I recently read that the SuperTram required £2.20 of funding for each £1 that it receives in fares.

Can anyone out there substantiate that?

How come it gets funding? I thought it was owned by Stagecoach.

The tram does operate on a purely commercial basis, and does actually turn a profit I believe.

Where that figure may have come from is the fact that the amount Stagecoach paid to take the operation over was much less than the construction debt that was written off.

Originally posted by Andy C
The tram does operate on a purely commercial basis, and does actually turn a profit I believe.

Where that figure may have come from is the fact that the amount Stagecoach paid to take the operation over was much less than the construction debt that was written off.


That's right, the cost being bandied around factor in the greatly ballooned budget for development. The tram system is fantastic, its only downfall is the limited routes that it covers. I travel by tram a lot, but it's almost a mile to the nearest stop. Not many people are willing to walk any great distance to use the service, until the routes are extended, the supertram will not meet its full potential.

I'm not sure if it's still the case but the tram used to be subsidised by the rate payers of Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham etc. I used to pay Barnsley council tax and it was always a bone of contention in the Barnsley Chron that we had to pay for a tram that we couldn't use.

So much for forsight and planning.
Pity they ripped up all the track in the late 50s early 60s

From what I understood from a visit to Supertram with a school trip one year the Tories when they were in agreed to pay off part of the debt if supertram was built/installed. When the labour government took over the agreement wasn't upheld. Had it been, Supertram would have been in profit from beginning. Not entirely sure of this so if anyone knows more / different then apologies!

I love the trams, I have roughly a mile walk to my stop or 2mins walk to the bus..

I walk the mile ;)

The trams rule... Shame I have to get a bus to Hillsborough from the top of Stannington to get at them, cos the originally proposed Stannington supertram link was rejected cos all the locals objected :loopy:

It's fantatic. Please extend it into Derbyshire from Halfway.

Or maybe the question should be "What is the real benefit of Supertram?"

After their slow start, the Trams seem very full at rush hour - and they seem very very full before and after major events at the Arena / Stadium. Just think if all those people tried to travel by car - Sheffield would get major gridlock.

As far as I know, Stagecoach only took over the running of the tram - I think the rolling stock and tracks, etc are still in the ownership of South Yorkshire Light Railway Ltd, and Stagecoach rent them. Odd arrangement, but I guess they couldn't persuade Stagecoach to buy the lot!

Although the most recent news update on the Sheffield supertram website state's the system now carries over 11 miliion passengers a year the National Audit Office reports otherwise.

http://www.nao.org.uk/pn/03-04/0304518.htm

"Although the Department for Transport expects systems to be self-financing, four systems have been running at a financial loss, mainly because passenger numbers and hence revenues have been well below those forecast. Passenger numbers have fallen well short of expectations: for example, by 38 per cent on the Midland Metro and 45 per cent on the Sheffield Supertram. Losses are discouraging the private sector from investing in new lines."

The Government has refused Leeds City Coucil approval to build their Supertram project because of the above report.

Thank god we got our tram before these reports came out!

What really gets me is that the traffic lights all have to go to green for the tram, and they go green when the tram's about 1/2 mile away. And we poor drivers are stuck at a red light in an ever growing traffic queue just so the tram doesn't have to wait for a minute. And they have tram gates blocking the routes of us road tax payers so the tram can get through easily. grrrrr
forgive the ranting but I can't complain to the wife, she uses it for work and loves it.