Comment by jeroenhd
14 hours ago
Trams can share lanes with normal car traffic. There's still a massive cost in terms of infrastructure (especially the overhead lines, utilities that need to get out of the way for the rail base, that sort of thing), but this project has a detailed description of why those aren't a problem for this project.
The tram they show in the animation also very much has a driver in the front.
If they can deliver on what they show in their demos, I don't see why the size of the trams or the infrastructure should be a problem. All the expensive stuff has been thought about, the system barely takes up any extra space, and the system is capable of scaling up by just sending more vehicles into service.
Generally I'm in favour of this sort of project, but having lived in Coventry (albeit a while ago) I'm a little sceptical: it's basically just adding a lot of infrastructure cost to what were low frequency suburban bus routes (the actual centre of Coventry is compact and walkable). You can run regular buses with similar capacity on batteries too, and divert them more easily.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44217164 . Coventry actually does, right now, run quite an extensive network of electric regular buses, not only out of Pool Meadow but also the ones that circle the Trinity Street/Burges loop. And they had to divert them to build the demonstrator track for this.