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Prior to low cost ride sharing, a good bus system that people will use as an alternative to cars pollutes more because it has to run a lot mostly empty buses to
by dfrage 7y ago
Prior to low cost ride sharing, a good bus system that people will use as an alternative to cars pollutes more because it has to run a lot mostly empty buses to satisfy long tail demand.
To the extend low cost ride sharing is a short term unicorn phenomena, that will again become true, although self-contained electric buses might change that a bit. Maybe someday self-driving cars will change this, but that's not in the predictable, foreseeable future.
- davnicwil 7y agoYeah this is the really interesting part - like where does the 'supply provisioned precisely to match demand' thing for self driving cars meet the 'buses/trains are more efficient assuming some % capacity filled', how does that relate to demand changing with hours of the day, where people live, etc. It's just a fascinating optimisation problem. I think the answer is far from clear, and certainly couldn't be reliably approximated without lots of real world data.