Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
There seems to be an odd thing with this board where people think the Skytrain's high frequency is unique - it isn't. It's not a choice of long platforms or high frequency, there are many systems that have both.
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You need automation to run high frequencies economically, but you're right that you can have high frequencies with long trains.
However the need for long trains doesn't come until you're already running trains at the maximum possible frequency. If you have 100 married pairs of cars, it makes more sense to run 100 2-car trains at high frequency than 50 4-car trains at only half the frequency. The capacity of the line is the same in both cases, but average wait times are half with the shorter trains.
It only makes sense to run longer trains when demand has increased to the point that your system is saturated with short trains. Therefore the benefits of the long platforms won't be realized until many years after they're built.
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