Sheffield’s Super Trams cost £1.6 million per vehicle each 35 metres long and 2.65 metres wide providing a gross floor space of 92 sq metres. In comparison an Olympian 3-axle double decker bus offers a gross floor area of £54 sq metes at a cost of perhaps £150,000. If the bus lasts 15 years and the tram 30 years then, ignoring interest payments, the annual capital costs per sq metre are £580 for the tram and £185 for the bus. If interest is set to the old Treasury discount rate of 6% the annual costs become £290 for the bus and £1260 for the tram. That suggest the annualised capital costs of the rolling stock are in favour of the bus by a factor of 3 to 4.

Vehicle and track maintenance costs will probably favour the rubber tyred option by a factor of 10, or at least that is the case for track maintenance on national rail. That arises because the steel tyred option requires a meticulously maintained track which is subjected to very high point loads from the steel tyred wheels. Meanwhile changing a steel tyre is not quick fit and is needed as soon as slight irregularities arise if the tack is not to be hammered to pieces.

As to use – the Super Tram network has 3 legs. If the busiest leg carries half the passengers and if all the 20 million annual journeys are to or from the town centre then the daily arrivals on the busiest leg, based on a 300 day year, amount to 17,000. If 20 % are in the peak hour they amount to some 3,300. 40 Double decker buses with all passengers seated would suffice for that, a trivial flow bearing in mind that in on the approaches to the New York bus terminal 700 buses an hour pass in one lane 3.2 metres wide every week day.

That is in line with our general conclusion, namely that steel tyred rapid transit is catastrophically expensive compared with the rubber tyred option. At the same time the capacity to move people is in favour of the bus by a facto of 3 to 4. After all Victoria main line requires 4 pairs of tracks to discharge the same passenger flow as is achieved in one bus lane in New York

Why therefore are we stealing tax payers money so that gown men can play at trams?

Meanwhile in Nottingham they have agreed to cut bus services which were knocking the stuffing out of the new tram system - for fear that the trams may fail. That is what a railway person would call a level playning field.

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