Kingston Society: Trams and Trolley Buses

I have always been a heavy user and a fan of public transport so a Kingston Upon Thames Society public meeting on the local transport history was unmissable.

I was not entirely sure what to expect in terms of the range and depth of the topics covered and in the end I was slightly disappointed in both, we did not get much of an insight on when trams are a better option than buses and we did not see the details of the various plans for tram/light railway proposals that had been discussed over the years.

However, it was interesting to hear about the proposed schemes, some of which I had not been aware of previously despite my ongoing-interest in local issues over the last forty years or so.

The Q&A session was good too, bringing up topics (like trams v buses) and details of old routes that had not been covered in the main talk.

It also got me thinking more about trams and where they could be used locally and in doing so I thought a lot about Prague which has an excellent public transport system of buses, trams and metro (I lived there for a while so know the transport infrastructure well).

The speaker seemed to approaching the issue with the idea that all trams are good and we should have lots more of them but we need to think about where they could apply in London which has extensive Rail, Underground and bus networks.

The big advantage trams have over buses is that they run separate from other traffic while buses are in that traffic and run slowly with frequently delays as a result.  This puts trams in direct conflict with cars which is probably why politicians are against them.

Clearly trams provide the same sort of services as trains, for example when I go to Wimbledon (which is several times a month) I catch a train from Norbiton. I could catch a 57 bus but that is much slower. That means trams only really make sense where there is no equivalent rail or underground options and as these are both extensive networks in London that means the gaps to be filled need some work to identify.

These gaps are covered by buses, even if changes are required, so what we are looking for is routes that are busy enough to justify the capacity and long enough to justify a faster option with fewer stops.

I am not sure what information TfL has to help them to plan things like this as (as far as I am aware) they only count when people get on buses and so they do not know how long individual journeys are. For example, on the 65 route do they know how many people travel from Kingston beyond Richmond. 

The obvious place to look for gaps in the network for trams is radial routes where these do not currently exist. TfL is obviously aware of this and the Supper Loop bus is part of their solution.

Looking closer to home, I am struggling to find a need for trams in Kingston which, thanks to an accident of history, has a radial route of sorts that goes to places like Richmond, Twickenham, New Malden and Wimbledon.

North of Kingston is a different story but while I might like an easy route to places like Hayes or Wembley I would be surprised if there were enough people like me to justify laying tracks.

While this speculation is fun there is very little prospect of any significant transport projects in Kingston because there is no real problem that needs solving.