3 ms·

Remove the bus driver and you can significantly ramp up bus service at the same cost. NYC only has 6k buses for 2 million weekday passengers. Make them more co

• taneq 2y ago
  Do you seriously think the driver is a major factor in the cost of putting a bus on the road? How much does a bus cost?
  • Retric 2y ago
    NYC bus drivers start at 27$/hour well above the other costs, and those buses are used ~80-100 hours per week. Classic school bus costs ~10k/year in depreciation and get 10 miles to the gallon making the driver at an average 18$/hour the largest cost even outside of cities.
  • MattDB101 2y ago
    I can guarantee you it is a limiting factor. The majority of bus drivers are semi-retired folk looking for something to keep them active and earn a bit on the side. I'm speaking from experience.
    • cozzyd 2y ago
      That definitely doesn't match the profile of most bus drivers I see. Maybe it's true in more rural areas.
  • triceratops 2y ago
    A new bus costs about $400-900k (diesels are the cheapest, electric are the most expensive). I would guess a driver costs $60-90k year including taxes and benefits. Drivers aren't a majority of the cost of operating a bus, but I'd bet it's at least 20%.
    • cozzyd 2y ago
      Starting pay for a CTA bus operator is like $27/hour, and can go up to $40/hour. I imagine other big cities are similar, so probably at least about 20% higher than that range, neglecting overtime. But a driver will work 40 hours a week, though presumably they're not inside a bus the whole time. A bus can be used upwards of 80-100 hours a week (though some will be used less). So operating a bus can be up to $200-250k/year. An average bus lasts around 12 years. So operating it is more expensive than buying it. There are other costs of course (maintenance, cleaning, fuel/electricity, upkeep of bus shelters, etc.), but I think operator cost dominates.
      • Retric 2y ago
        Yep, NYC specifically has several rules making things more expensive such as full days pay even if they only work 4h etc. There’s also HR costs etc. Fuel is also cheap as they are only averaging 7MPH even at 2-4MPG it’s just not touching 27+$/hour for the drivers.
      • xnx 2y ago
        "Personnel costs comprise nearly 70% of the CTA's operating expenses" https://www.transitchicago.com/cta-plans-120-million-in-cuts--efficiencies/ https://www.transitchicago.com/cta-plans-120-million-in-cuts... Per utilized seat, handmade diesel busses are way more expensive to buy and operate than commodity vehicles like Jaguar iPace or the Zeekr Mix.
        • triceratops 2y ago
          "Personnel costs" means every human working at the transit agency. Self-driving buses aren't going to eliminate the maintenance department at CTA. If anything it could grow because they might expand bus routes.
          • Retric 2y ago
            There’s far more bus drivers than maintenance workers. Further you need HR and managers to handle having a large driver workforce. So while drivers aren’t responsible for all of that 70%, they are a high percentage of it.
• crabbone 2y ago
  Not sure about the States, but in many other places buses require / strongly prefer a separate public lane. Driving more busses in a congested city will probably increase congestion because buses are "clumsy" compared to smaller city cars. Adding buses to already congested streets might just make the situation worse. Israel ran into this problem, and they are desperately trying to recover by building light rail in big cities.
  • Retric 2y ago
    Dedicated bus lanes are designed to increase a city’s total throughout. As in by removing a full lane of traffic and only sending bus down that lane things improve. That seems counterintuitive, but bus utilization and congestion occur at the same time. So one bus is replacing 20-60 cars in busy periods. At 2AM an empty bus may be taking up a lot of road, but the streets are practically empty.
    • xnx 2y ago
      Exactly. We would never tolerate this type of waste in other infrastructure like buried copper. We should maximize utilization of built roads.
    • crabbone 2y ago
      My gut feeling is that it's hard to tell, and could be case-by-case thing. It might depend on many things, like whether the bus actually goes anywhere useful, or the would-be passengers would still have to travel far from their stop (and would prefer to drive a car, as bus doesn't solve their commute problem). Would be especially problematic in areas with single-family houses spaced far apart. Very infrequent bus service may also be a factor that would sway would-be passengers to drive cars instead, but it would be hard to justify more buses on the line. Well, I'm not a city planner, just trying to imagine the potential problems. Bet people who deal with this would know better.
  • whimsicalism 2y ago
    in SF at least, bus lane enforcement is pretty much non-existent.