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You don't ride buses much do you? Of all the times I've ridden regular bus routes, there's only been one route where the bus being 90% empty would not be extrem
by jcranmer 3y ago
You don't ride buses much do you? Of all the times I've ridden regular bus routes, there's only been one route where the bus being 90% empty would not be extremely atypical--and even then, that was only when I was picking up the bus during off-peak hours. More frequent have been the times where there being anything other than standing room available was the atypical situation.
If you're in an urban environment at least as densely packed as, say, San Jose, then the bus system is likely to have actually quite substantial ridership. By the time you get to the kinds of dense urban environments of the standard major US cities (NYC, Chicago, DC, Philly, Boston), I quite assure that the buses are routinely packed. The story might be different if we're talking about, say, Bismarck.
Furthermore, I should point out that if a bus is stopped "pil[ing] up traffic behind them", that's because it's letting passengers embark or disembark, which is a strong signal that the bus probably isn't 90% empty.
- josephcsible 3y ago> Of all the times I've ridden regular bus routes, there's only been one route where the bus being 90% empty would not be extremely atypical You're falling victim to the inspection paradox: https://towardsdatascience.com/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere-2ef1c2e9d709 https://towardsdatascience.com/the-inspection-paradox-is-eve...
- Freedom2 3y agoInteresting. What evidence do you have to back up your claim that the user has fallen victim to this paradox?
- josephcsible 3y agoUsing your experience as a passenger to gauge how full buses usually are is about as straightforward of an example of that paradox as you could ask for. As an extreme example, imagine there are 10 bus routes, 9 of which are always empty and 1 of which is always full. If you surveyed every passenger, they'd tell you that 100% of the buses they've ever been on are full, but in reality, only 10% of the buses are.
- tptacek 3y agoYou know you can just look this stuff up, right? The major urban transport systems publish data on this; it's how they decide which routes to cut and which to beef up.
- josephcsible 3y agoI know. My point is that that's what you need to do, rather than trying to use (anec)data from passengers' perspectives, as the post I originally replied to did.
- tptacek 3y agoIn Chicago, where I live, route cutbacks are major drama. If nobody is riding the busses, as the ancestor comment suggests, the routes get cut. You know that's happening because people are constantly pissed about it. It was that comment making the extraordinary claim, and ordinary evidence is sufficient to refute it.