{"id":83083,"date":"2018-09-26T09:22:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T16:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/why-trackless-trams-are-ready-to-replace-light-rail"},"modified":"2018-09-26T09:22:23","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T16:22:23","slug":"why-trackless-trams-are-ready-to-replace-light-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/why-trackless-trams-are-ready-to-replace-light-rail","title":{"rendered":"Why trackless trams are ready to replace light rail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bXB87NWHvDg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I began my life as an activist academic in 1979 when the Western Australian government closed the Fremantle railway, saying buses would be better. Patronage immediately fell by 30% and I ran a four-year campaign to save the railway. We won. I have been writing books and running campaigns ever since on why trains and trams are better than buses. But I have changed my mind. The technology has changed, and I think it will end the need for new light rail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTrackless trams\u201d are based on technology created in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alstom.com\/aptis-new-experience-electro-mobility\">Europe<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crrcgc.cc\/en\/g7389\/s13996\/t286142.aspx\">China<\/a> by taking innovations from high-speed <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/rail\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">rail<\/a> and putting them in a bus.<\/p>\n<p>I went to China to check out the CRRC trackless tram (they call it autonomous rail transit, or ART). I came back convinced it\u2019s a transformative transit technology.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018-09-trackless-trams-ready-rail.html\">https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018&#45;09-trackless-trams-ready-rail.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I began my life as an activist academic in 1979 when the Western Australian government closed the Fremantle railway, saying buses would be better. Patronage immediately fell by 30% and I ran a four-year campaign to save the railway. We won. I have been writing books and running campaigns ever since on why trains and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":467,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1490,6,1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-robotics-ai","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}