular buses, perhaps long distance coaches.
@@Croz89 I mean I think its something which just needs time to develop further, but as OP mentions there are a lot of potential benefits
The thing I love best about trolley buses is how quiet they are. Regular buses, be they diesel or hybrid, are still really loud. Trolley buses are so quiet! Living on a main street myself, I would love if the bus was converted so it wouldn't be so loud. To me, that's a really good reason for their existence. Urban noise is a very under appreciated quality of life issue. As for trams... Strangely, where I live, the light rail trains are WAY quieter than the trams which are like rattle traps as they trumble over the rails. They're a smoother ride, too. Mind you, the trams and their infrastructure are newer than the light rail system, so I have no idea why this is.
But battery electric buses are even quieter!
On a note about familiarity, I used to work for a truck leasing company. We had three Compressed Natural Gas powered trucks. From a previous employer, I was the only person at the terminal familiar with them, so was called either off other work, and a few times on my day off, to come sort these matters out. Of course only having three of them, it was rare, and the company was very polite about it, but from a company standpoint, having just one guy familiar with these trucks led to delay.
You are wrong about the Cobalt. To make lithium batteries is an environmental disaster.
I heart that in Arnhem The Netherlands they try tu use a trolley with accu, ass you explaint.
To reconect with the line, the will do it ad the stop and probily ad the time it takes in the departure times
The poles are rewired automatically. Rather low tech method. There is a "stop here" mark on the street and boards just below the wires that ensure the poles are rewired. The bus just needs to control the speed of raising the poles. Quite simple actually.
The MBTA saw this video and said “Yeah.”
I live in greater LA, so every time I'd see trolleybuses (like in San Francisco, or Philadelphia) I'd think to myself "huh, interesting." But I think it should be general intuition that switching to trolleybuses from traditional fuel/battery buses just doesn't make sense.
good video!
exactly. Am from NYC the majority of our buses are hybrids. in my opinion trolley buses are a short term solution to zero emission mass transit. but once electric bus batteries improve and become greater reaching. the trolley buses will become obsolete.
Vancouver's Hastings has express lines that haven't been used in decades and are basically a hold over from when they ran an express trolley route.
There's the R5 which replaced the 95 B Line which replaced the 135 service which replaced the 120.
Anyway. They should extend the express lines to SFU where one of the primary benefits of trolleybus technology can really shine. Climbing hills. Trolley wires could even be extended to Burquitlam Station from SFU to allow the 143 to also capitalize on the hill climbing benefits the technology offers.
There are a lot of places where trolleybuses could save a lot on maintenance in greater Vancouver, but have been seemingly prevented from expanding right before those benefits could be realized.
Willingdon, South Burnaby, New Westminster, Canada Way just to name a few. Current trolleybus routes end right at places right where buses in those areas start from. Metrotown, Kootenay Loop, Boundary Loop.
What a shame. What a lost opportunity.
A plugged in electric motor is such a simple device and reliable. A fan, a blender, ect. Batteries are still very expensive, heavy, and slow to charge. The only downside I see to trolley buses is maintaining the wires. Vancouver should be slowly expanding them. Marine drive in North Vancouver would be a good line.
An electric motor is reliable no matter what, batteries are not really inherently linked to the vehicle in a BEB. Maintaining the wires is an issue yes, but building whole new wire networks is something I think we need to think hard about.
What infuriates me is that battery buses aren’t even a zero emissions method of getting around. Getting lithium is often acquired with fossil fuel emitting mines, which by itself would be a problem, but combined with the fact that there are limited
yes, why do you even need batters on a bus or a train that have a fixed route? running a wire is much easier. you can also put a small diesel generator on them to avoid batteries completely (if you need to get off the grid for a few miles)
I like the hybrid idea. First build an infrastructure of battery busses, then build wires in busy areas so they can run while charging, then if the wires eventually cover enough area build larger busses that take advantage of the extra power and don't need a battery weighing them down.
I remember when London had wires all over the place. Trolleybuses disappeared in 1962.
Closer to home here in Canada Edmonton also used to have a trolley bus system as well but they got rid of it in 2009
I guess most people get frustrated that trolleybuses get ignored when talking about electrifying the buses. They clearly have the benefit of less resource consumption. But the flexibility of a bus is clearly lost so I would definitely not just write off battery-powered buses like some people do.
I mean I am talking to the *transit* community haha, not minor enthusiasts!
@@RMTransit lol ik it seemed kinda like a direct response to what donoteat and Alan Fisher have said
@@street_ruffian I didn't actually even see Alan's video until after this one was done!
@@RMTransit Really? Though I guess a lot of people kinda just have been repeating the points made in his video and what Justin Roczniak has said on Twitter. So it's like an indirect response lol.
A trolleybus happens when a city wants a tram but worse and cheaper
Not here in Hungary. They exist because of the oil crisis and they have replaced diesel bus lines. Electric buses are expensive and either have less capacity or low range. While trolleybuses have basically infinite range.
Thank you for mentioning my city of Dayton, Ohio. We have a great Tolley bus system.
Audio is much better now!!
Thanks
Batteries are way more damaging to the environment than what he is talking about. The rare earth extraction mining involved requires massive energy expenditure and when their short life span is up (5 yrs max) their recycling is also v complex and expensive.... and if batteries EV are in a collision they can cause massive fires v hard to put out, which a trolley bus would definitely not experience since no fuel tank or battery is present. So, Com'on man, get with the trolleys! & avoid batteries until a new tech comes along. See the comments where people in E Europe have been using them for more than decades and they agree it is a v quiet and clean system that simply WORKS with minimal maintenance.... which IS therefore more sustainable.
Every since trolleys were removed from Moscow with exactly the same excuses 2 years ago, the overall quality of public transportation has dropped significantly
electric batteries require rare minerals that are costly in co2 to make
On removable batteries, why dont we just replace a battery when it runs out of charge, recharging it at a base while the bus coninues running with a new battery
probably because the batteries are extremely heavy and because this would be a massive logistical challenge
Boston just signed away the elimination of our trolleybus system. I think us, the people of Boston, had a strong holdout attempt for it to be overturned.
I've been following this channel for a few months, and was really surprised to hear a reference to my home town of Dayton, Ohio mentioned. It was actually only a few years ago that I realized how uncommon the electric trolly buses, that Dayton uses for a subset of their RTA bus routes, actually were. Only a handful of cities in the US using them. I generally agree with most of the points in the video, but we still like those trolly busses though.
First argument is that there aren't many cities using them. Flawed.
Dual mode trolley buses can work like the silver line in Buses. Where buses can use overhead and a modern ground level power supply.
I don't agree, i live in a city with a big trolley network and there are very few problems. Battery buses aren't the solution, they require huge and heavy batteries with low energy density which need rare materials to build.
Does anyone know of any study which look into the cost comparison between building and maintaining overhead wires vs. buying a lot of 200+ kwh lithium batteries and replacing them every 8 to 10 years? Common sence tells me the trolley line should be significantly cheaper in the long run as it's just a bunch of wires (and rectifiers but battery electric buses need those too). It would be interesting to know for sure though. But to be clear, I don't expect trolleys everywhere, on low demand routes, they would probably never beak even, however if a city needs a frequent service and does not quite have the money or the will to build overhead wires and rails for trams or if it has steep hills, trolleybuses seem to me as the second best solutions - you get most benefits of trams (mainly low operating cost) but you only need to build and maintain half the infrastructure.
On the topic of a trolleybus passing another trolleybus, in Brno (Czechia) at trolleybus stops on main roads the wires split into two lines. One goes into the stop and the other one continues on. At the end of the stop the split-off wires merge with the main line. This way one trolleybus can pass anotherone, though one of those trolleybuses has to be in the stop.
Thank you for mentioning battery switching tech. Fast charging a bus is such a dumb idea XD
One of the drawbacks of trolleys that *very* few people talk about is they don't mix well with bicycling infrastructure. It's easy to cross trolley tracks, but it's not easy to run parallel to them when you have to dodge, not just cars, but pedestrians and any kind of debris, ice, or potholes. If you're parallel to the tracks when you need to swerve, it's more difficult to hit them at a 90 degree angle, and if you hit them at the wrong angle your wheel can wipe out from under you. This is why I prefer trackless trolleys aka trolleybuses.
300 or so trolleybus systems were dismantled between 1965 and 1972 in: United States, England, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Holland and they did it for one reason: to convert car use in something essential to transport. 50 years doing a great business with the sale of cars and gasoline and what happens today before the imminent decline in oil ???, say the businessmen who want to continue with the business and we are going to invest in inefficient transportation that leaves a lot of money Battery cars and buses, ...... so let's discredit the trolleybus and sell from time to time spare parts for many buses, many batteries, many chargers and many charging stations.
Rewiring is not a problem at all for IMC trolleybuses - poles can be automatically lifted from driver's cab and connected to catenary using pole catchers (they are very simple, but effective) on a bus stop. Check out some videos with IMC trolleybuses on TH-cam from Budapest and St. Petersburg. So, In-Motion charge trolleybuses is a preferable option when you already have some infrastructure, because they are most cost-effective: you don't need to bring on board heavy battteries, you don't need to spend time for charging after every ~100 km, hence you need less drivers and less buses, because when battery bus is staying and spending time for charging, IMC trolleybus carries passengers.
In Zürich, Switzerland, there are three Trolleybus-Lines, that operate a part with no wire and use the in-motion-chargeing. (33&72 Hardplatz-Albisriederplatz, 83Hardplatz-Bahnhof Altstetten). When the trolleys rewire automaticly at a normal station, the stop only takes like 10 seconds more than a normal stop. I used the route very often during a practica in 2019
I am honestly indifferent to the idea of trolley buses, since it doesn't make sense to me that there's these wires up along the streets but the vehicles that use them don't run on rails. In other words, I think trams should be put in instead of a lowly bus. However, I do like the idea of electric buses running on battery power.
Here in New Zealand, we used to have trams in quite a few big cities and regional centres, though I only saw trolley buses in the capital city; Wellington. As it stands now, the cities of Auckland and Tauranga do have battery-electric buses in small quantities.
China has been experimenting with supercapacitor-powered trolleybuses for a few years now. Basically, a bus stops at a stop, recharges its supercapacitor very quickly, and rides on until the next stop, where the same thing happens. Capacitors are cheaper than Li-ion batteries, and have much more charge-discharge cycles. Similar concept to the Belgian gyro-bus from 1950s.
The option of a host of inroad solutions to charging also appear to be emerging. Where micro charging can take place at stops and terminals of line
I like trolleys, though I don't see enough on them and has had the fortune to only go on them on one occasion, when they still had them in Wellington, New Zealand. I think they're more suitable when they get more extensive right of way running, such as implementing them on Adelaide's O-Bahn and Brisbane's Busways. Those buses already run on dedicated infrastructure, so the trolley wires are just an additional bit and the buses rarely have to stray from a fixed path and aren't blocking other traffic.
Yeah theres a case to be made there for sure
Indeed, if U have a dedicated guideway Bus rapid transit system, then dual pentogrsph operation while charging battery for off wire use, makes perfect sense. (If there were free standing trolly segments, they could also carry poles for operation there.)
While not relevant to current on and off wire busses, in New Jersey state of USA there were in 1930s a large fleet of DUSL MODE buses. These resrmplrd US school buses with a front gasoline engine for off wire use, and an electric motor for uses as trolly coach under wire. The gear box could allow switching between them. Clever system would allow generated to be disconnected from gas engine & clutched to 600v mother to charge battery. Heating was by engine coolent on gas motor, but under wire aheating could in engine block provided heat.
These buses were most of the fleet. Some spent months as electrics, but often spent months in rural garages miles from overhead, apart from that in a garage. Connection to that allowed the motor to be kept warm, and battery topped up, for what was oft weeks and months away from wired routes.
Little generally for concept today, except for Boston USA "Silver Line" that operated in tunnel under trolly poles, but as Diesel bus for most of route outside it.
Sorry for past tense, but BOSTON "SILVER LINE" in CURRENT 2021 operation.
Not Conrail, that is problem!
Can Trollybusses be fitted with regenerative braking (charging battery whilst braking/going downhill) or even driving a flywheel under those circumstances which could recharge the batteries or be used to boost after a stop? (Question comes from me as a complete novice in the circumstances)
All trolleybusses have regenerative braking. They give energy to the wires. The energy of one bus that brakes is used for another bus that accelerates at the same time at the other end of the city.
@@Rainer67059 Great - thankyou.
Trolleybuses (with smaller batteries to allow easy route extension/add flexibility) for "express" routes that are to get between parts of the city fast, battery/natural gas buses for inner-district routes, that's my solution. Also, "fast" switches have to be installed so the trolleybuses don't have to slow down on switches.
One thing about battery packs that is often left out is refurbishing. It's done today, local company here does it on 1st Nissan Leaf battery packs. One replaces the degraded cells, wraps the pack up and... well not new. But not far off as well. At FRACTION of the cost of a new pack. Imagine that on bus packs. I guess bigger transit systems could even do that inhouse.
Trolleys are excellent for hilly places with steep acents. Back in the days, when diesel engines were not powerful enough, there were places in my country, where trolleys were the only public transport solution in cities, where slopes were too steep and curves were too tight.
De-wiring does happen, but I myself witness it about once every two months in my city of Pilsen, which has a very heavy trolley operation.
Arnhem has the biggest trolleybus netwerk in western Europe
Trolleybus technology is improving as seen in the latest generation of electric battery trolleybuses that allows up to 12-15kms of battery only operation, with batteries being recharged from existing overhead systems and regenerative braking, better onboard power management systems and can have better operating times if the overhead is a flexi high speed system. I noticed that Vancouver is still using the old OB (Ohio Brass) rigid overhead system, that slow down trolley bus operating speeds. Trolleybuses are also excellent for cities that hilly routes and rapid bus networks. Battery buses need to have high speed battery recharging networks which can be expensive to install. Also battery only buses are useless of cities that have hilly routes.
Yes, as the video mentioned battery hybrid trolleys have many advantages. But trolleys are obviously not a perfect tech!
@@RMTransit - I seems that you some what 'anti trolleybus'. Trolleybuses are currently better technology than battery buses. That said, I am interested in how hydrogen buses will perform carrying a full of passengers up a hilly street like in Vancouver, San Fran, Seattle, Wellington, Dunedin, etc
Saying something isn’t perfect does not require disliking it.
Exactly! I can confirm that modern switches and crossings allow trolleybuses to pass at speeds identical to other vehicles. In dense urban areas, often with speed limited zones of 30 km/h, the trolleybus is not slower by any measurable amount, even with lots of switches and crossings. And there are switches for 50 km/h, which is the speed limit in urban areas in most of Europe. The biggest problem is that drivers were used to the old "slow" technology and keep teaching this to the younger generation and they pass it on on the next and so on. I have noticed this all too often. But things are improving. There might be remarkable noticeable differences between some cities, but they come down to the "mentality", not technology, as the technology is modern and near identical today. But in one city they keep driving slow, while in the other, they learned to move like a bus. It is very often just in the mind. I see big future for hybrid trolleybuses that can operate about 15 km off the grid and charge while driving. I read that it is enough if 60% of the route is electrified, the 60% being the lower limit. If you manage to get 75% or more, the battery can last a lot longer than on an electric bus.
@@erikziak1249 - I agree with you. Once a driver gains confidence and experience, then that get the feel of the bus, they know when to slow down around corners, etc, especially with Kummler and Matter flexi overhead compared to the older OB ridged overhead where a drivers to reduce speed to prevent dewirement on corners and through switches and crossovers.
In my area they recently trialled EVs with pantographs for overhead charging at termini. The bus can go out on a full charge, and on each turnaround it can go pan up for a couple of minutes against an overhead panel to recover a bit of charge. No need for wires everywhere.
Termini high speed recharging is expensive to install.
We have a lot of trolleys in Cluj-Napoca and it's quite nice I would say. There is a chance we will have a new line installed where I live.
I will say. The trolley buses in my area were built on former streetcar lines and the buses being the non bendy kind plus getting a wider range from the prior trolley clearances made it operate more efficient and easier (even swerve more) than the modern buses. The system ended in 1959 only due to electricity price skyrocketing and the buses being from 1938
Imao a trolley bus makes sense where the required capacity exides that of a regular bus, but is not enough to justify a streetcar or lightrail, but you want to keep the option open, when demand increases to upgrade it to a streetcar.
With a trolley bus you already have done about 15% of the initial investment, installing catenary poles and such.
I think I commented on this once before. Look into the Gyrobus, super interesting concept which sadly never took of. It has the advantages of a Trolley bus, without the trolley wires and not the disadvantage of the battery bus, that it has to carry the heavy lithium ion battery around. Also well, lithium mining not so great.
How were the handling characteristics of gyrobuses? I know racecars use vacuum sealed flywheels
We can’t move to massive amounts of battery busses. We just don’t have the resources for everything to be battery powered.
Really the thing I see most useful here is a hybrid system. You’ve got major roads with electric power above but busses with batteries for when they need to stop or go of main streets for a short time.
This means you need a lot less battery capacity for most busses, you don’t have to set up a massive charging system at the depo
And this doesn’t only apply to local routes but freeways can be equipped with overhead lines. Testing is happening right now
Bruh ur videos are so good. Keep it up mate!
Hi Reece. They just spent I don't know how much to build trolley lines to bypass brosdway for quite a distance so they can build the broadway skytrain here in Vancouver. I'm wondering if buying some buses...diesel, battery...might not have been the better choice?
I am fine with maintaining existing systems, I just question whether we should be building new systems.
They are still better than electric buses
No
Agreed, if trolleys have their own passageway, they compete with trams. Also, batteries are more pollutant to produce and dispose.
@@donkeydik2602 they are more flexible and with bus lanes they are very effective and much cheaper
@@donkeydik2602 if electric buses have their own passageway they also compete with trams
@@MJ_M yes but it’s more expensive and less environmentally friendly
Switzerland is in Eastern Europe?
Not sure where I said that
@@RMTransit Trolleybuses are pretty common in Switzerland, not just in Eastern Europe. In fact more Central European countries have many as well as quite large trolleybus systems, even interurban. Switzerland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary.... All Central Europe. It is rather Germany, Austria and Poland who are the exceptions here. They do have some networks, but compared the size of the countries, it is not that wide spread at all.
Winnipeg actually used to have trolley buses is back in the 1960s but obviously not anymore, so there’s a fun little fact.
I feel like Toronto is the only city in NA that is going fully electric with the buses and switching it's streetcar poles into a pentograph system.
??? How is using pantographs more electric than poles.
Disclaimer I live near LA which uses pantographs.
This is a big shock for me.
So.
- Battery is heavy, therefore bus will be too. Road cost are a bad thing.
- Small battery for let's say 1 mile would solve most of the issues mentioned. (Yes battery buses with supercharge too)
- Troley buses are better for property denvelopment, as they re fixed to route. City planning must go together with public transport.
Just to mention a few.