Why not the trolleybus?

The term 'electric vehicle' to a UK audience today will certainly bring to mind an electric vehicle on rubber tyres, silent, nonpolluting and vibration-free-but it will probably be a milk float The technically-aware will go on to think of recent developments in battery-powered or fuel cell-powered cars, vans and small PCVs. However, not many will think of the trolleybus, unless they have just been on holiday out of the UK. Recent attempts to revive interest in trolleybuses in the UK have all failed, leaving one to consider how such an obviously desirable and civilised form of public transport can possibly be so dismissed. This paper suggests some reasons for this failure.