existentialist
Tired and unemotional
TBF, that cuts two ways.
Tram overturns in Croydon - several deaths reported [Nov 2016]
- Thread starter xsunnysuex
- Start date
Callie
Pivoting
Probably a fair few people on there at that point as it was on its approach to a big transport hub at East Croydon...though it was fairly early. Bit early for school kids I guess but workers maybe. Ugh I don't like to think about it too much, I have friends that get the tram regularly.
I am thinking about it too much.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Shocking loss of death. Also seems very high for the kind of accident that's taken place. A derailment with no obvious violent crash against another tram or any other object, the vehicles themselves looking relatively intact on the outside... WTF happened?
Compare it to the much larger Virgin train derailment a few years ago,which involved many more passengers and presumably a far higher speed, and yet there was just one fatality.
Could it be the issue of standing?
It's because the tram slid along on its side. As soon as the glass broke in the windows people on that side would have little protection from objects outside. The tram vehicles have large areas of glass. In contrast windows on the Virgin Pendolino are quite small and form a small proportion of the wall area.
Modern trains are designed to survive derailments, including at speed, up to a point.
On the other hand, I doubt that completely tipping over at speed is an event that's really taken into consideration in designing something like a tram. Seems to me an unusual event. Maybe lessons will be learnt from this though.
This is another in a series of recent rail crashes that have involved curves being taken at excessive speed. We don't yet know if it's the driver's fault in this case, or if it wasn't, whether there was anything that could have been done to prevent it. But for me these kinds of accidents make the case for driverless trains.
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Cheesepig3
Cheese. Cheese. Cats.
This tram is brand new.
I was on it early this year..... not even adverts on the carriages, and the workers were vague about details like the stops.
Something so very 2015 should be better engineered.
I break my lurk to speak.
I was on it early this year..... not even adverts on the carriages, and the workers were vague about details like the stops.
Something so very 2015 should be better engineered.
I break my lurk to speak.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Not so much in favour of driverless trains.
But I would be strongly in favour of
1) the "deadman's handle / pedal" type controllers. They are a serious pita to use, but let go, and the brakes are applied.
2) overspeed control. go too fast and brakes are applied.
3) track brakes for emergency application
4) dead end brake trips
I don't know if any of the above are already fitted to the Croydon trams, but I do know for certain that they are fitted to the Tyneside Metro.
But I would be strongly in favour of
1) the "deadman's handle / pedal" type controllers. They are a serious pita to use, but let go, and the brakes are applied.
2) overspeed control. go too fast and brakes are applied.
3) track brakes for emergency application
4) dead end brake trips
I don't know if any of the above are already fitted to the Croydon trams, but I do know for certain that they are fitted to the Tyneside Metro.
hash tag
Books, not bombs
The reports I have seen say the trams do not self brake at excessive speed. Ive been lazy at not read the whole thread as I was keeping up with the local thread on this.....The curve is particularly sharp. You can hear the wheels groan on the rails when the tram goes round it. Also, it was at the bootom of a steep hill. The speculation is that the driver fell asleep, but why no dead mans handle? Terrible tragedy. It is certainly an arguement for self driving trams.
oneflewover
Following "The Tigers"
xsunnysuex
Life is a horizontal fall.
This is just so heartbreaking. I was saying to my partner it's a good job the tram travelling in the other direction wasn't at the same point, as they so often are. That doesn't bear thinking about.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
1 and 3 have been on almost all trams for the past 100 years. 2 is common in more modern systems, but usually as a maximum speed limiter rather than something like ATO.
It's not going to be something silly like leaves on the track, either. Your standard track brake will normally grip the rail with a force exceeding the weight of the vehicle it's attached to. (Modern trams being heavy buggers - you're looking at 40+ tons a lot of the time. Which always makes me shake my head when drivers seem to want to play chicken with them in the on-road sections.)
Definitely couldn't work in Croydon . So much shared space with cars and people
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
If they can do it with driverless cars, then yes.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Do you think the absence of a human driver will make that much difference? Most people are going to avoid being hit by a tram, regardless of how it is being driven, and of the small number who are careless, reckless, or inattentive enough to get in a tram's way, I don't imagine many will give any consideration to whether the tram is being human-driven or not. And if there are people who set out to exploit some aspect of the automatic driver's way of working, they'll out themselves pretty quickly and can be dealt with via CCTV footage and usual road laws. Also, I imagine there are ways in which an automatically driven tram can be programmed that might even deal with such situations better than a human driver, not least the fact that there isn't actually another human to get into a pissing contest with in the first place.
In some ways, automatically driving a tram should be a far less difficult task than driving a car.
hash tag
Books, not bombs
Most of Croydon's trams have relatively well defined tracks with well defined pavements alongside like Addiscombe Road, george St and Crown Hill. In Amsterdam, the spaces are very well less defined, have pedestrians all over the tracks, many of which are two way as well. it could work. Driverless cars, all over the road and lots and lots of things to look out for have the technology to miss stuff and it's being improved all the time. A tram on a track should by comparison be much easier, surely?
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I think that, like mauvais says, the technology has to be proven in the setting, but in some ways there's no way of doing that without actually trying to make it happen. I am sure that, if autonomous car software is able to discriminate objects well enough to operate safely on roads, it wouldn't require a lot of adaptation to function in the tram environment. It could even be that autonomous trams could actually be better at dealing with the situations that currently arise where people step in front of trams - an automatic system, assuming it could reliably detect obstructions, could do a better job of deciding whether it can even stop at all, and if so bringing the tram to a halt appropriately quickly (I don't suppose you want to injure 100+ standing passengers by applying the track brake just to avoid hitting a car that's pulled in front, for example - but those are calculations that will be able to be far better made automatically).Most of Croydon's trams have relatively well defined tracks with well defined pavements alongside like Addiscombe Road, george St and Crown Hill. In Amsterdam, the spaces are very well less defined, have pedestrians all over the tracks, many of which are two way as well. it could work. Driverless cars, all over the road and lots and lots of things to look out for have the technology to miss stuff and it's being improved all the time. A tram on a track should by comparison be much easier, surely?
mauvais
on reddit or something
Autonomous vehicles are risk averse and you can quite easily bully them into submission. They can assert themselves to avoid that but it results in accidents and it's not a brilliant idea to fight back against pedestrians with a 40t tram. So they'd probably end up regularly stuck in crowded non-linear, non-segregated environments.
Tram drivers (I travel on one regularly) are good at the balancing act of warning people in advance, making progress and not actually hitting anyone.
Automated oversight might be a good compromise but then you're into the realms of the dangerous mixed mode automation as seen in automotive and aviation. A mostly redundant driver is a totally useless driver.
Tram drivers (I travel on one regularly) are good at the balancing act of warning people in advance, making progress and not actually hitting anyone.
Automated oversight might be a good compromise but then you're into the realms of the dangerous mixed mode automation as seen in automotive and aviation. A mostly redundant driver is a totally useless driver.
Maggot
The Cake of Liberty
A large amount of the tracks are on roads, cross roads, go through busy pedestrian areas, I don't think driverless trams could work there. Can they tell the difference between pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, cars, street furniture etc?Most of Croydon's trams have relatively well defined tracks with well defined pavements alongside like Addiscombe Road, george St and Crown Hill. In Amsterdam, the spaces are very well less defined, have pedestrians all over the tracks, many of which are two way as well. it could work. Driverless cars, all over the road and lots and lots of things to look out for have the technology to miss stuff and it's being improved all the time. A tram on a track should by comparison be much easier, surely?
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Increasingly, yes.
SikhWarrioR
And the Worms ate into his brain
Dont forget Birmingham {West midlands Metro} adding that will put the total to well over 100 miles
Maggot
The Cake of Liberty
Really? That's quite impressive, but I still wouldn't trust a driverless tram.
A couple of years ago I fell off my bike on the section of Addiscombe Road which is also a tramway. I was lying there and a tram was approaching, which stopped. I would have been much more worried if there was no driver.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
You might have been...but you might not have to had been.
Cid
Proper break this time
In a sense it doesn't really matter whether an obstruction is human or an inanimate object; you don't particularly want a tram driving over a bike whether there's a person on it or not.
mauvais
on reddit or something
And Edinburgh, and Blackpool, and probably a few others, but I couldn't be bothered to add them up.
Driverless trams are a much easier problem than cars - trams drive a known route over and over and over again. If it looks ( obviously it's a lot more complex than look ) different to how it's meant to look = stop.
It doesn't make any difference what the obstruction is.
Alex
mauvais
on reddit or something
Doo, doo, doo.
We are sorry to announce that due to a conflict between alex's tram design and the ever changing nature of our world, all services to Wherever upon Mimsy have been delayed by approximately... all... minutes.
hash tag
Books, not bombs
I cannot bring myself to quote the source for this!
"Croydon tram crash ‘almost happened a week earlier when vehicle “lifted onto one side” at same corner’"
Lets not forget that that this terrible incident has ruined the lives of dozens if not hundreds of people, even the tram drivers family.
"Croydon tram crash ‘almost happened a week earlier when vehicle “lifted onto one side” at same corner’"
Lets not forget that that this terrible incident has ruined the lives of dozens if not hundreds of people, even the tram drivers family.
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