60 years of bad decisions - how WELLINGTON lost its trolleybus system?
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- New Zealand's Wellington is a pretty interesting example of transport downshifting. Having a fairly developed trolleybus network, which has been in operation for almost 70 years, the city closed it completely and replaced with diesel buses.
And it happened quite recently, in 2017.
So it's was very interesting to me to discover how it happened.
#cityforall #trolleybus #wellington #newzealand #greenwashing
Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
00:26 - The history of Wellington's public transport
03:15 - Closing the trolleybus - arguments and debates
05:36 - Life after the trolleybuses
07:45 - Conclusions
***
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/ cityforall - Auta a dopravní prostředky
The most ridiculous things was , that when they started to operate the electric buses (only a small percentage of the total bus fleet) they tried to tout them as a wonderful green solution. Completely ignoring the fact they were replacing the even greener trolley buses.
Maybe there was a lobby from battery bus manufacturers? Where they are buying those buses now? (I guess in China)
There is nothing green about battery busses. Mining Lithium creates tons of pollution. And then when the batteries wear out they turn into highly toxic waste that is difficult to dispose of.
@@Novusod I know, there is a separate video about it on the channel
@@cityforallyeah, mostly CRRC
@@cityforall I mean the obvious best solution for an electric Bus system is having trolly lines and batteries. That way reach is not a problem, because you can load your batteries while driving. You have all the flexibility you want and you can simplify your trolly liner system.
Here in Moscow we had our trolleybus systems shut down three years ago. Btw, it was the biggest in the world and we had lost it because of political will to buy new e-buses. Now most of the main routs are operated by diesel busses as they are out of range for e-buses. just pure stupidity
4:00 i think that the fact that trolleybus infra can still work after this much time without repairs is showing its efficiency by itself lol
Exactly. I suppose that e-buses without a maintenance have 0 chances to survive 60 years :)
but it's not flexible. I can't reroute incase of roadworks or accidents.
@@ooRobertoo you can if you have moderntrolleybus with a battery for autonomous operation. In fact Wellington trolleybuses could operate without a wires.
@@ooRobertoo well temporary wires are a thing
they were invented since forever as were trolleybuses
another idea is to use a truck to tug them off the wires
sure no electricity but it's usually isn't that long
@@ooRobertoononsense. Get informed yourself before say some as stupid as that.
It's a sad irony that the Wellington trolley bus network was killed off with similar justifications for killing off the Wellington tram network in favour of trolley buses... Heck, Wellington should have done what Melbourne did and not only kept the tram network, but extended it and modernised it!
1964: "Trams are old-fashioned and cost too much to run! Trolley buses are the way of the future..."
2015: "Trolley buses are old-fashioned and cost too much to run! Battery buses are the way of the future..."
😞
***YOU ARE HERE***
20XX: "Electric buses are old-fashioned and cost too much to run! Private cars are the way of the future..."
:)
@@cityforallor better... 20XX: battery buses are crap and cost us a ton of money for a short life span. Bring back trolleybuses!
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes I can hardly believe it...
This is indeed a nonsensical and tragic decision to make in such times when electrification of public transport should be a priority.
It is such a weird contrast to what I can see happening in cities around me. I live in Czechia, a central European country which is not exactly the richest and pretty significant number of people here are quite sceptical about anything which has something to do with reducing our impact on the environment. But even so, there are towns with a population of 100000 or even fewer that were able to expand their trolleybus networks in recent years. For example, there is a town of about 15000 (Mariánské Lázně) which have a trolleybus network and wants to get rid of ICE buses with the help of partial trolleybuses.
If Wellington had kept its network and used it to power partial trolleybuses, which then could serve much broader areas using accumulators, it could have reached its electrification goals much quicker and maybe even cheaper.
In fact, the world is full of examples of adequate use and development of trolleybuses. And the Czech Republic is indeed one of the world leaders in this regard.
Public transport here in New Zealand is an absolute tragedy. Only good thing that has happened here is the City Rail Link. The Auckland Light Rail plan supported by Labour and Greens got delayed from 2020 to 2040 and costs went from 4 billion to 20 billion and was then cancelled by the current government.
We're not that green, people here love huge SUVs and Pick up trucks, and everyone drives. Only 6% of trips in NZ are taken by public transport.
Auckland's rail network completely shut down for 9 months as the railways began to crumble and become unsafe. Wellington's rail lines close many days during the Summer as temperatures above 26 degrees celsius are considered dangerous.
That's sad. So looks like New Zealand is quite similar to the USA in this regard. But at the same time somehow managed to create image of eco-friendly country for the rest of the world.
Closing rail network in summer? Wow, that's something new for me...
@@cityforallthat’s some thing new for me, and I’m Aussie. We don’t shut our rail lines down on 30°+ days, just slow them down!
@@cityforallNot that hard to do. Norway has the same reputation, but their main export is oil 😂.
@@cityforall Kiwirail got absolutely hammered by the the council (who runs Auckland Transport) and the mayor after there were major delays and cancellations on the Auckland suburban rail network due to "hot weather" when it was barely 28 degrees outside. At the same time, there was an increase in traffic jams on the roads... This happened a few days ago too which is utterly pathetic.
A few years ago, Kiwirail tried to delete all electric freight trains from its timetable. ~3/4 of our main line is electrified and that number continues to grow (albeit at a glacial rate), with the only hiccups being the requirement for a loco change at Hamilton and Palmerston North. Yet Kiwirail tried to use the paltry 5 minutes lost during each locomotive change as well as how the electric locomotives were "end of life" (they're not, they just need a refurbishment) as being the reasons why rail wasn't attracting freight, despite ignoring:
A) The fact that the electric locomotives have higher power output and can therefore save an equivalent amount of time on the hilly and bendy parts of the line
B) The existence of dual power locomotives that can run on both overhead wire and diesel, thereby eliminating the requirement for a loco change while still being able to use the wires. Instead, Kiwirail placed a new order for diesel-only DL class locomotives manufactured by CRRC which have been unreliable and even contained trace amounts of asbestos!
C) The fact that Kiwirail has been mothballing parts of the network and making services worse, letting infra deteriorate (thus leading to the Auckland rail shutdowns) and woeful reliability (Wellington suburban rail delays because the track inspection car broke down)
D) When dual mode locos were first proposed, they were dismissed as they would be "too heavy" and "too big for our loading gauge"
In essence, we nearly pulled a Conrail move and our electric freight trains were only saved because the government shot that proposal down. The electric locos are currently undergoing refurbishment which gives me some hope as to the future of electric freight trains in NZ...
Put short, Kiwirail is an agency with so much potential (it's nationalised after all) that's let down with penny pinching management and decades of bad decisions.
The overhead wires were replaced around 2012 and cost tens of millions of dollars. New substations were put in to the system to prevent overloads in the central city. It was mainly down to one elected councilor on Wellington Regional Council who did not like trolley buses. Funnily enough he was the head of the transport committee. It was a diabolical decision by a tiny minority. Wellington City Council was opposed to the decision, but it is the Regional Council who has control over public transport here.
I should add, it may have cost tens of millions of dollars to replace and upgrade all of the overhead wiring, but it cost just as much to tear it all down again. An absolute and total waste of ratepayers money
OMG, then this decision looks even more stupid.
INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE!
the ancient diesel buses they rolled out to make up the numbers (because they forgot to plan for the reduction in bus numbers) were so bad that at the end of the schoolday at my highschool the exhaust fumes would create a smog so thick that the first time I saw it I thought one of the buses had caught fire. The city is now losing 40% of its water supply due to leaks in water mains because of these same people who gutted the trolley bus network didn't see the need to maintain the pipes.
Cars are already heavily subsidized since the roads they use are typically built with public budgets.
@@xr6lad Yes, largely because cars are subsidized much more than any other form of transportation. People forget the difficulties of road construction.
It is actually shocking how opposite the story of Wellington is to the city of Dayton Ohio, a city which preserved its trolleybus network at a time when little manufacturers in the United States were building them, and when a diesel downgrade was on the table.
Excellent video, as a long time fan I'm glad this one is getting picked up by the algorithm better. Consider a video on Dayton Ohio trolleybuses and maybe even the Boston MBTA shutdown of trolleybuses as a followup to this video and your previous Battery vs Trolleybuses video! Keep it up, you're one of my favorite channels on CZcams for this stuff.
The trolley bus is genuinely the safest (still causes tire pollution) and greenest (again tire pollution) you can have on a transit, battery buses are not just a placebo but are giant bombs that constantly blow up and are terrible on any route that isn't a loop around the block.
Neither are they good for the cobalt mines in the congo. Im also pretty sure that they have a worse energy efficency than Trolley busses due to their increased weight becaude of the (larger) batteries.
So many factually wrong things in a single comment lmao. Neither are BEBs "bombs" nor are they terrible to use. It's the exact opposite from what you say, safety wise they are pretty much on par with trolleybuses, as batteries contrary to what some people believe are not exactly prone to catching fire if you don't do cost cutting. (Pretty much all modern trolleybuses are equipped with batteries). Same story for operations, range is really good nowadays and the complete lack of wires is a big cost and operational benifit. That's why battery electrics are spreading rapidly and replacing diesel buses up and down the world.
@@CharlsonSbattery buses ARE EXPENSIVE, more expensive than trolleybuses. And chargers are expensive too. The batteries on the trolleybuses arent the same size of those of the buses as far as I know, because they have in motion charge. And sadly, battery buses ALSO replace trolleybuses, which is a MISTAKE.
@MarceloBenoit-trenes the price tag for bebs and trolleybuses is about the same. But infrastructure wise the battery bus wins out on 95% of all cases. I agree though that replacing trolleybuses should not be a priority. Killing the wellington network like that was stupid.
I lived in Wellington for 10 years and got very said when they remove the trolleys.
The official reason was the cost to update the underground cables which mostly were from the tram era.
But the true reason was the PTOM (Public Transport Operation Model). It was a new tender procedures to get cheaper operators to operate and receive subsidies from Central Gov. Around 80% of the operations needs to be tender to a new operator to the lowest bidder.
The trolleybus was an impdemiment as to get new operators and the only operator with trolleybuses were Infantril(NZBus). Getting a new trolleybuses would very expensive for a new operator.
To break the monoploy of NZ Buses which had a ver ybad relationship with the GWCC (Great Wellington City Council) which is not the same as Wellington City Council.
This guy Chris Laidlaw, used to GWCC councilor from Wairarapa region which is outside Wellington city and he as some others on the GWCC and WCC never liked the trolleybuses
The company that take a bit chunk from the lines, like 1 and 7 was Transit operating under name Transurb that is from Wairarapa which probably Chris Ladlaw has some corrupt coonection with this company.
Funny that after the whole operation has been passed to Transub, Chris Laidlaw left the GWCC.
Transurb started with 07 double deckers electric battery buses as they would not be able to buy more than thoses.
The rest 10% went to NZBus, today is under new ownership from Australian company Kninect. They broguht 50 new chinese eletric buses and Transit brought other 30 mixed with Kiiwi and chinese electric buses.
From what I heard they break down quite often.
GWCC wanted to make sure that NZBUS would not have chance to bid for the big lines and removing the trolleybus was one of them because the infrestructure was from WCC thorugh another private company but GWWC was paying for the maintenance.
NZBUS owened the trolleybus.
Wellington got swindled by conman.
Wow, very interesting, thanks for this comment. There are always complex political combinations behind such decisions, and this is the same case here. It is a pity that it happened this way.
It was more a legal reasoning rather than a political combination. The PTOM system bought organisation but bought chaos simultaneously because of cost cutting measures incited onto bus companies forcing lower quality services. Poor vehicle age, poor driver pay resulted in cancellations and unreliable services up until 2023/2024 when driver pay was increased to $6 from minimum wage to $28-$30 an hour. Ironically, investment companies that took over operations from local bus companies have the large investment capital to invest in electric vehicles undermining the local operators and snuffing them out. Unless you are an established local bus operator with a large backing, you closed. Many small mum & pop operations shut consequently. From 2017 - 2024 when PTOM was announced, many local operators couldn't compete with the cheaper costs of investment companies and sold up, to the exact same investment companies. Causing great bus companies, with built for purpose facilities and buses to be cut and sold to save money and make money for American and Canadian investment firms.
Public transport should never be privatised.
The main question is not who owns the trolleybuses, but who pays for their operation and how. For example, in the Dutch city of Arnhem, trolleybuses are also operated by a private company, but this process is properly organized and everything works fine. By the way, they also had a moment when they were thinking of closing the trolleybus service. You can watch more about it in this video
czcams.com/video/5P9S_ZTXseM/video.html
I live near a Dutch city called Arnhem and that city is the last dutch city that still uses trolleybusses and one of the largest in West-Europe and they are working on a 'Trolleybus 2.0' that will drive under the electrical lines but can uncouple and drive further as a electrical bus
Oh, nice! I've mentioned it in one of my previous videos.
That's a good example of a modern trolleybus system but unfortunately I haven't been there.
The trolleybusses being out of date and unusable after like 5 years of use is a total load of BS.
Here where I live, we used to have trolleybusses from the 80's and 90's running just fine, basically running for 30 - 40 years ( with maintenance and modernizations ). They were only decomissioned last year, because they were the last high floor trolleybusses in the system. In the mechanical sence, they could have probably continued running for another decade or two, maybe even longer. If NZ had 5 years old, modern low floor trolleybusses, there's no reason why they couldn't keep them running for another 30 years with good maintenance.
I first saw the Wellington trolleybuses during a visit to NZ in the 1970s and on a more recent visit. When I heard that Wellington was scrapping its system, I was shocked. NZ is normally associated with progressive care for the environment, but this is the opposite.
What has happened to the country? When controversial decisions are made that make no sense, it is worthy of investigation into who gains.
Here in the UK, large parts of the rail network were closed under the jurisdiction of a government minister who was involved in a motorway construction company- he later fled to Monaco to escape prosecution for tax evasion. As they say, follow the money.
Great video. It‘s literally the neoliberal play book step-by-step: Public service is too expensive -> privatise it to become "more efficient" -> service turns to shit and the operators can’t turn a profit -> "this service is so bad, we should abolish it entirely."
Curiously, I have heard from other people that the neoliberal pattern is to invest in public transportation instead of developing infrastructure for private cars. And that this is literally leftism and nearly totalitarian communism.
Something else worth a mention is that some of the trolleybus wiring was shipped to the UK to be used at Beamish Museum and the East Anglia Transport Museum when the system was closed. Quite a bit of it has been used at Beamish as spare parts, the infrastructure wasn’t bad at all …..
The more comments this video gets - the more strange this situation looks :)
New Zealand and public transportation infrastructure is a sad story 😅
Excellent - well said! Thanks for posting. A recent study indicates that in some cases battery trolleybuses are CHEAPER than pure battery buses - see ‘Urban Transport Magazine’. With battery buses there is a lot of weight to carry around - for a double decker upwards of two and a half tonnes (equivalent to 32+ passengers) and the buses take time to recharge.
I feel it's sad to lose the only left hand traffic trolleybus (as far as I know). Remember riding it in the last week of its operations.
As far as I know now there is only one 3,7 km line in Japan, that operates in the tunnel with 8 trolleybuses on it.
@@cityforall oh yeah forgot about that one. I think there used to be two and I thought they've both closed but I guess one might still be operating.
I'm so glad, that my city is planning to increase it's trolleybus network
Good for you!
Tallinn?
Same here! But they're doing very very slowly...
@@o_s-24 where is here?
@@cityforall Yerevan, Armenia
That's quite an epic fail. Maybe, just maybe, that was a corruptive lobby of bus manufacters?
Who knows... But as I saw this new electric buses are made in China.
Shameful
Or big oil who knew there would be big difficulties in the battery-only option that could eek out some more petroleum sales for a few years until better batteries or something else comes along. The next dead end scam they'll come up with is hydrogen becasue there's a role for middle men in producing and distribution of the fuel big oil can expoit.
There’s no need for conspiracy theories. The Regional Council didn’t want to pay the 50m and listened to shrill, anti-bus voices who wanted the trollies out of the way. It was bad local governance. Wellington is still trying to work out what it’s transport future will look like.
@@cityforall china is absolutely working aggressively to create infrastructure dependence in that region
You should also make a video about "Nancy failed Tram" city. A built-up area about 300 000 inhabitants chosen in the 80's to be one of french Tram renewal (Tramway Français Standard). They refused because of dedicated lanes needed and prefered Trolleybus. Within 15 years, instead of Tram they chose a system that has been abandonned since "TVR" from Bombardier, selled as a"Tram on wheels" without much dedicated lanes needed and using ex-Trolleybus wires. It failed again and was dismantled in the end of 2020's... to be replaced by another Trolleybus ! Incredible as politician didn't want the Tram to be installed there. It became one of the only agglomeration this size in France without a Tram (Toulon as well for some other political reasons and Lens also, who prefered BRT) !
Actually I'm preparing a video where this system will be also mentioned. So I would be very grateful for useful links about the history of this project.
New Zealand does not really do public transport that well. We even just cancelled our new interisland ferries.
A surprise in NZ? not really , after all there is the North Island Main Trunk railway line, the majority of which is electrified, yet Kiwi Rail wanted to ditch electric operation. However they were forced to reluctantly overhaul the 15 or so serviceable locomotives. Currently none of these have re entered service and all tains are hauled with 2 diesel locomotives each! The most current transportation fiasco here though is the imminent cancellation of two new super ferries for Inter-Island service. The new government cut funding and are now forcing the operator to consider buying yet more secondhand vessels and giving thought to ending the provision of a ferry to carry rail traffic................."clean and green New Zealand" is a nonsense
Now I see, things are not what I was thinking about :)
That’s not really a fair comparison. Because the NZ railway network is nowhere near busy enough to benefit from electrification. Electrification, beyond being very expensive to implement, is also expensive to maintain. It needs heavy traffic and frequent movements to be justified.
The north Island main trunk was electrified between Longburn and Te Rapa in the 1980s mostly due to the problems with inclines in the central North Island between the Manawatu and Waikato, and back when engines for diesel-electric locomotives were not as powerful nor as efficient as what is available today. And also when the freight traffic along the NIMT was much heavier than what it has seen since the closure of many industries and manufacturing during the 1980s and 1990s. So in the age of the OPEC oil shock; it made sense to electrify the NIMT, but it was struggling to justify continuing with it by the turn of the new century. It is simply much more economical to just use the DL locomotives that entered service 10-15 years ago than to refurbish let alone replace the EF electrics.
And besides; the emissions from the operation of Diesel-electric locomotives are minuscule in the bigger picture. Certainly compared to the emissions from road freight.
Before you run down New Zealand you should maybe be aware of the electrification of the Auckland urban rail network in the last 15 years? Or the greater adoption of buses powered by electric motors and batteries?
@@danieleyre8913 trolleybuses and trams are faaar better than battery buses...
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes Erm you’re probably correct.
But I don’t see what that’s got to do with what we were discussing.
@@danieleyre8913 That comment is a demonstration of the mindset against electric traction. The infrastructure is in place. NZ electricity is near zero-emissions. And diesel train emissions are not insignificant. But yes, if less capacity is required, you can do without electric traction because you can accept slower trains. Whether it saves any money in the long term is another question. But it probably makes it harder to return to electric traction in the future. A decision for which reasons were found!
These vids always come at the perfect time love them❤
Thank you so much!
Ok but as a vehicle enthusiast it was also incredibly sad to lose the entire fleet of Designline trolleys-some of the last NZ-designed and built vehicles ever! Now they just use Chinese and British hybrid and EV buses that are so boring. :(
I guess there's nothing like a transport museum that preserves old units?
@@cityforall UK has several but not sure if they'll make the voyage. Not sure of any in NZ or Down Under.
as a further irony, an Australian company was given the job of removing the overhead infrastructure....for a cost of 3 million dollars I believe
Our record on infrastructure investment in general is abysmal. The trolley buses, which were unreliable but fun, is one example. The defunding of KiwiRail is another. Our storm and wastewater facilities are yet another. The trolley buses are a symptom of a much bigger problem with infrastructure investment here.
But why does it happen? Is the problem with the central government or local authorities? In any case, why don't people elect a different authorities instead of the ones that do bullshit?
Typical politicians and bureaucrats being stupid as usual.
let me guess. their goal was to get rid of the overhead wires so that later to promote Batteries!!!! Yay!
Something like this
@@cityforall and then they can sell you thousands of specialized firefighting devices to compliment the Lithium batteries!
@@sillysad3198 oh, that's so kind :)))
Cambridge Massachusetts in the US also decommissioned its trolleybuses. Seems contrarian but, we’ll see what the final results bring.
This trend is extremely disappointing.
I hope the biggest networks will not dismantled...oh wait
I wish I could have gone to New Zealand and traveled on these buses.
A big step backwards for Wellington.
It was such a crazy decision. Also why do it overnight - they could have slowly replaced the fleet with new electric busses that didn't need wires.
They did not want to do it in stages. Stage 1 would have demonstrated the folly of what they were determined to do,
My city had trolleybus until 2008 the removal was in my opinion not a mistake. It was a choice between modernising the trolleybus network with its seven busses or two Streetcar extensions which are extremely popular. Most modern trolleybuses have a combustion engine or batteries to allow them to run on roads without wires. With HESS buses it is even more extrem the only thing that is different between the trolleybus and the batterie bus is the way they charge the batteries. Many other trolleybus operators in my country have startet to remove some of the wires the new buses don't need them everywhere anymore and can run into areas where trolleybuses never ran. In many European or American country's trolleybuses can no longer be operated economically if you can operate batterie buses. The trolleybus will probably go the exact same route the steam engines went in the 50's and 60's.
Can I ask what city are you talking about?
@@cityforall Basel Switzerland
@@nashorn9745 that's interesting, I didn't know Basel had trolleybuses in operation.
@@cityforall there where only ever 3 Lines and by 2008 there was only one left. The buses were very unreliable and it was common to see normal buses operating on the line. There was actually a referendum about the trolleybus and it was decided to stop running them. The trolleybuses were replaced by CNG buses which have now been replaced by electric buses. The last trolleybus route was going to the cemetery the long way around where nobody lives. The system was built after the Second World War to save on fuel. You can still see the poles where the wires were on many roads holding the street lights in the middle of the road. Basel saved most of the Trams in the 1960‘s it banned cars from the city center as one of the first city to do so. If you want to experience the even older system of combustion engine buses you need to hurry because in 2027 the last combustion engine bus will run the system will be fully electric by 2028 and after 87 years there will be no more combustion engine buses in the city.
@@nashorn9745 interesting! But you still have trams which are also great so situation is way better than in Wellington
Stagecoach trolly bus were the best, little slower but were more frequent alot cheaper and wouldnt need to catch 3 busses to get to 1 point to the other like with the new buses
Living in SF at one time, with the exception of the ugliness of the overhead wiring, these electric trolleybuses were efficient!
Good video. Fits with what I know. I was born in Wellington. My father was an NZR engineer in a group responsible for railways electric traction. Two ideas that I learnt partly from him:
1. Right wing economics prefers diesel. Conceptually simpler and you do not have to employ or listen to technical people. People who can drive and maintain diesels are easier to find and cheaper. And with diesel decisions can be made on short term considerations. Similar considerations went into the decision to stop using the railways electric traction between Hamilton and Palmerson North.
2. The big problem with electric traction is that the equipment lasts too long. It will still work when old and rattly. Was a problem with trams. Perhaps a factor with the infrastructure also.
A pity that no other city was able to use the Wellington trolley buses.
I want to know who is benefiting from the introduction of all these battery operated vehicles. Who is greasing who's palms. Because they're not more economically viable than overhead powered transport, and they're certainly not more environmentally friendly! Yet everyone is pushing for battery cars, battery buses, battery trains, battery planes. Is it the cobolt lobby passing notes to politicians under the desk? Or are people just that stupid that they believe the electricity that comes out of a battery is better than the electricity that comes from an overhead wire?
Some chinese manufacturer, most likely. They lobby moving to the electric buses in plenty of relatively poor countries
i think these palms are self-greasing.
seriously.
it is in the best interest of A govrnmnt to minimize and possibly eliminate any traces of self-sustainability of the subject population. and batteries are a part of restricting mobility. and they prevent any attempt at energy independence (you just can't store an extra gallon of electricity for a bad day). plus fire hazard. plus rapid value depriciation -- you can not invest in these bataries because they are perishable. from every angle this benefits your governmnt.
in other words your govrnmnt perceives those bttries as a potential topic of *rationing*. and all governmnts loooove rationings.
Still some go buses left running words painted over but you can still see it and some metlink stickers
I made a video on my visit to Wellington in 2013:
czcams.com/video/Y78xhBDUQaA/video.html
I had visited from Canada six times starting in 1980, and touring the city from the heights just isn't the same in a diesel bus.
2:00 BUBBLE TROLLY BUS I LOVE MY DESIGNLINE BODIES
when i saw this design it dawned on me: they intentionally design items of public consumption to be as needlessly expensive as possible. so that to make manufacture of the well developed and a technologically stable tool (a bus) as expensive as if it is the first bus on Earth
every design effort is aimed at negating parts interchangeability and parts reuse, defying standards and eliminating the economy of scale by making every model unique in shape, joints etc.
😔
soo they make the city more boring.. trolly buses would of been cool to have
Beggars belief!
What do you mean?
As usual, we have wankers here.
@@cityforall "Begger belief" means "Unbelievable!!", not a common expression outside of the UK, older Australians and Kiwis,
@@martianunlimited Oh, thanks, next time I will know :)
@cityforall Japan has private transport but the government allows them to develop property around stations and stops so they're profitable and make a positive feedback loop to expand service
It was a good decision. The old buses were slow, expensive to maintain, and could not be used efficiently.
Why then in some other countries older trolleybuses are fast and efficient?
No, it wasnt. The issue was the operator and the management.
7:33 ))))))))))))))))))))))))))
I'm all for electric vehicles but never liked the trolley buses. The only times I can recall being stuck in a bus not going anywhere was when I was in a broken down trolley bus or in another bus stuck behind a broken down trolley bus.
If trolleybuses break down, it's not a problem with the technology in general, but with the fact that these particular trolleybuses are poorly maintained. Similarly, someone may say that they don't like trams (because they have had a negative experience with them), even though there are plenty of cities in the world where trams are fast, reliable, and efficient.
By the way, I have a separate video about trolleybuses on my channel, which I mentioned here. If you are interested, you can watch it -
czcams.com/video/5P9S_ZTXseM/video.htmlsi=qz_qRz8NJY8Drx1O
Far as I can tell it's much easier to break an electric bus than a trolleybus...
This is not really about the type of the vehicle but rather about the maintenance.
I live in a city with quite an extensive trolleybus network ( as well as bus and tram ) and I use the trolleybusses pretty much daily my whole life and I think like at most I can remember one or two times they broke down ? Which is just normal because that can happen. They are not really prone to breaking anymore than any other type of vehicle - maybe you could say they are less prone, because they are really simple both electrics wise and mechanics wise, so there's not really all that much that can break.
@milokojjones There's also the matter of big vehicle batteries not being very good at enduring some sorts of environments. Be it extreme temperatures/weather conditions, or...well, going uphill a lot. The battery is heavy. No comment on fire risk because I haven't seen the statistics for that.
Can definitely work well enough, I suppose, but environmental friendliness is really the last reason you'd ever use to scrap a trolleybus network for a battery powered electric one. Even "overhead cables look ugly" feels more valid, as much as that just sounds like whining from rich people. But eh, a bus is a bus.
@@natchu96 battery buses are "modern"... thats it. The same nonsense when tramways were replaced by buses or trolleybuses.
I’m gonna have to disagree with some of the way you’ve portrayed this. I don’t know if you’ve lived in Wellington before or if this is based entirely on viewing the publicly recorded information in a vacuum, but the trolleybuses were kind of notoriously unreliable. The biggest problem was that the pantographs flew off on a regular basis, which seemed to be made worse by the notoriously high winds Wellington experiences. In addition, the cost arguments need to be taken in a context that this was all happening a year after the kaikoura earthquake, the damage of which is still causing a huge strain on the city finances to this day. We haven’t even fixed the town hall or the library or even the fucken water pipes yet. Finally, I do think the flexibility argument has more weight than you give it credit for: along some of the old trolleybus routes we now run high frequency double decker services, that run further out than the old trolleybus network could have reached. One positive result of this is that there is a high frequency high capacity route all the way from Johnsonville to island bay, which has really eased the bus congestion along the golden mile.
Yes, I haven't really been to Wellington and prepared this video based on materials available on the Internet.
Regarding unreliability, problems usually arise when the infrastructure is not properly maintained.
In my opinion, having the foundation of the existing trolleybus network, it could be done much more rationally than just throwing it away and using it to recharge electric buses while they are in motion. In fact, this is the same trolleybus that can recharge for 20% of the route to cover the remaining 80% without a contact network. So much for flexibility. Why not do it this way?
Trolleybuses have more transport capacity than buses... and, by the way, trolleybuses have no pantographs, they have trolley poles...
NZ leading the world in common sense.....
Roman bus???
Nope
I'm sorry but you've missed a massive part of this whole saga. The closing of the trolley bus system is due to monster that was "Let’s Get Wellington Moving".
Originally it was a modest government agency which was supposed to help improve public transport options in and around Wellington. However the politics at the time granted councils more money for investing in "green projects" so the councils supporting "LGWM" massively expanded the agency to get that grant money.
The trolley bus fiasco was not merely about saving money. As you point out They originally upgraded the Trolley Buses and were rewarded with funding for it. Then they immediately moved onto the light rail project. Which was supposed to replace the trolley buses. The Trolley bus sell off was supposed to help pay for the light rail and private operators were supposed to run the system until the light rail came online. (which is why they didn't invest in it, it was never supposed to last) Again they got grant money for the light rail project. Then came the battery electric bus program with all its "flexibility" which was supposed to "fill in" due to delays on the light rail project and again they got funding for it.
Thing is none of these projects ever got passed the planning stage, instead all the money went on consultants and planning committees. Let's Get Willington Moving is one of the greatest modern examples of Bureaucracy run amok. Just grubby bureaucrats redirecting public funding into their own pockets.
If you need to see just how much of a rort this agency was 7 years ago they proposed reducing the amount of cars in wellington. They spent nearly 1.5 million dollars planning it and never finished it. In December 2023 LGWM had its federal funding suspended the agency's operations were halted as a result. Between the time it was defunded and when you posted this video the local council was able to fully finish the draft and begin rolling out the program all with only the local council funding it.
WLG is on meth
People look back at the trolley busses with seriously rose tinted glasses. Either that or they fantasize about how great they are without ever having tried them. As someone who commuted on the Wellington trolley busses daily, they were terrible. They were slow around corners (which we have a lot of), because the poles would fall off the line if they went too fast. Of course the poles would randomly fall off anyway. And while you waited for the bus driver to try and get the poles back on the lines, the entire trolley bus fleet would be stuck behind because they couldn't overtake!
Did the council jump the gun on decommissioning the trolley network in favour of Battery EV's? Yes. The technology arrived a couple of years later than expected, but man they are so much better than the trolley busses ever were.
The problem with trolleybuses in general is that they were poorly maintained in Wellington.
In this video, I analyzed this topic in more detail, I invite you to watch it -
czcams.com/video/5P9S_ZTXseM/video.htmlsi=VT-Oy4bQisfU4H08
@@cityforall Nah sorry, but I don't think poor maintenance can explain this one away. Untethered battery EV's are so much more flexible, the passenger experience is way better.
@@ThatOutrageousCat There are some very good comments in the discussion here that this decision was pushed through by people who are suspected of corruption.
And once again, in terms of flexibility and convenience, the best option for the city is trolleybuses with batteries that can be recharged on the move. They only need 3 kilometers of contact network to go anywhere on battery power for another 7 kilometers.
Of course that experience is not common throughout the world. E.g. here in the Europe we hardly ever experience what you describe, so the maintenance aspect must have definitely played a huge factor. On the contrary, not having to drag large batteries allow for smoother ride and faster acceleration (which is overall a benefit of electric vehicles), and of course lower consumption of energy. Not to mention in-motion charging is a trend with many benefits as the vehicles don't have to stand still waiting to get charged but can instead operate while charging. What Wellington did was extremely short-sighted. They should have rather focused on a way to replace existing diesel buses than destroying what they had and starting from scratch - and the existing infrastructure could have been used to reach that goal.
@@ThatOutrageousCat ever heard of trolley battery buses?