Carbon pollution: trams vs cars - think about it.

I thought I saw every argument against trams in the context of Gold Coast tram extension to Burleigh, including such ridiculous ones as "trams are ugly" and "trams are outdated technology", but this is something new:

The comment appeared under this post:

I followed up to make sure I understood the argument, made by a retired "electronics technician & field application engineer" from North Carolina: 

Ok, so Wayne did not want to go back to his original "think about it" scenario, but also did not recant it.

Let's look at it, as if it was a "what if" question: 

What generates more carbon pollution for a typical commuter, a petrol car or an electric grid that powers an electric tram?

Let's assume that we have x commuters who can either go from A to B and back by their car or by a tram. Let's assume that they spend the same amount of time commuting: 30 minutes each way. This may happen in a city like Gold Coast between some locations (very few, because there is only one tram line) and during some times of the day:

 

Trams usually don't run at night, but since the argument uses a period of 24 hours, let's take that. The carbon intensity of electricity may vary greatly between countries/cities and times of day. At one end there is France with nuclear power plants supplanted by solar and wind, with carbon intensity of about 20 g/kWh throughout the day and night:

At the other is Poland with coal generation supplanted by wind, solar and gas, with carbon intensity between 600 and 900 g/kWh, let's say 800 on average on that day:

Queensland is perhaps more typical for the world. The electrical grid here is running on coal, solar and gas. Data from 20 April shows carbon intensity of 400-700, let's assume average of 600 g/kWh:

For the car, let's take my last petrol car, which was a 2012 Toyota Camry with average fuel consumption of 8.6 litres per 100 km. In Australia, on one hand the three most popular new cars are stupidly big petrol utes (pickups) with Ford Ranger burning 11.5 litres of petrol per 100 km on average, but on the other, the electric cars finally showed up and are growing quickly:

 

The trip distance was 11 km one way, 22 km total, which would burn 1.9 litres of petrol, times 2.3 kg of CO2 per litre =  4.8 kg of CO2.

Gold Coast uses Flexity 2 trams. For their energy consumption let's use the Energy Efficiency Assessment of Rail Freight Transport: Freight Tram in Berlin study, which calculated the use at 3.2 MJ for a fully loaded tram (47 tonnes), flat terrain and traveling for a distance of 250 m between two stops. In Gold Coast the stops are much farther apart (about 1 km), but let's assume the 3.2 MJ per 0.25 km stands. In one hour our tram would travel 22 km, and use 282 MJ of energy, which is 78 kWh, which at 600 g/kWh emits 47 kg of CO2, about 10x the amount of CO2 of a Toyota Camry. According to the argument that the energy needs to be available 24 hours per day, the total CO2 per tram is 1128 kg.

The Gold Coast tram patronage for the last 2 quarters of 2023 was 5.8 million, 32 thousand trips per day, using max 18 trams, gives us 1800 trips per day per tram, 900 passengers. The maximum distance one way is 20 km, with max travel time of 45 minutes, so 11 km, 30 minute trip seems like an acceptable average per commuter. When we divide the 1128 kg of CO2 per 900 passengers, we get 1.2 kg per passenger, compared to 4.8 kg when that person is driving a car. The tram, in this scenario emits 4 times less CO2 than a car... not "minuscule".

Things that may change these calculations: the energy mix is changing towards renewables; the energy generation when trams are not running should not be counted; the patronage/ridership per tram, the car fuel efficiency.

Things that will not change: geometry hates cars. Each car needs about 14 m2 parking space at each end of the trip. If the 16,000 people traveling by trams each day would drive instead, the city would need 16,000 extra car parking spaces in the city centre taking up at least 224,000 m2 of space.

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Update: patronage is defined as "A single one way movement of a person from an origin to a destination.", so the number of people per tram per day is half of what I had originally.

A trip to spend a bit of time with mama - #12 Helsinki

Helsinki, pop. 673k, the northernmost city on my trip, about 880 km north of Warsaw, north of Stockholm and Oslo, at southern tip of Greenland, only about 130 km south of Anchorage, Alaska. For the Australian reference: Helsinki would be 1900 km south of Hobart.

I got there by ferry from Tallinn. It takes about 2.5 hours.

Approaching Helsinki.

An old fort.

The ferry docks here, close to the city centre. Nearby you can take the tram, rent a bike, or just walk.

The model of the city with the port top centre at Helsinki City Museum. 

City bikes:

Unlike in Vilnius, you rent a bike directly. If the computer in one does not work, you try another. Unlike in Australia, in Helsinki (and in Vilnius, Warsaw, etc...) you don't need a helmet to ride a bike. Note: wikipedia says that bikes are available from April until 31 October... but who comes to Helsinki in November?

Ok, bike paths:

In Helsinki you are not supposed to ride on footpaths. There are many separated bike paths, and if not, the streets are 30 km/h. It is safe. The number of people killed or seriously injured on roads was 150 in 1992, before 30 km/h limits started appearing, and by 2019 there were 0 pedestrian or bike rider deaths.

Apartments and shops on the left, trams in the middle, bike path on the right.

A bike path in a quiet residential area.

A bike and pedestrian tunnel. Wide, shallow tunnels are better than overpasses. You gain momentum riding down, you use it to climb up. 

This orange bridge is for pedestrians and bike riders. It connects two residential areas.

From the street level you get to it by following the wide circular path on the left. 

Bike racks.

I took a train out of the city and on the way back I noticed yellow bikes at the station, so I got off and I rode the rest of the way to the city center:

The bike path was running along the train tracks.

This is a bike path, with lighting and a noise barrier from trains.

This beats anything in Amsterdam easily.

Bicycle parking under the Pasila train station.

Interesting spots near the path.

A train line on the left, shared pedestrian and bike paths everywhere else.

Very close to the Central Train Station.

Front of the train station. Ukrainian flag on top.
 

Finns have a complicated history with the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. They are firmly on the side of Ukraine, and in NATO now, but they were part of Sweden for most of their history, then Sweden lost a war to Russia in 1809, and they became part of Russia, but paradoxically gained autonomy they didn't have as part of Sweden, then Russia had a revolution in 1917, and Finns declared independence, then in 1939 Soviet Russia attacked them, and they had to give up some territory in 1940, then they tried to take it back in 1941, but lost, and in 1944 had to give up more territory and pay reparations, but they stayed independent, although they had to be neutral and very friendly with the Soviet Union. This ended in 2022 when Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

This makes it kind of love and hate relationship I think, because early on, Russia gave them some autonomy in the form of Grand Duchy of Finland, but then there was Russification, and later invasion, but then, unlike Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia they were not annexed by the Soviet Union, and they did not have a communist government imposed on them, unlike Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, so after all, great times, could have been much worse.

I think this was the only other Ukrainian flag I saw.

East side of the train station. 

The public transport in Helsinki is amazingly good. There are trams - system length 110 km, trains, metro, buses, ferries and bikes - in Helsinki they are integrated with the public transport.

I love these "public transport vs car" posters.
This one says something like "on the metro above the problems".

Here is the metro. Sometimes underground, sometimes elevated.

Interesting entrance to a metro station:

Back to trains:

The Central Train Station is at the bottom of this rail map.
Each line starts here and has its own platform making it a very wide station.

Domestically built InterCity trains. 

Stadler Flirt. Broad track gauge.

Broad loading gauge. 2 + 3 seating in Stadler Flirt.

End of line A: Alberga.

Bus charging stations between the train platform and the shopping mall in Alberga.

A close up of the blue and white BYD eBus electric bus (at the Central Station).

 

On the subject of buses: this is funny to me, because "matka" means mother in Polish (journey or travel in Finnish).

Trams, let's start with some photos from the Tram Museum:

Traditional yellow-green livery.

Interesting solution.

A rabbit.

Residents didn't like the new colours.

Yellow-green it is. Škoda Artic tram... hmm that tram was designed and built in 2012 and Škoda acquired the Transtech Oy factory in 2015. 

Architecture, art, etc:

I think this was the only place with too many cars.

Teslas were noticeable.

The Helsinki Cathedral

Tzar Alexander II

These stairs are too big.

Rare sight in Helsinki, graffiti:

Another huge building with huge stairs.

City Museum. My grandfather had a wall clock like that. 

...and a plane exactly like this one.

OzzyMan keeps talking about medium-strength beer too...

Back to the climbing the stairs to the Cathedral... it's like climbing the pyramids.

At the top.

What happened to the interior of the cathedral? Was it always that bare?

This looks as if these cars drove up the stairs.

Russian Empire two-headed eagle.

Colourful.

Nice.

Helsinki Central Library. Pretty.

Ugly?