Honestly, for growing places, or places with bad public transit, diesel busses are the way to go. They are the cheapest and require almost no new infrastructure so it can offset car emissions quicker than the other options. Established bus routes that are popular should be converted to tram lines or BRT.
We had trolley busses here in Wellington NZ for decades. The network needed an upgrade so our shortsighted council ripped it down while promising battery buses to replace the trolleys. We ended up with old, dirty, diesels chugging round our city for years, an I'm not sure we've gotten rid of them all yet. It was a disaster.
Trams.... Where isn't possible trams use trolleybus... That's it!!! But what is sad, Eastern Europe falls into buying electric buses because it's mainstream 😬
The best thing trolleybuses have going for them is their relatively low dependence on rare earth elements in production in contrast with BEV buses with their large batteries. Trolleybuses environmental toll is way smaller and it makes producers and operators way less dependent on third world countries devastating the environment with slave labor.
There's also an idea of doing this in highways.
Tom Scott video on it: https://youtu.be/_3P_S7pL7Yg
When I was there I found those busses really cool. But to my knowledge, they're being phased out. They essentially combine the worst of bus and tram:
- relies on special infrastructure and thus cannot go anywhere, is more expensive than bus
- often shares the street with other cars being more vulnerable to traffic, uses tires (leading to fine particles)
i actually like the aesthetic.
I heard we tried that in some German Cities way back in the 80ies or even late 70ies, but the technology wasn't that far yet and the overhead cables would get damaged when the buses engaged them, sometimes leading to complete outages of the tram network, and as such it was scrapped again. Glad to see that other places took it on later, we could really need that right now.
tram :D
Also people from Vancouver ( Canada ) where hydro power makes electricity super cheap.
Nah. Winterthur has them. Combines the worse aspects of trains and e-cars
I use them every day for commute. Trolley buses are absolute pieces of shit. Slow, drivers understand mash the throttle like it's on and off button and in cold winters their electrical cables overhead freeze and you get delays.
Btw their electrical cables make the city look like garbage. The only ones who think trolleys are a good idea are those who don't use them.
A beauty
Im also waiting for hydrogen to take off!
I hate to see misinformation being spread.
First off, Diesel Busses Are equally environmental friendly as electric trains. (On long distance trips) this is due to infrastructure emissions, which are far higher for train infrastructure.
Furthermore looking at batteries: Batteries are expensive and very sensible to temperatures. They are virtually unusable in some climate zones. Furthermore a battery burns much hotter than gasoline. Much much hotter. So hot in fact that the damage to roads is immense. In addition to that, battery driven cars and buses are extremely heavy and damaging asphalt infrastructure as well.
The best solution is to shift mobility towards Diesel driven Busses and facilitate car sharing. It’s flexible, mich more flexible than other solutions. This makes it adaptable to many environments and situations. And it does not force people to give up achievements of mobility.
The example in the meme is extra problematic, because steel cables and train infrastructure is heavily reliant on coal. And replacement of coal with hydrogen is not to be seen in the foreseeable future.
