What is the advantage of Trams?

[Flygon]

It was rumoured that on test prior to entering service in 1950, early one morning PCC 980 exceeded 70 miles per hour down St Kilda Road. In any case, acceleration and braking performance of PCC 980 was far superior to that of standard W class tramcars.

70 miles per hour is about 115 kilometers per hour.

[Transportman]

I use trams ingame because they do not go and wander all about town, crossing a random train track when a train comes along.

As to why trams are not faster? That's because there is no need for them to be faster. Most trams operate in cities, with short distances between stops and tight corners. So they need to have good acceleration, and speed is less important.

[DeletedUser10]

I'm Not asking for that unrealistic speed.
Maybe 120-130km/h is profitable and quite Not so unrealistic.

120km/h is extremely unrealistic for trams/street cars. One of the advantage of steel rail/steel wheel transportation is the lack of friction between them which leads to greater energy efficiency. But that also means bad acceleration and braking capability, which is vital when you need to operate on streets. Many trams I know have maximum operating speed of 40km/h. Designed operating speed hardly ever exceed 60km/h, although such speed is almost never used on streets. Such trains like Hiroshima tram, or Keihan trains (which you use for your avatar) may have higher maximum designed and operating speed, but those speeds are used for off-the-road sections. If you want trains that runs 60km/h or faster, you certainly need a dedicated rail, not rails on streets. 120km/h? That's completely insane for trams.

First, i don't want the trams to be unrealstic, but i think trams in 120km/h is futuristic, NoT unrealstic.
Why don't you count hover bus in eGRVTS in 515km/h ?
PROBABLY that should be MORE unrealstic.

[DeletedUser10]

Also, there is tram only track avaliable in OTTD, which can allow trams to run faster than 70km/h in real world.

[YNM]

Too often I use trams to connect a few close-by industries, especially with HEQS. Other times I rarely use them, but they're useful if you really don't like your inner-city distribution RVs to wander around in a way that's less elegant. Basically the same in other transport games I guess.

[supermop]

Too often I use trams to connect a few close-by industries, especially with HEQS. Other times I rarely use them, but they're useful if you really don't like your inner-city distribution RVs to wander around in a way that's less elegant. Basically the same in other transport games I guess.

Really the biggest advantage of trams in OpenTTD is that people like trams, and want to use them. As all trams are added by NewGRF, their performance is dictated by the wishes of the people who wanted to see trams in the game. In deciding to code a tram, most developers probably are on some level expressing an appreciation of a real tram or tram system, so naturally they would be inclined to at least roughly base their NewGRF on the real-world nature of tram networks, where trams are high capacity and efficient but travel slowly to operate on city streets.

Of course, there is no prohibition in Open TTD from making a tram with a very high top speed, but so far, most newGRF authors have decided doing so doesn't provide any particular entertainment value to them. You could if you wanted, make a set of vehicles where all trams were ridiculously overpowered, or one where all buses are useless - it is up to you to play however you like.

I will say, however, that with most road-vehicle sets currently available, trams almost always beat buses: the game quickly throws an almost inexhaustible supply of passengers at you in cities. Taking 40 passengers 10 tiles in 8 days is never going to beat taking 100 passengers 10 tiles in 10 days. Add in the fact that many buses load slower, and take up space in a station that could be used for a tram.

[YNM]

Really the biggest advantage of trams in OpenTTD is that people like trams, and want to use them.

True. But sometimes, they're useful because they wander around less than normal road vehicles. I take another game for example : Transport Fever, the busses will take any road, not necessarily those with bus lanes, but the trams will always take the tram lines. Useful when you want to deliberately route them only though the "main" thoroughfares, say higher-speed roads (granted roadtypes isn't quite there yet in OTTD).

[DeletedUser10]

And I wondered the good point between trains and trams. The points are:

No need to put signal.
No collision.
Already dual tracked.
Don't have to remove road.
And... don't make local authorities furious.

[kamnet]

And I wondered the good point between trains and trams. The points are:

No need to put signal.
No collision.
Already dual tracked.
Don't have to remove road.
And... don't make local authorities furious.

All very good points!

[acs121]

It's a very old topic but I'd like to add that high-speed trams are somewhat useless as curves will restrict their speed anyways.

[pelya]

In my city, buses are constantly waiting in traffic jams, but trams have their own separate fenced-off lane. So even though the bus comes to the stop each 15 minutes, you're spending 2x more time in it than in a tram, and it's not fun when a nearby truck is fuming diesel into your window, which does not happen when riding a tram.
There are also older tram lines without their separate lane, but they are mainly in the 'old city', where traffic jams happen less.
OpenTTD does not have the setting for passenger frustration, and no private cars to create traffic jams, something that Android users keep requesting to make the game look more like Sim City.

[Taschi]

In my city, buses are constantly waiting in traffic jams, but trams have their own separate fenced-off lane.

In many cities, bus lanes exist on key routes - and on the other hand, few tram systems don't have sections where the tram shares the road with car traffic.

So this is not necessarily an inherent benefit of trams vs buses.

On the other hand, trams definitely have some advantages in passenger comfort, but like you said, OpenTTD doesn't exactly simulate that.

[mauried]

May be coincidence but putting trams in a town seems to make your town rating go up faster than any other forms of transport.

[2TallTyler]

That’s a coincidence. All vehicle types influence town rating identically.

[acs121]

Not exactly a coincidence, trams transport MUCH more passengers than buses generally. So you avoid congestion.
A tram running with just two stops in the city center will bring you as much reputation as a train full of passengers coming from the other end of the map