David Bradley wrote:
OK, I take your postings to mean that you are in favour of the
tramway scheme. To understand your point of view please confirm you
have no vested interest in the project other than a potential user of
the tramway. I would then be interested to hear why you feel that
such a huge investment should be made and what you perceive to be the
benefits of the tramway. Are you not in the least bit concerned at
the loss of unique shopping outlets and the demolition of generally
architecturally interesting and sound buildings that still have many
years of useful life?


Which "unique shopping outlets and generally architecturally interesting and
sound buildings" have you in mind?

Boltar wrote:
Bit of selective cut and pasting by you there I think. You
forgot the next bit:"The only enthusiasm came from 71 people living
way beyond the terminus, in Buckinghamshire.". Last time I looked
71 people is not 30% of 16895. So I suspect this journalist is
playing a bit fast and loose with the facts.

Between the 70% opposed to it and the 71 from rural Bucks who were
enthusiastic, there were presumably 29.996% who weren't terribly
bothered either way.

On an aside I'd also be interested to know why TfL thought it
appropriate to do the survey in 11 languages. If people can't be
arsed to learnt [sic] the language of the country they're living in
[,] why the hell should they be allowed to give their views and
perhaps influence people who do give a **** about this place?

I'm not sure why you deserve a response, given the standard of English
in that last sentence, but it's probably because they are the very
people in Southall whose welfare you were concerned about in your
previous post, all of 21 minutes earlier. Remember?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Paul Scott wrote:
"Boltar" wrote in message
oups.com...

Public opinion it seems to me is generally in favour. Its more
a case of a load of standard issue Nimbies down the bottom end
whinging about it because it might make driving Jemima 500
yards to school a bit harder. For the people of Southall and
onwards to Uxbridge it would be a godsend given the
generally lousy public transport in that corridor.

B2003

Have a look at this from the Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...846599,00.html

'......Transport for London embarked on a massive consultation exercise,
produced 500 pages of data, interviewed 16,895 people and printed 440,000
brochures and questionnaires in 11 different languages.
The findings were as clear as a thumb's down from the emperor in the
Colosseum: 70 per cent of respondents did not support the idea.'

I always thought it was rather obvious that consultation responses are
heavily biased towards opponents of a scheme. You wouldn't ring up the
gas company to tell them they sent you a nice low bill, but you
certainly would if they tried to overcharge you.

The market research TfL did should be much more representative of public
opinion. The 2005 MORI market research says that 48% are in favour of
and 37% are opposed to the scheme, with higher support in Southall and
Uxbridge and lower support in Ealing.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/trams/download...eportFINAL.pdf


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

In article , Colin
McKenzie writes
The reasons for choosing tram over trolleybus were never, in my view,
very good. They were mainly: trams are better at attracting people out
of cars, and will make it politically easier to achieve the necessary
demolitions and reductions in capacity for other motor vehicles.

The main reason for choosing trams over trolleybuses for any given
scheme is capacity. My vague memory is that the Cross-London route would
require 40tph or 130tbph to provide the same capacity; presumably the
same applies on the Uxbridge Road.

But I'm not sure there's any actual UK evidence that trams attract more
people out of cars than trolleybuses - how would you obtain it?

Again, IIRC, when Tramlink opened the shopping centre in Croydon saw
something like a 30% increase in visitors with a *decrease* in parking.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 23:28:39 +0000, Dave Arquati wrote:

Paul Scott wrote:
"Boltar" wrote in message
oups.com...

Public opinion it seems to me is generally in favour. Its more
a case of a load of standard issue Nimbies down the bottom end
whinging about it because it might make driving Jemima 500
yards to school a bit harder. For the people of Southall and
onwards to Uxbridge it would be a godsend given the
generally lousy public transport in that corridor.

B2003

Have a look at this from the Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...846599,00.html

'......Transport for London embarked on a massive consultation exercise,
produced 500 pages of data, interviewed 16,895 people and printed 440,000
brochures and questionnaires in 11 different languages.
The findings were as clear as a thumb's down from the emperor in the
Colosseum: 70 per cent of respondents did not support the idea.'

I always thought it was rather obvious that consultation responses are
heavily biased towards opponents of a scheme. You wouldn't ring up the
gas company to tell them they sent you a nice low bill, but you
certainly would if they tried to overcharge you.

The market research TfL did should be much more representative of public
opinion. The 2005 MORI market research says that 48% are in favour of
and 37% are opposed to the scheme, with higher support in Southall and
Uxbridge and lower support in Ealing.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/trams/download...eportFINAL.pdf


First of all it needs be said that MORI are a very professional and objective
polling organisation. Polls for things like general elections are relatively
simple affairs (there really only being three main parties plus the 'don't
knows'). That being said all the pollsters (including MORI) got the prediction
for the 1992 general election badly wrong (in the sense of winning party not
majority!) So it's not an exact science.

Polling for a subject like WLT is far more complex than elections and that is
why there is always a full report given by the polling organisation. If you
are going to comment meaningfully, all of this should be read carefully in
detail. A one liner headline does not really do justice to the report which is
available publicly at the URL which you provided.

Some parts of the detail which can be extracted are as follows:

If you want to be 95% certain of the final result (note still not 100% certain
- that's never possible) you cannot just take the 48% pro and 37% against. The
figures are actually 48+/- 5 pro and 37+/-5 against (Top of page 8 of the
report). So although its is less likely than 48 to 37, it is still within the
95% probability that the result was 43% pro and 42% against. This of course is
a rather different picture.

Of probably much greater significance is the information contained on page 12
which states that only about 25% of respondents, by their own judgment,
considered that they had a good understanding of the scheme and 38% stated
that they only had a limited understanding. Note that the 'undecideds' were
only 15% so even if all of those were in the 'limited understanding' group,
there was still a significant percentage (23%) who definitely voted one way or
the other based on 'a limited understanding' of the scheme'. Note the comment
on page 13,

'Opponents of the WLT are more likely to have a 'good' understanding of the
scheme than those who are in favour of it (35% and 22% respectively).'
We can deduce therefore that many of those who voted in favour had by their
own admission actually a 'limited understanding' of what they were voting for.
If we assume that this group is only slightly more than half of the 23% (as
seems reasonable from the statement quoted from page 13), let's call it 13%
and that if they had had a 'good understanding' then they would have voted
against, then the end result would have been 35+/-5 % for and 50+/-5 % against
- a totally different result.

The results on the bottom of page 9 and the top of page 10 are also very
telling and I have quoted them in full below:
Among those residents who support the WLT scheme, the main reasons relate to
the perception that it will lead to less congestion, journeys will be quicker
and that trams are more environmentally friendly. In contrast, the most common
spontaneous reasons for opposing the scheme are the view that it will lead to
greater congestion in other areas as cars divert to side roads, that it will
not provide a solution to transport problems and that roads are not wide
enough to support the WLT. In addition, when prompted, 71% of residents agree
that the tram will cause too much disruption whilst building work takes place.
When presented with a number of potential benefits of the WLT scheme (e.g.
reduced pollution, more reliable than current bus services, lead to more jobs
in the area) the majority of residents say they would be more in favour of the
scheme if these scenarios transpired.

Similarly, when presented with a list of potential drawbacks of the scheme
(e.g. increased congestion, parts of the Uxbridge Road being closed to
traffic), the majority say they would be less in favour of it. Of note, seven
in ten would be less in favour of the scheme if it resulted in increased
congestion, including 57% of those who currently support the scheme. o On
balance, more residents disagree than agree that they would personally benefit
from the WLT scheme (47% and 38% respectively). Despite this, 59% say they
will actually use it. Of note, 28% of those who oppose the scheme say they are
likely to use the scheme.

In effect the respondents supporting the scheme are saying that they recognise
that there is a problem and that the tramway scheme has been stated to be a
way of solving that problem. They therefore feel that they should support it.
Note of course that no possible alternative options are presented in the poll.
So in effect the question is, 'This is a solution to the Uxbridge Road
congestion problem - do you support it?'

What is of great interest is the statistic at the end. Cynicism has led even
many of those supposed 'supporters' to believe that it really is not going to
work because they say that they will gain no personal benefit from it. Note
that 70% would be less in favour if they were convinced that the scheme was
not going to deliver its promoted benefits.

If 70% of those who were pro scheme for instance were to become agnostic
because of such conviction, then the overall result would be 15+/- 3% in
favour, still 37+/-5% against and nearly half not sure at all!

I would venture to suggest that if far more people understood the issues
better and were honestly informed that there were other (cheaper) options
available, this latter result might actually be far nearer to a true opinion.

The bottom line is that policy in regard to an issue as important and complex
as WLT should be based on all information (and that includes the full detail
of the MORI report). What appears to have been done is that one headline
statistic has been extracted for political expediency. To quote Andrew Lang,

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts-for support rather than
illumination."

David Bradley

In message , David Bradley
writes
'Opponents of the WLT are more likely to have a 'good' understanding of
the scheme than those who are in favour of it (35% and 22%
respectively).' We can deduce therefore that many of those who voted in
favour had by their own admission actually a 'limited understanding'
of what they were voting for. If we assume that this group is only
slightly more than half of the 23% (as seems reasonable from the
statement quoted from page 13), let's call it 13% and that if they had
had a 'good understanding' then they would have voted against, then the
end result would have been 35+/-5 % for and 50+/-5 % against - a
totally different result.
Nice troll. What's that saying? Oh yes, Lies, damned lies and
statistics.
--
Clive

In article , Clive D. W. Feather
writes
The main reason for choosing trams over trolleybuses for any given
scheme is capacity. My vague memory is that the Cross-London route would
require 40tph or 130tbph to provide the same capacity; presumably the
same applies on the Uxbridge Road.

That implies that a trolley-bus can carry only 30% of a tram's
passengers. Why not bigger trolley-buses, maybe bendy ones?
--
Thoss

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, thoss wrote:

In article , Clive D. W. Feather
writes

The main reason for choosing trams over trolleybuses for any given
scheme is capacity. My vague memory is that the Cross-London route
would require 40tph or 130tbph to provide the same capacity; presumably
the same applies on the Uxbridge Road.

That implies that a trolley-bus can carry only 30% of a tram's
passengers. Why not bigger trolley-buses, maybe bendy ones?

For the same reason we don't have bendy-buses the length of a train - the
presence of a track. The track guides the vehicle, at every point along
its length, over a very precisely defined path, with no input from the
driver. This makes it possible for a long, bendy vehicle to take fairly
sharp corners extremely safely.

ISTR the idea of a bus guided automatically by a signal from a cable
buried under the road, a sort of 'virtual tram'; that would presumably
allow much longer buses. I don't know if this is a real technology or a
pipe dream, though.

tom

--
see im down wid yo sci fi crew

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 31 Oct 2005, thoss wrote:

In article , Clive D. W. Feather
writes

The main reason for choosing trams over trolleybuses for any given
scheme is capacity. My vague memory is that the Cross-London route
would require 40tph or 130tbph to provide the same capacity;
presumably the same applies on the Uxbridge Road.

That implies that a trolley-bus can carry only 30% of a tram's
passengers. Why not bigger trolley-buses, maybe bendy ones?

For the same reason we don't have bendy-buses the length of a train -
the presence of a track. The track guides the vehicle, at every point
along its length, over a very precisely defined path, with no input from
the driver. This makes it possible for a long, bendy vehicle to take
fairly sharp corners extremely safely.

ISTR the idea of a bus guided automatically by a signal from a cable
buried under the road, a sort of 'virtual tram'; that would presumably
allow much longer buses. I don't know if this is a real technology or a
pipe dream, though.

I believe the technology exists to have optically guided trolleybuses,
i.e. following something painted/otherwise marked in the road. A more
pipe-dream style idea has the buses actually following the trolley wires
themselves, subject to needing to maneouvre around obstacles and into
stops. The idea was that pulling into stops could essentially be an
automated procedure depending on the extension of the overhead arms and
feedback from a Kassel kerb at the stop (a specially designed kerb which
helps to guide vehicles to a suitable distance for level boarding).



--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:41:09 +0000, thoss
wrote:

Would that it were so. Unfortunately it is being pushed by Ken L, and
he doesn't seem to pay much attention to public opinion.

Public opinion (or a noisy section of it) will object to ANY proposal.
It's easy to block, hard to achieve. Ken is a doer. Rather like
Thatcher was. I rarely agreed with Maggie and sometimes don't with
Ken. But I admire both of them for actually getting things done.