I've had a few months now to trial the new trams in everday life and I'm growing to notice they have some pretty major flaws.
- The ride quality is far worse than the T68 series. They're smoother at street running, but on the BR sections they're unbelieveably bouncy and can tilt rather alarmingly. They also judder quite suddely without much warning.
- The GPS system is knackered, so the trams have no idea where they are, so much so that the passenger announcements are now disabled on the M5000 series, because they're wrong 90% of the time. The onscreen PID displays still show that the tram is absaloutely clueless as to it's current location.
- They get dirty very very easily. A few of them are already starting to become quite dirty and unpleasent.
- The "smart lighting" creates a rather dark interior in certain situations. While the lights invariably always come on for a tunnel or underpass, there are times where the tram becomes a bit too dark for comfort, especially in the mornings and evenings, and passing tress for example, where the sensors see the light but you don't.
- The horns are too quiet, and are hard to hear for the general public. This has had the effect of making more sudden stops when in street running than the older trams have too. Plus it's outright dangerous. The horn can't be heard if you have headphones on. That's just not good news really.
All in all a good effort by Bombardier, but work needs to be done.