Time well spent there, I trust 😊

+Bob Rogers Thanks for your feedback. If you study the public timetables I expect that you will find that each tram is due to have about 5 minutes at the terminus, something quite impossible 20+ years ago. If a tram stays longer, it was early, if less, it was late. The 57s seem to be most affected by delays along the way, so sometimes arrive in pairs. In such situations, strictly allocating one track for each route would not work.

+Kate fromaust Hi Kate, It is especially nice,when a lady enjoys my videos. In coming months we can ride together from East Brighton to Melbourne University then out to Carnegie!

I shall look forward to that!! Seriously though, I absolutely love the Melb trams & I love Melb generally. There are quite a few sites on KZfaq about the Melb trams & most days I spend at least 2 hrs or more watching them! I also love planes & boats. Anything to do with transport really. Can't tell you how much I appreciate it all & I will enjoy riding along with you often :))))) Have a great day!

You often seem to enjoy my videos. Are you in the USA or closer to here?

+reaperexpress I used to be a Melbourne driver. Traffic lights give little assistance to trams but there are two factors which may be assisting the tram in front. One is that in some places between each phase of the traffic lights, a 5 second T light is inserted when a tram is waiting and this is enough to get the tram through the intersection. Some lights are also designed to hold green a bit longer while a tram is stopped over a special induction loop in the road and once the tram moves beyond the loop, the lights turn orange but the tram is already away. That is about the limit of tram traffic light priority in Melbourne. Trams have a mini radio transmitter below the drivers cab and those detection loops in the road thus recognise a tram but not cars etc.

The challenge is that technically anything the signal does which is directly triggered by the tram is called "priority", even when that action doesn't do much to provide good service to the tram. In the US especially you see "bus priority" systems that only extend the green by 10 seconds if the bus happens to be there at the right time, and don't do anything the rest of the time. So buses still probably get stopped more than cars despite the "priority". I've read a bit about the Melbourne priority system since it's often compared to ours in Toronto given the similar operating conditions in our two cities. Both systems even have a similar transponder system for priority requests. But it sounds like the Melbourne system is far more restricted in order to not impact the SCATS adaptive control system's preferred timings too much. If you're aggressive enough, there's a lot you can do with just inserted transit phases and extended greens. For example, if the red light is normally 30 seconds and you can reliably provide up to 30 seconds of extension, then you can theoretically avoid any red lights. The problem being that if the tram takes more than 30 seconds in the priority zone you could miss even the extended light, and if the tram takes less than 30 seconds, it wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the measure. The remaining priority measure is of course truncation - where the opposing signal is shortened. But in Toronto there's not much we can do with truncation because the cross street time is usually just the minimum pedestrian crossing time.

+reaperexpress Yes it does sound as though the traffic priority offered to Melbourne trams is similar to what you described in Toronto. Perhaps you have seen my East Brunswick traffic priority video. That was a line I drove between 1988 and 1994. Despite a lot of bragging about improving tram times on this line, I have only noticed a few places where five second T lights have been added here and there. Some of these delays are quite appallingly long but then if you look at my similar Adelaide video you will see that the trams there get absolutely no form of priority whatsoever. The T light comes up at one point in the entire cycle and that is that. I now live on the Gold Coast and not because it is my local line, there is no doubt that it has the best tram priority in the nation, quite an achievement as no trams had run in this state for around 45 years before its opening. GPS on the trams advise the traffic lights when a tram is coming, and and generally wherever the traffic light cycle is, it is abruptly stopped for the tram to pass through, usually having to slow no more than a little. The traffic light sequence then continues with the next phase which would have occurred after the interruption. Generally the only time a tram has to stop at an intersection is when a tram going the other way had just got its priority and the second one got there too late to trigger its T light. T lights only appear for the direction of the tram which triggered it. BUT it seems to take just the most minor of hiccups anywhere in the system for the line, in part or in full to be shut down for hours, and recently two days. In my mind it is over complicated and overregulated, but when it runs properly it is excellent.