5 ms·

The only reason busses are the size they are is the labor cost of the driver only makes sense with many, many passengers. When that is eliminated, the equation

by npunt 7y ago

The only reason busses are the size they are is the labor cost of the driver only makes sense with many, many passengers. When that is eliminated, the equation changes. Even if these weren't point-to-point, smaller vehicles can a) serve more routes that would otherwise be below breakeven for minimum passengers served by a bus, b) be more comfortable for passengers to enter/exit, and c) take up less room on streets. Buses barely fit on streets, they only make sense on very dense thoroughfares as an alternative to rail.

Nition 7y ago
Plus it can come right to your house at (roughly) the time you want it. Closer to being like owning a car.
eropple 7y ago
Labor costs are the only thing? Fuel efficiency and traffic (how many double parked Ubers jamming a single lane road will I see tomorrow? Will it be more or less than half a dozen?) would like a word.
- stickfigure 7y ago
  How many empty or near-empty buses will you see driving around tomorrow?
  - snickerbockers 7y ago
    I guess it depends on where when and where you ride the bus, but every time I get on a bus in San Francisco its overflowing with people to the point that they have difficulty closing the doors.
    - baddox 7y ago
      That's because you want to ride on the popular bus routes, which isn't a coincidence. If lots of people wanted to ride on the empty bus routes, they wouldn't be empty—they'd be the overflowing ones!
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    Bus routes are continually optimized. Empty buses end up losing routes or frequency, as needed.
    - topkai22 7y ago
      That depends on the municipality- I’ve definitely lived places where a goal of the transit system was “access” even if the buses were nearly empty on some routes. I’m not sure it’s an invalid goal eithier.
  - zip1234 7y ago
    How many empty or near empty cars will you see driving around tomorrow?
- npunt 7y ago
  You're right, not the only thing, but I do think it is by far the primary. Efficiency-wise a large diesel vis-a-vis traditional car yes the bus wins by a lot, but with smaller multi-person autonomous electric busses I'm not sure if there are any meaningful efficiency gains. Traffic-wise it may actually be better to have smaller autonomous busses than hulking road giants, because they're not stopping as frequently and they're more nimble. I swear every fifth time I'm around a bus it's stuck idling waiting for a bicyclist or someone to get out of the way, because it's too big to maneuver. Separated bus lanes help, but that isn't a property of the bus as much as urban planning.
- zeveb 7y ago
  > Labor costs are the only thing? Fuel efficiency and traffic Is that the case? A quick Googling indicates that buses get 4–6 mpg; let’s go with the pessimistic end of that and assume 4 mpg. Diesel currently costs $3/gal and the average bus travels at 12.7 mph, which means that a bus is spending $9.53/hour on fuel. That’s a lot more than I expected, but how does it compare to bus driver wages? Another quick Googling indicates that a bus driver makes a little over $15/hour. Double that for fully-loaded costs, and that comes out to $30/hr. That’s treble the cost of the gas, but still in the same ballpark. I’m genuinely surprised that the cost of fuel is so close to the cost of the driver. It may indeed be that fuel efficiency is a factor in bus size.
  - eropple 7y ago
    Yup. Also take into account that many municipalities have buses that run off natural gas, which is both cheaper and not (currently or generally) practical to run in a smaller vehicle.
Agustus 7y ago
Additionally, buses are certain sizes for political reasons. Constituents want a full sized bus driving through their neighborhood as a sign of respect given, passenger occupancy is not a concern in these situations.
tomjakubowski 7y ago
> c) take up less room on streets. Not on a per-passenger basis, which is the metric that matters more in streets full of people traveling.
- npunt 7y ago
  I appreciate that argument and in some/many situations it is likely true, but in others it is not. What matters isn't people per square foot, it's throughput. And the larger the vehicle, the more likely: a) people are to want to stop at each stop, b) multiple people are to get on and off at each stop, c) the less likely it is to be full, and d) the more awkward and slow it is in maneuvering on streets. A/B/D all delay every other passenger, and make 3 mile trips take half an hour through a city. Cruise Origin isn't the only autonomous bus. The great thing about autonomy is that it allows us more degrees of freedom to optimize transportation needs including offering a variety of shapes and sizes and densities, while removing the labor cost and the physical space cost of a driver. You can just as easily design an autonomous bus to have density to match a larger bus while retaining the footprint of smaller vehicles, which improves all of the above issues with larger busses.
  - jonstewart 7y ago
    Bus dwell time plays a nonzero role in bus performance, but many multilane urban streets are choked with cars during rush hour. It’s often the case that congestion accounts for the lions share of bus transit time, yet there are typically more people on the bus than in all the cars on a given block. Creating a dedicated bus lane can dramatically improve bus performance, and has a follow-on effect that since congestion has been mitigated, the same set of buses (a fixed capital cost) can, in the same timeframe (fixed operating cost), make more circuit trips. So not only does a single trip get much faster, a bus lane magically produces more capacity.
    - kbenson 7y ago
      The Origin looks van sized, which is perfect. It doesn't take up significantly more space than a car while moving or stationary but can carry more people (and more importantly for congestion, likely will much of the time). Averaging three people per car/van sized vehicle would likely solve the vast majority of current congestion needs, as it would likely halve the vehicles on the road.
pettazz 7y ago
> The only reason busses are the size they are is the labor cost They're big because they fit 50 people inside a single vehicle instead of 50 different cars.
- megous 7y ago
  Common city busses pack from 120-160 people.
  - pettazz 7y ago
    Just an example number but yeah
  - resonantjacket5 7y ago
    That's a crush load number usually it's a lot lower. Unless if you're talking about articulated buses
jonstewart 7y ago
If transportation departments prioritized buses (ie bandwidth) over cars, buses would make a lot more sense on smaller nonresidential collectors and minor arterials. It takes a lot of cars to make up for one bus.

by npunt 7y ago

Nition 7y ago

Plus it can come right to your house at (roughly) the time you want it. Closer to being like owning a car.

eropple 7y ago

Labor costs are the only thing? Fuel efficiency and traffic (how many double parked Ubers jamming a single lane road will I see tomorrow? Will it be more or less than half a dozen?) would like a word.

stickfigure 7y ago
How many empty or near-empty buses will you see driving around tomorrow?
- snickerbockers 7y ago
  I guess it depends on where when and where you ride the bus, but every time I get on a bus in San Francisco its overflowing with people to the point that they have difficulty closing the doors.
  - baddox 7y ago
    That's because you want to ride on the popular bus routes, which isn't a coincidence. If lots of people wanted to ride on the empty bus routes, they wouldn't be empty—they'd be the overflowing ones!
- Supermancho 7y ago
  Bus routes are continually optimized. Empty buses end up losing routes or frequency, as needed.
  - topkai22 7y ago
    That depends on the municipality- I’ve definitely lived places where a goal of the transit system was “access” even if the buses were nearly empty on some routes. I’m not sure it’s an invalid goal eithier.
- zip1234 7y ago
  How many empty or near empty cars will you see driving around tomorrow?
npunt 7y ago
You're right, not the only thing, but I do think it is by far the primary. Efficiency-wise a large diesel vis-a-vis traditional car yes the bus wins by a lot, but with smaller multi-person autonomous electric busses I'm not sure if there are any meaningful efficiency gains. Traffic-wise it may actually be better to have smaller autonomous busses than hulking road giants, because they're not stopping as frequently and they're more nimble. I swear every fifth time I'm around a bus it's stuck idling waiting for a bicyclist or someone to get out of the way, because it's too big to maneuver. Separated bus lanes help, but that isn't a property of the bus as much as urban planning.
zeveb 7y ago
> Labor costs are the only thing? Fuel efficiency and traffic Is that the case? A quick Googling indicates that buses get 4–6 mpg; let’s go with the pessimistic end of that and assume 4 mpg. Diesel currently costs $3/gal and the average bus travels at 12.7 mph, which means that a bus is spending $9.53/hour on fuel. That’s a lot more than I expected, but how does it compare to bus driver wages? Another quick Googling indicates that a bus driver makes a little over $15/hour. Double that for fully-loaded costs, and that comes out to $30/hr. That’s treble the cost of the gas, but still in the same ballpark. I’m genuinely surprised that the cost of fuel is so close to the cost of the driver. It may indeed be that fuel efficiency is a factor in bus size.
- eropple 7y ago
  Yup. Also take into account that many municipalities have buses that run off natural gas, which is both cheaper and not (currently or generally) practical to run in a smaller vehicle.

Agustus 7y ago

Additionally, buses are certain sizes for political reasons. Constituents want a full sized bus driving through their neighborhood as a sign of respect given, passenger occupancy is not a concern in these situations.

tomjakubowski 7y ago

> c) take up less room on streets. Not on a per-passenger basis, which is the metric that matters more in streets full of people traveling.

npunt 7y ago
I appreciate that argument and in some/many situations it is likely true, but in others it is not. What matters isn't people per square foot, it's throughput. And the larger the vehicle, the more likely: a) people are to want to stop at each stop, b) multiple people are to get on and off at each stop, c) the less likely it is to be full, and d) the more awkward and slow it is in maneuvering on streets. A/B/D all delay every other passenger, and make 3 mile trips take half an hour through a city. Cruise Origin isn't the only autonomous bus. The great thing about autonomy is that it allows us more degrees of freedom to optimize transportation needs including offering a variety of shapes and sizes and densities, while removing the labor cost and the physical space cost of a driver. You can just as easily design an autonomous bus to have density to match a larger bus while retaining the footprint of smaller vehicles, which improves all of the above issues with larger busses.
- jonstewart 7y ago
  Bus dwell time plays a nonzero role in bus performance, but many multilane urban streets are choked with cars during rush hour. It’s often the case that congestion accounts for the lions share of bus transit time, yet there are typically more people on the bus than in all the cars on a given block. Creating a dedicated bus lane can dramatically improve bus performance, and has a follow-on effect that since congestion has been mitigated, the same set of buses (a fixed capital cost) can, in the same timeframe (fixed operating cost), make more circuit trips. So not only does a single trip get much faster, a bus lane magically produces more capacity.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    The Origin looks van sized, which is perfect. It doesn't take up significantly more space than a car while moving or stationary but can carry more people (and more importantly for congestion, likely will much of the time). Averaging three people per car/van sized vehicle would likely solve the vast majority of current congestion needs, as it would likely halve the vehicles on the road.

pettazz 7y ago

> The only reason busses are the size they are is the labor cost They're big because they fit 50 people inside a single vehicle instead of 50 different cars.

megous 7y ago
Common city busses pack from 120-160 people.
- pettazz 7y ago
  Just an example number but yeah
- resonantjacket5 7y ago
  That's a crush load number usually it's a lot lower. Unless if you're talking about articulated buses

jonstewart 7y ago

If transportation departments prioritized buses (ie bandwidth) over cars, buses would make a lot more sense on smaller nonresidential collectors and minor arterials. It takes a lot of cars to make up for one bus.