An apparently alarming fact was stretched to breaking-point over 13 column inches in the Evening News last week ('Not Top of the Stops', 19 February). It concerned the respective stopping distances of buses and trams in Edinburgh. At 20mph, trams require 2.3 times as much room to stop.
There was precious little context but quite a lot of gloomy speculation from Ken Greig, a ‘City PR man’ whose credentials were not explained and of whom few readers will ever have heard.
Now that the trams are almost upon us, we thought it would be helpful to check these figures at source and illustrate them using well-known local places. We are grateful to Edinburgh Trams and Lothian Buses for supplying the necessary numbers, which include drivers' 'thinking time'. Our examples are used for illustrative purposes only and are not accurate down to the last centimetre.
First, some fascinating facts
Fully loaded, a Lothian bus weighs around 18 tonnes and measures 12 metres from stem to stern. Likewise, an Edinburgh tram weighs in the region of 73 tonnes and measures 42.8 metres. Don't fret too much about these details – both forms of public transport will hurt about the same if they run over your foot.
Now for the nitty-gritty
A Lothian bus travelling along the street at 20mph will stop in around 12 metres (the same as a car). That is to say, in its own length again or approximately the width of Crombie's.
An Edinburgh tram travelling at 20mph will stop in approximately 28 metres, or just over half its own length again. In this respect, therefore, it outperforms the bus. However, this triumph equates roughly to the distance from the downhill side of Mather's to the uphill corner of The Street.
At 40mph, a Lothian bus will stop in 36 metres (again, the same as a car) – three times its own length or roughly the distance from the lower corner of Forth Street to the middle of Broughton Property Management.
A tram, tinkling its little heart out at 40mph, will stop in 133 metres (running on ballast track with adjacent footpaths): that is, a little over three times its own length and a distance equivalent to that between the York Place pavement corner outside St Paul's and St George's and the middle of L'Escargot Bleu way off down the hill. This is bad news for distressed maidens tied to the rails, but good news for passengers keen to avoid whiplash.
Bus and tram drivers are current receiving special training. Test runs and a public-awareness campaign are underway. And trams themselves have a number of exciting safety features including magnetic brakes, headlights, bells, and emergency sand deployment. (We're not sure how effective the sand is, but it will certainly help with any mess afterwards.)
Based on our scrupulous examination of the facts, we conclude that in many ways trams are like buses, and it doesn't take a transport genius to work out that:
- you would be better not stepping out in front of one
- if you do step out in front of one, your best course of action is to remove yourself sooner rather than later.
Peter Dick Never mind braking - 42.8m long! I think I heard, via Sochi, that the ice for curling is about 40m. Maybe there's scope for a bit of practice down the aisle How do these things get round corners? Have they hit the streets yet?
Robin Gillanders Peter, Not the streets or (thankfully) anything else yet. They are running tests (hitting oblivious pedestrians etc) but not full time until May.
