this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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New electric buses in London are fucking amazing, no need for trolleys.
Until in 5-10 years when the batteries are fucked.
That's the beautiful thing about trolley buses - they do not need a (substantial) battery. They are basically trains on wheels.
There are some places where battery powered buses make sense - for example, where I live, lucerne Switzerland, there is one bus line that just goes up and down a rather steep hill. By using recuperative braking, the battery powered bus is super efficient. For other, normal 'high traffic' lines, trolley makes so much more sense
Trolleys don't really make any sense. I come from Riga, it has a lot of trolleys and the city is designed around trolleys and trams. And yet modern trolleys have bloody diesel engines, because being permanently hooked to the wire makes no sense at all. It's much better to have electric buses with a few overhead wires here and there to fast charge on the go.
Lucerne has a few trolley lines. They are ONLY trolley buses. The long, 3 Segment ones. Then, some 1 Segment hybrid buses that have pantagraphs. At the end of those lines, there is a longer stop where the trolley lines end, the pantagraph gets pulled down and the bus trucks along the last few stations with diesel.
Then theres just normal hybrid buses for more rural lines, and a battery operated bus that goes up and down a hill.
There's a solution for every line - you just need the proper infrastructure. The reason that we have this great pantagraph-compatible infrastructure is that, while there are a lot of trains in Switzerland, there is no metro. So in lucerne, the trolley buses work almost as a metro, with the main lines having buses every 7 minutes.
... why not have as many cables as possible so you can simply minimize battery size? Trolleybuses are just more efficient battery buses.
Cables are expensive and dangerous. Why have them at all?
Batteries are also expensive, and how are cables dangerous? We use them for trams without issue.
People die from touching cables quite regularly.
I have literally never heard of it, and considering how ravenous media is for engagement that makes me rather dubious of that claim.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CrazyFuckingVideos/comments/uphrj2/person_get_shocked_and_burn_by_touching_power/
https://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2010/03/05/14072-272/
https://www.itv.com/news/central/2022-10-11/parents-of-boy-11-electrocuted-by-overhead-power-cables-warn-of-dangers
Electricity is not a joke, my mate. It is always better to reduce the amount of high voltage (anything above 24V) overhead wiring.