5 ms·

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 take

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.

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.