4 ms·

It didn't seem to mention hybrids much either. It mentioned a polo bluemotion as the lowest co2 emitting vehicle at 99g/km, but even my 10+ year old hybrid clu

It didn't seem to mention hybrids much either. It mentioned a polo bluemotion as the lowest co2 emitting vehicle at 99g/km, but even my 10+ year old hybrid clunker (Toyota auris) officially gets 82g/km - modern hybrids must be way better by now, and they are super common now rather than just Toyota's selling point. A recent report I read on the BBC suggests that public bus transportation is 90g/km/passenger so my ancient old hybrid is better than taking the bus it seems?

bluGill 5y ago
Depends on how many people are on the bus. Many buses have terrible load averages, good buses can do a lot better. IMO most bus operators do a terrible job at serving people and so it is no surprise that people don't ride.
- zbrozek 5y ago
  Most of the buses I see around here (Sunnyvale through San Mateo is my typical stomping ground) are either "not in service" or very nearly empty. I haven't taken a bay area bus in fifteen years. I routinely outpace them on a bicycle. I could imagine 8-15 passenger vans with on-demand routing would see much better utilization.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Yup. They should be easier to electrify, too. Mass produced electric passenger vans should be a thing. Considering transit vans are only like $50,000 apiece for 12 seats, they should be pretty dang cheap to acquire, too, compared to the $1 million 30 seat e-buses. Charging infrastructure should be the same as regular electric cars, too, which makes it cheaper and more flexible to deploy.
    - bluGill 5y ago
      The biggest cost over the lifetime is still the driver. Passenger vans only place in transit is for wheelchairs.
      - Robotbeat 5y ago
        Except if you're not driving the bus at full capacity (i.e. vast majority of the time), you're not saving any labor costs by using the larger vehicle. In fact, the greater maintenance requirements probably cause greater labor costs. Additionally, transit vans don't necessarily need a commercial license to drive, which can reduce labor costs (in part by expanding the availability of the labor pool).
  - KennyBlanken 5y ago
    Your typical location might place you on the route bus drivers use to return to a depot or to get to the start of a popular route. Or the time you're out and about might coincide with when a large number of busses are coming into, or going out of, service. For example, if you work offset hours you'd easily see the pre or post rush hour ramp up/down traffic. Out of service busses also travel faster than in service ones; as you note, you outpace busses on your bike. Perhaps look up research instead of relying upon personal anecdotal observations by one person in one city, subject to observational biases? The research is likely to be highly accurate given most public bus operators have very good data about ridership numbers and fuel use per vehicle and route.
    - zbrozek 5y ago
      Those mitigating circumstances are good things to think about, but aren't applicable to my experience. If you've got hard data, please post it. I was unable to find utilization rates. Total ridership is easy to find, but not answering the questions at hand (utilization and uptime).
  - bluGill 5y ago
    On demand routing cannot get 10 passengers per hour. The idea sounds good, but it has been tried and found slow and inefficient https://humantransit.org/2019/08/what-is-microtransit-for.html https://humantransit.org/2019/08/what-is-microtransit-for.ht... make sure you read his previous series that he links. ReaRead that, and then quit wasting everyone's time advocating a stupid idea that keeps coming bcback. Good transit advocacy should aim to get people to not drive.
    - zbrozek 5y ago
      The article talks a lot about coverage but not utilization. Searching the domain (I'm not going to read all of its content to narrowly search for something) doesn't surface much data or discussion of bus utilization.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
Is that "official" figure from Toyota, or from an independent testing group? A huge number of manufacturers have been caught or admitted to, cheating on their emissions figures - including CO2 levels. Claimed figures are basically worthless. Why would you think that a compact hybrid would have only slightly better CO2 performance compared to a city bus per passenger? It doesn't even make sense for the vehicle as a whole. Googling around, I came up with this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200317-climate-change-cut-carbon-emissions-from-your-commute https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200317-climate-change-c... ...shows that your figure is 90g per km for the bus as a whole, not per km/passenger. Every chart I've seen on co2 or fuel use per mile per person, busses, bicycles, and rail are king. Ride shares are the absolute worst because of all the wasted miles....followed by private SUV and car use. If you do a google image search for "co2 emissions per passenger mile" you can see endless charts from different studies.
- mattlondon 5y ago
  The raw data is here from TfL, the people who run the buses in London: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-2096-1718 https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-informa... tl;dr: - single-deckers are ~900g/km, - double-deckers are ~1300g/km - hybrid are 675-780g/km So anywhere between 800% to 1500% worse than a decade-old hybrid. Of course, if the bus has 24 to 45 passengers on it, then it is better on a per-passenger basis than me in my car with my wife and kid. I couldn't find any rider-ship data from TfL, but they often appear kinda empty outside of rush hours.

bluGill 5y ago

Depends on how many people are on the bus. Many buses have terrible load averages, good buses can do a lot better. IMO most bus operators do a terrible job at serving people and so it is no surprise that people don't ride.

zbrozek 5y ago
Most of the buses I see around here (Sunnyvale through San Mateo is my typical stomping ground) are either "not in service" or very nearly empty. I haven't taken a bay area bus in fifteen years. I routinely outpace them on a bicycle. I could imagine 8-15 passenger vans with on-demand routing would see much better utilization.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Yup. They should be easier to electrify, too. Mass produced electric passenger vans should be a thing. Considering transit vans are only like $50,000 apiece for 12 seats, they should be pretty dang cheap to acquire, too, compared to the $1 million 30 seat e-buses. Charging infrastructure should be the same as regular electric cars, too, which makes it cheaper and more flexible to deploy.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    The biggest cost over the lifetime is still the driver. Passenger vans only place in transit is for wheelchairs.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      Except if you're not driving the bus at full capacity (i.e. vast majority of the time), you're not saving any labor costs by using the larger vehicle. In fact, the greater maintenance requirements probably cause greater labor costs. Additionally, transit vans don't necessarily need a commercial license to drive, which can reduce labor costs (in part by expanding the availability of the labor pool).
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Your typical location might place you on the route bus drivers use to return to a depot or to get to the start of a popular route. Or the time you're out and about might coincide with when a large number of busses are coming into, or going out of, service. For example, if you work offset hours you'd easily see the pre or post rush hour ramp up/down traffic. Out of service busses also travel faster than in service ones; as you note, you outpace busses on your bike. Perhaps look up research instead of relying upon personal anecdotal observations by one person in one city, subject to observational biases? The research is likely to be highly accurate given most public bus operators have very good data about ridership numbers and fuel use per vehicle and route.
  - zbrozek 5y ago
    Those mitigating circumstances are good things to think about, but aren't applicable to my experience. If you've got hard data, please post it. I was unable to find utilization rates. Total ridership is easy to find, but not answering the questions at hand (utilization and uptime).
- bluGill 5y ago
  On demand routing cannot get 10 passengers per hour. The idea sounds good, but it has been tried and found slow and inefficient https://humantransit.org/2019/08/what-is-microtransit-for.html https://humantransit.org/2019/08/what-is-microtransit-for.ht... make sure you read his previous series that he links. ReaRead that, and then quit wasting everyone's time advocating a stupid idea that keeps coming bcback. Good transit advocacy should aim to get people to not drive.
  - zbrozek 5y ago
    The article talks a lot about coverage but not utilization. Searching the domain (I'm not going to read all of its content to narrowly search for something) doesn't surface much data or discussion of bus utilization.

KennyBlanken 5y ago

Is that "official" figure from Toyota, or from an independent testing group? A huge number of manufacturers have been caught or admitted to, cheating on their emissions figures - including CO2 levels. Claimed figures are basically worthless. Why would you think that a compact hybrid would have only slightly better CO2 performance compared to a city bus per passenger? It doesn't even make sense for the vehicle as a whole. Googling around, I came up with this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200317-climate-change-cut-carbon-emissions-from-your-commute https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200317-climate-change-c... ...shows that your figure is 90g per km for the bus as a whole, not per km/passenger. Every chart I've seen on co2 or fuel use per mile per person, busses, bicycles, and rail are king. Ride shares are the absolute worst because of all the wasted miles....followed by private SUV and car use. If you do a google image search for "co2 emissions per passenger mile" you can see endless charts from different studies.

mattlondon 5y ago
The raw data is here from TfL, the people who run the buses in London: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-2096-1718 https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-informa... tl;dr: - single-deckers are ~900g/km, - double-deckers are ~1300g/km - hybrid are 675-780g/km So anywhere between 800% to 1500% worse than a decade-old hybrid. Of course, if the bus has 24 to 45 passengers on it, then it is better on a per-passenger basis than me in my car with my wife and kid. I couldn't find any rider-ship data from TfL, but they often appear kinda empty outside of rush hours.