The article is very unclear, because it keeps saying “light tram”, but also says it’s “inspired by Brisbane”. To be clear: only one of these can be true. Brisbane’s “Metro” is a BRT project with special battery-electric bi-articulated buses designed to look like a tram from a distance, which makes it very much not “cost-effective”.
I think the confusion stems from the fact that the actual vehicle that the Brisbane Metro rolling stock is based on is also called a Hess LighTram. There’s a good chance that this is also going to end up just being a BRT like the Brisbane Metro, or (maybe) an adapted guided bus system. We’ll have to see, it’s still extremely early days for this project. Honestly I’m just glad they’re considering something like this, we have precious few modernized transit options in any of our cities.
The article is very unclear, because it keeps saying “light tram”, but also says it’s “inspired by Brisbane”. To be clear: only one of these can be true. Brisbane’s “Metro” is a BRT project with special battery-electric bi-articulated buses designed to look like a tram from a distance, which makes it very much not “cost-effective”.
I think the confusion stems from the fact that the actual vehicle that the Brisbane Metro rolling stock is based on is also called a Hess LighTram. There’s a good chance that this is also going to end up just being a BRT like the Brisbane Metro, or (maybe) an adapted guided bus system. We’ll have to see, it’s still extremely early days for this project. Honestly I’m just glad they’re considering something like this, we have precious few modernized transit options in any of our cities.