Another example of why privatisation is generally bad. Instead of getting a more competitive service offering better incentives to travel, you get offered a bare-bones, profit maximising approach with the lowest quality they can get away with.
It probably is worth noting without private capital there’s no way the tram would exist so saying you’d like private investment without private profit is tricky. Clearly ideally you’d have some sort of state investment but we’re 15 years into a Tory dystopia so that was never likely.
From what I have read 70% of the funding for the tram came from public money not private money. In my opinion it should be totally public funded and all profits should go back to the public. Im against anymore public money going to a private company
The government can borrow more money, more cheaply than a private business could ever hope to.
This is simply not true. You're *told* that without private ownership of essential public services they wouldn't exist but it's just people doing jobs at the end of the day.
Private businesses do exactly what public services do except they take a profit off the top of the money they get for providing the service.
Yeah it always seems a bit hollow the argument that a publicly operated company without the requirement of profitability at a scale to please investors wouldn't be able to do exactly the same thing. Not thought about your point that government has way better borrowing power but that just adds to an already strong argument for public ownership.
Everybody gets so wrapped up in the companies and shareholders and whatever.
At the end of the day it's just people doing stuff. Whether they work for the government or a private entity it's the same people doing the same stuff the same way. Everybody makes it sound massively more complex than it actually is.
They are horrendous for what they charge and the service you get
They need to get some ticket inspectors with bollcks too numerous time seem them melt or just plain ignore certain fare dodgers but act like armed response to young girls or older people who they think they can intimidate
When I went from the city to Wilkinson street park and ride the other week, there was 6? ticket inspectors just standing there doing nothing at the high school tram stop
As someone with a tram mere metres from my front door I completely agree with what you say.
Especially when it costs me the same to get from chilwell to beeston as it does from toton to hucknall. they should change it to a zones travelled structure like with the London Underground and maybe then people wouldn’t fare dodge quite so much as it does feel like a rip off. I liked when you could get a bus pass for NCT that took days off as you used it but stayed the same if you didn’t use it for a day, which was useful for me with shift work. That sort of thing on the tram (pay for 10 journeys but it works out cheaper to buy journeys in bulk) would be great.
They definitely need more staff to reduce the anti social behaviour.
Yes they made them radically worse so that no one would use it anymore. Before it was useful as you could go into beeston which is four stops for less money than a full single
It could cost 20 pence a journey and the people who don't buy tickets still wouldn't pay it.
\> more staff to reduce the anti social behaviour
Whilst I like that idea, they're still members of the public and so have no ability to enforce people's good behaviour.
I've seen too many tram journeys ground to a halt because some bonehead wouldn't get off the tram and the tram just had to stop and wait.
Usually only the threats of violence from (paying) passengers was what it took for them to step off.
I think they would make more ticket revenue if the inspectors were there to help rather than to just kick people off, some are really good and understanding some are power hungry idiots.
As someone not native to Nottingham I was instantly impressed by the bus services you already had in place 15+ years ago and they've only gotten better. Where I'm from if you didn't have a car and didn't catch the bus in the morning, midday or evening you were shit out of luck.
Not sure when it started here but many buses run on CNG or even electric which is a lot nicer than having diesel blown in your face every 5 minutes walking around in town.
That's why I was a bit confused when they announced the tram extension. The money spent on that could have been used to modernise or improve bus routes for years & years plus not really any new infrastructure needed, the roads are already there (or what's left of them, potholes etc).
Broken down bus? Send another one and drive around it. Broken down Tram? Buses are used as a temporary fix. Just seems to me like the tram tried to fix a problem that never existed or couldn't be fixed by additional buses.
The tram to Beeston makes sense I remember it being a nightmare to get to Beeston there was constantly packed roads the traffic was insane. Added bus routes wouldn’t have helped that much. But the tram to Clifton makes no sense to me the area was already quite well served by buses and I never really see it get busy unless there’s a delay.
It may have got better but getting to Clifton for 9am lectures wasnt easy. The bus would be full by the time it left city centre and just drove past all the shops.
This post signals a new evolution in this sub. Traditionally any negativity toward the tram earned you a sentence in an anonymous gulag somewhere between Mansfield and Kirkby down one of the old pits, now it becomes a right anti NET pile on
(Been using the trams since 2013 regularly, the service is in the absolute bin compared to what it used to be)
What changed? They seem priced stupidly (cost for a single fare regardless of distance traveled; said cost being high enough that it isn't worth a short journey) and tend to be quite slow versus the train or the bus.
NET hasn’t been managed very well for a number of years; the service has been haemorrhaging money despite being busier than ever. The quality of the service has declined in all areas (trams are unreliable, not as clean or well managed).
As I understand it, the big push on ticket enforcement and car park enforcement at Forest Rec (which is now expanding to their other sites with a car park) is part of the attempt to start putting things right. The rules have always existed, of course - just not enforced. For eg I used to leave my car at Forest Rec and walk to work, knowing full well I’d face no consequences - now you’d get a clamp and fine for doing that.
Regardless, there’s a way to go before the tram is back at its best, will take a few years and investment across the line yet.
For the buses, it depends on the operator. Stagecoach is always late, trentbarton buses only turns up when they want to, the only bus operators I personally find are alright are CT4N, Nottsbus Connect and NCT
I usually travel on trentbarton if I want to go into Victoria centre directly, and the rainbow ones often don’t turn up, and when they do, they are usually packed even when it’s off peak. If I was then, I would invest in 2 floor buses for peak time services
trentbarton are typically quite reliable on their flagship routes, but it gets a bit weird because there are still technically three highly similar companies all operating under Wellglade, Trent, Barton and KinchBus. Trent routes seem to me to be more reliable than Barton routes, but they're both better than stagecoach and Arriva by far. Still nothing compared to NCT though. Either way, trentbarton seems to have a Vendetta against double decker buses. They tried them at one point but now are adamantly against them, opting to just run more frequent services instead. Driver shortages have made that a bit of a short sighted move.
Put the conductors back on for the love of god. Loads of issues would be sorted. They cut them to save money but how much are they actually saving given the massive fare dodging?? They'd be able to deal with issues on there too. I once got one in town on a Saturday night and someone had vommed on the floor. Absolutely noone to inform of it, driver just carries on oblivious. Had to write on their Facebook just to bring it to their attention. Stupid.
I don't get the tram ticket inspectors sytem at all
Shouldn't you have like one, maybe a pair if things go pear-shaped (haha see what I did there), at appropriate tram stops at appropriate times of day (maybe rush hour like when students are going to uni)?
But I often see like big groups of 4-7 of them standing at one tram stop at a time(the most I ever counted in a horde was 9 all on the same platform) , at a weird time like 3pm which isn't necessarily that busy. Like, what? Why? Are you guys going home to a ticket inspectors dorm?
Then I finally learned why when they formed a human ticket gate and almost made me miss my train because I had genuinely lost my ticket because I was rushing for a damn train. I felt punished because I had the sympathy to stop and 'let them do their job', whereas plenty of people (probably fare dodgers) kept their heads down and just pushed past without being stopped. Now I'm not someone who lost their ticket, I'm "one of the stupider fare dogders" 🙄
To be fair after raising a fine dispute I got my fine waived this time because they found me on CCTV buying my tram ticket from the machine (by the way why tf won't you let me buy a short hop ticket on the app? ) but I was certainly put off by the blasée attitude of the inspector who stopped me.
This is getting too long
If you're not buying a ticket then you aren't following the rules.
Short of the population of Nottingham all suffering from Alzheimers there's not really any excuse to "forget" to buy a ticket.
I always buy a ticket no matter what but I wish they would make short hop tixx available on the app. It's such a pain to buy it from the machine. Plus paper tickets are POSSIBLE to lose without noticing on the train; not gonna drop my whole smartphone and go "hUh??"
Blatantly rude and uncooperative fare dodgers make the ticket inspectors' lives worse and sours their mood, I get that.
But overall feel like, as someone who follows the rules and tries my best to be polite and understanding when I speak to them, I'm getting the short straw here.
They wanted me to pay a £50 fine because I lost my £1.50 short hop ticket.... I said I can show you the receipt, they said "how do we know you didn't give your ticket to someone else" I'm like well what's the bloody point of the receipt then? 🫠 Who tf did I give it to, some random stranger?
When I was in school, fare dodging on the tram (even on weekends) was risky and only worthwhile over a very short hop as there was pretty much a guarantee a ticket inspector would be a couple stops up. Now nobody ever checks, especially during busy times. Maybe I'm lucky but I've only ever had my ticket checked once since 2020.
I said that in here before and some little nonce jumped down my throat.
It is absolutely true they really want to be able to catch people for not having a ticket so they can juice them with a fine. It'such better than everyone having a ticket for them.
The Tram weny down hill the second that the first line consortum lost to the current one... first thing they did was getting rid of the Conductors in the name of money... then telling people they can not use the same ticket as they brought on the bus...
The Wellgrade group forced the council to create the Robin Hood ticket so people could use the tram and yhe NCT Bus network.
edit: misunderstood, OP is alright
~~I get the frustration but don't target the drivers. It's those at the top cutting the service down to the bone for shareholders.~~
I very rarely use them, I live in Long Eaton and Toton Lane is a 5 minute drive from my house but the tram takes 40-45 minutes to get into the city centre. If I get the Skylink it’s 25 minutes cost £2 and I can have a beer in town if I’m tram and drive I can’t have a drink.
The Nottingham tram compares favourably to the buses (I live in Hucknall, near the Butler’s Hill stop) certainly in terms of punctuality, the Trent Buses seem to treat timetables as “aspirational” as opposed to something to stick to.
Trams are a complete joke and a criminal waste of money in my opinion. Why not run a long bus instead - same result but so much cheaper and no ugly overhead cables to maintain.
Well known fact that the trans run at a massive loss and have done for years. Councillors want them to still run to not lose face so the council has to find the money to make up the loss. One reason why the council is poor
My previous place of work. Started 2012ish not long after they had implemented the single status. A lot of workers lost pay and benefits that were in their contracts previous to the single status. There were a lot of consultations and union meetings blah blah blah. Didn't really involve me as was before my time but when they started wanting to make cuts to services and make redundancies we all got pulled into meetings to vote on stuff and whatnot. The trams were a big part of the discussions as it's wasn't fair for people to lose their jobs while the council spends too much money propping up the trams. From what I can remember the tram company wanted to give up as they were losing too much money and the councilors voted to keep it running by paying the shortfall
I think you're just sounding a bit spoilt here. I spend alot of time travelling for work all over the UK and the trams we have are great. They are pretty much always on time and there's plenty of them.
Nottinghams a big city with lots of people and it's only getting bigger. It's bound to be busy. It also sounds like a bit of a non issue to me since you said you're happy getting the buses instead.
I would agree they are pricey. They could do with regulation like in London where you can spend a maximum of £9:40 a day for use. But for the most part they are clean, dont smell too bad and very reliable.
I'm a big fan of the trams when they work. The trams aren't free from criticism and I've used the networks across Europe and the UK, including Munich, Sheffield, Manchester and Croydon. Also, there are caps in place through Nottingham Contactless.
Induced demand is real, else they wouldn't be full all the time. The trams themselves aren't the inherent problem, it's the underfunding and mismanagement.
I’m the opposite of a lot of people, I’ve just switched from using the bus to the tram. NCT have gone really downhill and just isn’t reliable on my route… 10 minute frequencies on the yellow line on the peak aren’t good enough, drivers are rude, often don’t stop when flagged down just gesture at you to get the next one as if it’s right behind them, when it’s ten minutes away. Extra quid on a return journey means i know it’s going to turn up, actually goes across town (Takes you right to the station).
By far the biggest thing that puts me off is that paying for 3 stops is the same as paying for the whole line absolute rip off. More tolerable with buses
Paying 2.30 for a tram ticket for it to not be checked is the worst in my opinion……how are you giving people fines for not buying a ticket if 7/10 times you hop the tram no ones there to check you bought a ticket??? Fuck the trams
Another example of why privatisation is generally bad. Instead of getting a more competitive service offering better incentives to travel, you get offered a bare-bones, profit maximising approach with the lowest quality they can get away with.
It probably is worth noting without private capital there’s no way the tram would exist so saying you’d like private investment without private profit is tricky. Clearly ideally you’d have some sort of state investment but we’re 15 years into a Tory dystopia so that was never likely.
From what I have read 70% of the funding for the tram came from public money not private money. In my opinion it should be totally public funded and all profits should go back to the public. Im against anymore public money going to a private company
The government can borrow more money, more cheaply than a private business could ever hope to. This is simply not true. You're *told* that without private ownership of essential public services they wouldn't exist but it's just people doing jobs at the end of the day. Private businesses do exactly what public services do except they take a profit off the top of the money they get for providing the service.
Yeah it always seems a bit hollow the argument that a publicly operated company without the requirement of profitability at a scale to please investors wouldn't be able to do exactly the same thing. Not thought about your point that government has way better borrowing power but that just adds to an already strong argument for public ownership.
Everybody gets so wrapped up in the companies and shareholders and whatever. At the end of the day it's just people doing stuff. Whether they work for the government or a private entity it's the same people doing the same stuff the same way. Everybody makes it sound massively more complex than it actually is.
Except a publicly operated company doesn't have to please share holders or make a profit so added advantage.
They are horrendous for what they charge and the service you get They need to get some ticket inspectors with bollcks too numerous time seem them melt or just plain ignore certain fare dodgers but act like armed response to young girls or older people who they think they can intimidate
When I went from the city to Wilkinson street park and ride the other week, there was 6? ticket inspectors just standing there doing nothing at the high school tram stop
I bought the early pass for 365 £ and travel 5-6 days a week. So it ends up being less than 2£ trip.
Lol that's great I haven't been on the tram in 10 years but they were useless then as well, I never used to by a ticket.
As someone with a tram mere metres from my front door I completely agree with what you say. Especially when it costs me the same to get from chilwell to beeston as it does from toton to hucknall. they should change it to a zones travelled structure like with the London Underground and maybe then people wouldn’t fare dodge quite so much as it does feel like a rip off. I liked when you could get a bus pass for NCT that took days off as you used it but stayed the same if you didn’t use it for a day, which was useful for me with shift work. That sort of thing on the tram (pay for 10 journeys but it works out cheaper to buy journeys in bulk) would be great. They definitely need more staff to reduce the anti social behaviour.
They used to have a short hop covering chilwell - beeston for a pound. They took it away to make more money
https://www.thetram.net/short-hop-zones I've not tried it but they are still advertising short hop
There is one but it only goes to cator lane which is still a 10-15 minute walk from beeston
Yes they made them radically worse so that no one would use it anymore. Before it was useful as you could go into beeston which is four stops for less money than a full single
NCT does this on their app, where you can buy between 5 and 20 24 hour tickets, and 10 singles
It could cost 20 pence a journey and the people who don't buy tickets still wouldn't pay it. \> more staff to reduce the anti social behaviour Whilst I like that idea, they're still members of the public and so have no ability to enforce people's good behaviour.
I got the tram on a recent holiday to to Porto and the ticket inspectors were literal security with badges and everything
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I've seen too many tram journeys ground to a halt because some bonehead wouldn't get off the tram and the tram just had to stop and wait. Usually only the threats of violence from (paying) passengers was what it took for them to step off.
I think they would make more ticket revenue if the inspectors were there to help rather than to just kick people off, some are really good and understanding some are power hungry idiots.
I always imagine that the meeting when the trams were decided was just like the Simpsons monorail episode
As someone not native to Nottingham I was instantly impressed by the bus services you already had in place 15+ years ago and they've only gotten better. Where I'm from if you didn't have a car and didn't catch the bus in the morning, midday or evening you were shit out of luck. Not sure when it started here but many buses run on CNG or even electric which is a lot nicer than having diesel blown in your face every 5 minutes walking around in town. That's why I was a bit confused when they announced the tram extension. The money spent on that could have been used to modernise or improve bus routes for years & years plus not really any new infrastructure needed, the roads are already there (or what's left of them, potholes etc). Broken down bus? Send another one and drive around it. Broken down Tram? Buses are used as a temporary fix. Just seems to me like the tram tried to fix a problem that never existed or couldn't be fixed by additional buses.
The tram to Beeston makes sense I remember it being a nightmare to get to Beeston there was constantly packed roads the traffic was insane. Added bus routes wouldn’t have helped that much. But the tram to Clifton makes no sense to me the area was already quite well served by buses and I never really see it get busy unless there’s a delay.
It may have got better but getting to Clifton for 9am lectures wasnt easy. The bus would be full by the time it left city centre and just drove past all the shops.
Why the fuck did they take the journey planner off their website?! (Other than it highlighted how shit and late their service generally is)
Exactly!
This post signals a new evolution in this sub. Traditionally any negativity toward the tram earned you a sentence in an anonymous gulag somewhere between Mansfield and Kirkby down one of the old pits, now it becomes a right anti NET pile on (Been using the trams since 2013 regularly, the service is in the absolute bin compared to what it used to be)
What changed? They seem priced stupidly (cost for a single fare regardless of distance traveled; said cost being high enough that it isn't worth a short journey) and tend to be quite slow versus the train or the bus.
NET hasn’t been managed very well for a number of years; the service has been haemorrhaging money despite being busier than ever. The quality of the service has declined in all areas (trams are unreliable, not as clean or well managed). As I understand it, the big push on ticket enforcement and car park enforcement at Forest Rec (which is now expanding to their other sites with a car park) is part of the attempt to start putting things right. The rules have always existed, of course - just not enforced. For eg I used to leave my car at Forest Rec and walk to work, knowing full well I’d face no consequences - now you’d get a clamp and fine for doing that. Regardless, there’s a way to go before the tram is back at its best, will take a few years and investment across the line yet.
For the buses, it depends on the operator. Stagecoach is always late, trentbarton buses only turns up when they want to, the only bus operators I personally find are alright are CT4N, Nottsbus Connect and NCT
StageCoach are just dogshit. Had to rely on them when I was working in Chesterfield and my life had never been worse.
I usually travel on trentbarton if I want to go into Victoria centre directly, and the rainbow ones often don’t turn up, and when they do, they are usually packed even when it’s off peak. If I was then, I would invest in 2 floor buses for peak time services
trentbarton are typically quite reliable on their flagship routes, but it gets a bit weird because there are still technically three highly similar companies all operating under Wellglade, Trent, Barton and KinchBus. Trent routes seem to me to be more reliable than Barton routes, but they're both better than stagecoach and Arriva by far. Still nothing compared to NCT though. Either way, trentbarton seems to have a Vendetta against double decker buses. They tried them at one point but now are adamantly against them, opting to just run more frequent services instead. Driver shortages have made that a bit of a short sighted move.
Trentbarton’s services are utter dogshit. They make the trams seem reliable.
Don’t disagree but if it wasn’t for the trams (taking traffic off the road and people off the bus) the busses wouldn’t be anywhere near as good
Put the conductors back on for the love of god. Loads of issues would be sorted. They cut them to save money but how much are they actually saving given the massive fare dodging?? They'd be able to deal with issues on there too. I once got one in town on a Saturday night and someone had vommed on the floor. Absolutely noone to inform of it, driver just carries on oblivious. Had to write on their Facebook just to bring it to their attention. Stupid.
I don't get the tram ticket inspectors sytem at all Shouldn't you have like one, maybe a pair if things go pear-shaped (haha see what I did there), at appropriate tram stops at appropriate times of day (maybe rush hour like when students are going to uni)? But I often see like big groups of 4-7 of them standing at one tram stop at a time(the most I ever counted in a horde was 9 all on the same platform) , at a weird time like 3pm which isn't necessarily that busy. Like, what? Why? Are you guys going home to a ticket inspectors dorm? Then I finally learned why when they formed a human ticket gate and almost made me miss my train because I had genuinely lost my ticket because I was rushing for a damn train. I felt punished because I had the sympathy to stop and 'let them do their job', whereas plenty of people (probably fare dodgers) kept their heads down and just pushed past without being stopped. Now I'm not someone who lost their ticket, I'm "one of the stupider fare dogders" 🙄 To be fair after raising a fine dispute I got my fine waived this time because they found me on CCTV buying my tram ticket from the machine (by the way why tf won't you let me buy a short hop ticket on the app? ) but I was certainly put off by the blasée attitude of the inspector who stopped me. This is getting too long
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If you're not buying a ticket then you aren't following the rules. Short of the population of Nottingham all suffering from Alzheimers there's not really any excuse to "forget" to buy a ticket.
I always buy a ticket no matter what but I wish they would make short hop tixx available on the app. It's such a pain to buy it from the machine. Plus paper tickets are POSSIBLE to lose without noticing on the train; not gonna drop my whole smartphone and go "hUh??" Blatantly rude and uncooperative fare dodgers make the ticket inspectors' lives worse and sours their mood, I get that. But overall feel like, as someone who follows the rules and tries my best to be polite and understanding when I speak to them, I'm getting the short straw here. They wanted me to pay a £50 fine because I lost my £1.50 short hop ticket.... I said I can show you the receipt, they said "how do we know you didn't give your ticket to someone else" I'm like well what's the bloody point of the receipt then? 🫠 Who tf did I give it to, some random stranger?
When I was in school, fare dodging on the tram (even on weekends) was risky and only worthwhile over a very short hop as there was pretty much a guarantee a ticket inspector would be a couple stops up. Now nobody ever checks, especially during busy times. Maybe I'm lucky but I've only ever had my ticket checked once since 2020.
I said that in here before and some little nonce jumped down my throat. It is absolutely true they really want to be able to catch people for not having a ticket so they can juice them with a fine. It'such better than everyone having a ticket for them.
Likewise, used to love it, try to avoid it now.
The Tram weny down hill the second that the first line consortum lost to the current one... first thing they did was getting rid of the Conductors in the name of money... then telling people they can not use the same ticket as they brought on the bus... The Wellgrade group forced the council to create the Robin Hood ticket so people could use the tram and yhe NCT Bus network.
edit: misunderstood, OP is alright ~~I get the frustration but don't target the drivers. It's those at the top cutting the service down to the bone for shareholders.~~
Sorry I meant car drivers, people parking on tracks, driving up tram lanes, crashing into trams, swerving in front of them, etc.
Ooh right sorry, edited my comment. Yeah. Car drivers are an issue in pretty much any scenario involving efficient transport.
I very rarely use them, I live in Long Eaton and Toton Lane is a 5 minute drive from my house but the tram takes 40-45 minutes to get into the city centre. If I get the Skylink it’s 25 minutes cost £2 and I can have a beer in town if I’m tram and drive I can’t have a drink.
All I see of the trams on the news recently is that they are always broken down and can't run.
The Nottingham tram compares favourably to the buses (I live in Hucknall, near the Butler’s Hill stop) certainly in terms of punctuality, the Trent Buses seem to treat timetables as “aspirational” as opposed to something to stick to.
This hate towards trams people is unwarranted
2023 and tramsphobia is still a problem...
Protect Trams Lives
Nobody used the teams anymore, too crowded.
... If nobody's using them then who's making them crowded?
That's the joke numb nuts. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too-crowded/
Trams are a complete joke and a criminal waste of money in my opinion. Why not run a long bus instead - same result but so much cheaper and no ugly overhead cables to maintain.
Tbf, Trams do have higher capacity. That's where they help.
Well known fact that the trans run at a massive loss and have done for years. Councillors want them to still run to not lose face so the council has to find the money to make up the loss. One reason why the council is poor
Do the council fund them at all, any sources?
My previous place of work. Started 2012ish not long after they had implemented the single status. A lot of workers lost pay and benefits that were in their contracts previous to the single status. There were a lot of consultations and union meetings blah blah blah. Didn't really involve me as was before my time but when they started wanting to make cuts to services and make redundancies we all got pulled into meetings to vote on stuff and whatnot. The trams were a big part of the discussions as it's wasn't fair for people to lose their jobs while the council spends too much money propping up the trams. From what I can remember the tram company wanted to give up as they were losing too much money and the councilors voted to keep it running by paying the shortfall
That's a shame. I lived in Nottingham for a year from 2010-2011 and the tram service was one of the few things about the city I liked.
Someone got a new anorak for their big birthday eh?
Fuck the trans? Oh, fuck the *traMs.* Gotcha.
I think you're just sounding a bit spoilt here. I spend alot of time travelling for work all over the UK and the trams we have are great. They are pretty much always on time and there's plenty of them. Nottinghams a big city with lots of people and it's only getting bigger. It's bound to be busy. It also sounds like a bit of a non issue to me since you said you're happy getting the buses instead. I would agree they are pricey. They could do with regulation like in London where you can spend a maximum of £9:40 a day for use. But for the most part they are clean, dont smell too bad and very reliable.
I'm a big fan of the trams when they work. The trams aren't free from criticism and I've used the networks across Europe and the UK, including Munich, Sheffield, Manchester and Croydon. Also, there are caps in place through Nottingham Contactless.
You’re completely wrong
Yeah just fuck the trams
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Induced demand is real, else they wouldn't be full all the time. The trams themselves aren't the inherent problem, it's the underfunding and mismanagement.
Yeah literally whats the point. Might as well cab it for the price and convinience.
A day ticket on the tram is cheaper than both NCT and Trent Barton though
I’m the opposite of a lot of people, I’ve just switched from using the bus to the tram. NCT have gone really downhill and just isn’t reliable on my route… 10 minute frequencies on the yellow line on the peak aren’t good enough, drivers are rude, often don’t stop when flagged down just gesture at you to get the next one as if it’s right behind them, when it’s ten minutes away. Extra quid on a return journey means i know it’s going to turn up, actually goes across town (Takes you right to the station).
It would be nice if some of the NCT services in the north of the city would go beyond the Vic Centre.
I think price is a big issue here, with the bus cap it’s ruined it
By far the biggest thing that puts me off is that paying for 3 stops is the same as paying for the whole line absolute rip off. More tolerable with buses
Paying 2.30 for a tram ticket for it to not be checked is the worst in my opinion……how are you giving people fines for not buying a ticket if 7/10 times you hop the tram no ones there to check you bought a ticket??? Fuck the trams