Earlier this week, the timetabled end to end journey on Sydney Light Rail’s L2 and L3 lines fell to 31 minutes. Timetable data, released by real time transport app NextThere, shows how journey times have progressively sped up on L2, from 46 minutes in the first quarter of 2020, 40 minutes in the second quarter of 2020, 38 minutes in the second half of 2020, and 34 minutes in the first half of 2021; before its most recent final drop to 31 minutes. Similar journey times exist for L3, which opened in April 2020.
At the time, Transport Minister Andrew Constance explained that long journey times should be expected in the first 6 months of operation, but that these would drop to around 40 minutes after those 6 months.
The slow speed and long journey time on opening day and subsequent months was a common criticism of the L2 line following its opening in December 2019. This blog wrote about why this was the case and how to speed up trams in December 2019 as did transport engineer Greg Sutherland in a SMH article. Reasons given for the slow speeds at the time included:
- long dwell times at stations
- traffic delays at intersections
- flow on effects of slow trams holding back other trams behind them
- low speed limits
- reliance on engineers with heavy rail, rather than light rail, experience
- provision for slow braking
Some of these have since been addressed. For example, trams no longer dwell at stations for 40 seconds. Halving this to 20 seconds would immediately cut 4 minutes from total journey time. Traffic light priority for trams has increased, which not only reduces time stopped at traffic lights but keeps tram momentum going by eliminating the need to brake to a complete stop and then accelerate again. However, speed limits do not appear to have been increased. Trams are currently limited to 50km/hour along roads where the speed limit for general traffic is 60km/hour and is only permitted to travel at 20km/hour in the pedestrianised section of George St.
Commentary
In July 2020, this blog investigated why and how journey times might have dropped down to their then 38-minute duration. It found that it was reasonable to expect that a 31-minute journey time was achievable. Greg Sutherland’s SMH article points out that the 1950s tram network achieved a 26 minute journey time with more stops and less traffic light/street priority, albeit along a more direct route.
It may be possible to shorten journey times further, though it’s likely to be only marginal. What’s more important is that the tram is now more competitive with buses in terms of timetabled journey time. A journey to and from Central Station is now faster on a tram than a bus. The bus is a few minutes faster into the core of the CBD than the tram. However, here light rail benefits from greater reliability and higher capacity, as well as connecting passengers to more destinations along George St rather than having to walk over from the Elizabeth St bus corridor.
Eastern Distributor express buses are clearly better for CBD workers in the North of the CBD compared to the light rail, as they were in the past compared to regular buses that the light rail has replaced. These should remain to complement, rather than compete with, L2 and L3.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle faced by L2 and L3 is the permanence of initial perceptions of being a slow service. People will remember the long journey times of the opening weekend and first few months, not realising that journey times have sped up. That makes the change of timetable this week, with no fanfare, seem quite unusual.
Transport Sydney 