5 ms·

I wonder if this is an argument for more public transport. Electric buses make rides pretty cheap and comfortable. And shifting traffic from personal cars to b

by mg 2y ago

I wonder if this is an argument for more public transport. Electric buses make rides pretty cheap and comfortable. And shifting traffic from personal cars to buses would make mobility much more efficient. Because in a bus, 30 people can cross a crossing so much faster than in a line of 30 individual cars. Would privacy also be better? Because the government is more trustworthy regarding the collection of movement data than private companies?

TinkersW 2y ago
No, but it is an argument for making it illegal for car manufacturers to monitor you.
roflmaostc 2y ago
In most cities going by bike is even faster. Ofc, it needs some effort to overcome weather, sweat. But at the end it pays off. Full privacy, free workouts, faster commute, being outside (getting sun, maybe fresh air). Invest in a good bike (maybe even eletric bike) and commute faster :)!
- agumonkey 2y ago
  It's really a strange realization. If your health is fine.. and you don't live in smog.. biking is immensely beneficial. There's often multiple path to the same destination, shorter than main arteries, no traffic jam, no stress. I take my car twice a month and everytime I'm surprised by the effect of having to deal with all interruption and safety because we all drive 500-1000kg metallic buckets. It's quickly annoying.. that's a feeling you never have on bike. And no gas cost, near no insurance.. cheap repairs. So true, weather is an issue (but in a way it's fun to now look at the sky to see where the clouds are going), clothing too a bit. My only problem is that weak health quickly cut your ability to move far.
  - dudefeliciano 2y ago
    Only argument I have is the no stress part. I find myself stressed out more often than should be when riding a bike in the city due to careless car drivers.
    - agumonkey 2y ago
      My bad, I should have explained that I take detours on smaller / calmer roads, whenever possible, to avoid traffic as much as possible. Depending on your country, there might be a lot of alternate paths. For normal roads you can have shorter trip, but often I choose longer travel if it's on a bike lane near a river or a forest, so I enjoy even more calm. Otherwise you're right.
- mg 2y ago
  I don't expect bikes to take market share from cars. Bikes have been around for a long time and are expected to technically stay the same in the foreseeable future. Electric buses are so much better than gasoline buses. Fewer vibrations, less noise. Makes it much more suitable to relax or do some work on your phone. Plus, the cost (manufacturing+maintenance+fuel) of electric buses is 25% lower than the cost of gasoline buses. At the moment, only 10% or so of buses are electric. So the effect of these two improvements are mostly still to hit the market. And in a few years, buses will start to become autonomous. Which reduces the costs of a bus operation by 70%. Imagine we get autonomous electric buses with nice seats and tables. Then you can do your work in a bus while getting from A to B super cheap. Mobility would be so different.
  - seszett 2y ago
    > Bikes have been around for a long time and are expected to technically stay the same in the foreseeable future. You might have missed the electric bike revolution that started a few years ago? Probably half the bikes I see here (in Flanders) are electric. It has enabled many people who would never have considered it before to start biking. And bikes are absolutely taking market share from cars here. Honestly I don't even understand why enough people still use their cars through my city instead of biking. It easily takes 2x or 3x the time to get anywhere.
    - EndShell 2y ago
      > Honestly I don't even understand why enough people still use their cars through my city instead of biking. I am an ex-avid cyclist. Bikes are easily stolen, You can get soaked if the weather is poor, If it is bitterly cold it can literally take you hours to warm up (especially if you are older). If you have to ride in traffic it can be very frightening especially if you haven't done it before. Other people find cycling simply uncomfortable, I've been told it more uncomfortable for women.
      - roflmaostc 2y ago
        I use a decent U lock. Always lock the frame to something metal and solid. Additionally I have a ~100USD insurance to cover my several thousand dollars bikes. Never got stolen any. Yeah you need to adapt to weather. But a good pair of biking pants, rain cover for the shoes, thick leather gloves and different pairs of coats (which you anyway need) usually do the job. If your bike is super uncomfortable there is tons of different sattles and options. Even bike fitting to fit your bike perfectly to your body.
- llampx 2y ago
  I love bikes but I value my health so I keep my exercise to places where I won't be crushed to death by rogue road users.
  - roflmaostc 2y ago
    Living in Europe this is much less of an issue. Yeah car drivers tend to oversee you but after a while you can anticipate their movements very often. I bike every day to work and the only semi-serious crash was 90% my fault because I was speeding lol
    - llampx 2y ago
      Europe is a big continent. Even within one city you can have neighborhoods with more aggro drivers than others. If there is a protected bike path I don't have problems taking it.
ben_w 2y ago
> Would privacy also be better? Because the government is more trustworthy regarding the collection of movement data than private companies? On this topic, I think public/private ownership, and public/private usage, makes no difference either way. Public transport can be privately owned. Back in the UK, the majority of busses I saw were Stagecoach[0]. But even when government owned, that doesn't remove the argument in favour of CCTV: here in Berlin we have BVG[1], which is government owned, and I'm fairly sure the blobs I see on the ceiling are CCTV cameras[2]. I think what does make a difference is rules like GDPR — but cookie popups have shown that it's an uphill struggle to force businesses to actually follow that law rather than demand "consent" before doing business, or to actually minimise their usage of tracking to the level where "legitimate interest" actually applies and therefore they don't need to ask (as opposed to the IMO wishful thinking "legitimate interest" used by some cookie popups). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagecoach_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagecoach_Group [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe [2] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/rechtsstreit-mit-sitz-design-erfinder-beigelegt-berliner-verkehrsbetriebe-durfen-das-wurmchen-muster-wieder-benutzen-8879236.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/rechtsstreit-mit-sitz-des...
harvey9 2y ago
In general? no - Teslas spying on you is orthogonal to mode of transport. And specifically no where I live because all the buses have CCTV.
- euroderf 2y ago
  > all the buses have CCTV. IF the default handling of any recordings is total erasure after some specified (and not unreasonable) period, then it's not an unleavened evil is it ?
  - b112 2y ago
    Not entirely helpful, if the video has already been scanned, face rec employed, groupings of people recorded (eg, who you hang out with), and perhaps phone identifiers. The recordings may be gone, but is all metadata? And when they answer yes, does that also mean "partners" too? Anyhow, public transport will always be less private than a car, just due to fewer people traveling with you. That's not the point though. The point is, car companies spying on you. And they all do it too. Ford does it. It needs to be stopped.
    - euroderf 2y ago
      Yes, absolutely. All these other potential invasions of privacy. But I'd like to think the items on your list become more visible - and easier to combat - if recordings are time-limited. Can activists conceivably use FOIA requests to identify ALL dataflows out of surveillance systems in use in public commons ?
      - b112 2y ago
        Maybe dataflows out, but I've never heard of a private company (receiving them to provide a service to a government) being part of a FOIA? Maybe that's just in my jurisdiction.
  - harvey9 2y ago
    The default. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right? Ironically even in my old car that doesn't even have parking sensors, I can still expect to have the police surveil me from roadside and drone cameras.
tapland 2y ago
In Sweden the municipality finances 40-50% of public transport, and owns recorded CCTV and gathered traffic data (from ticket scans etc). But operations are by private companies (regular procurement stuff). It works somewhat ok
kvakerok 2y ago
In your car you have an expectation of privacy. Public transport is by definition a public space and thus has no expectation of privacy. Whole different ruleset applies. Anyone can monitor you on a bus. Without your consent too.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago
  >In your car you have an expectation of privacy. Though, I can freely film you from a public area.
- enriquto 2y ago
  > In your car There you said it! But, if you cannot control the software, then it's not your hardware.
  - kvakerok 2y ago
    Jailbreak your Tesla
- QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
  in practice, in a car your motions are tracked and stored forever (you, today, already inplemented) by both automated license plate readers, the car’s phone home gps, and typically the phone in your pocket. In a bus, if you pay with a card its tracked where you got on, and they can run facial recognition after the fact, but its at least not greppable
- RoryH 2y ago
  Possibly the point is that an individual can not be as easily tracked by first identifying the bus, however most cars are registered to their owners. Nowadays most buses and public transport are full of CCTV though so same problem really.
- 8bitsrule 2y ago
  Privacy in public transport systems is poorer than it has to be, and can be enhanced. The following describes a privacy-preserving ticketing system. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-20810-7_9?fromPaywallRec=true https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-20810-7_... No doubt many people are aware that card passes are potential trackers, and that may be why a third or so of the ridership pays no fare.
m463 2y ago
public transportation has cameras, lots. I remember reading about someone who had to track down incidents on the many interior bus cameras.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  When I was a kid, buses didn't have cameras (or at least most buses didn't; it started coming in in the early 90s) but even then they had these mirror periscope things so that the driver could see the upper deck and the area behind the stairs on the lower deck.
presentation 2y ago
If the reason we decide to invest in public transit is privacy, we’re hopeless.
pyeri 2y ago
In the interest of minimalism and collective human efficiency, buses are best. Car or SUV makes sense only when a family or friends of 3-4 folks are travelling.
dudefeliciano 2y ago
I started playing a game when I’m waiting at traffic lights, that is to count how many cars have a single driver and no passengers in it. A good portion of those cars are SUVs that have no business being in a city. The results are far from surprising and completely maddening.
vaylian 2y ago
> Would privacy also be better? Because the government is more trustworthy regarding the collection of movement data than private companies? It must be possible to buy a ticket that has at least one of the following properties: 1. It is not linked to the times when you use it (flat-rate/monthly ticket). Payment may be linked to your name. 2. It is not linked to your identity (pseudonymous numeric ID). Payment must not be linked to your name. Otherwise it's easy to track when you travel which route. And obviously, facial recognition must be forbidden.
- szszrk 2y ago
  Plenty of places, including my current city, have time-based tickets only. So even for the shortest ones you have to validate only once, while you can have a much longer trip. Daily/weekend/weekly are even better, and monthly/quarterly even while they tied to your name, don't have to be validated in any particular place at all. You can do it far from any vehicles.
raxxorraxor 2y ago
We had electric busses in our city. They were awesome. The were far less noisy and didn't stink. But they were scrapped again. Reason: Diesel busses had a maintenance time of 2%, electric busses of 5%, meaning they spend 5% of their running time in maintenance. That was all, so we now have loud and stinky busses again. That said, I don't think you can ever replace individual traffic. It is only possible in the most dense cities. Otherwise bus travel is too slow and unreliable for people working 40h+.
- mg 2y ago
  Which city is that? bus travel is too slow I would expect travel to speed up when we move from cars to buses. Look at what cars do most of the time. Waiting at crossings, slowing down for crossings, accelerating after passing a crossing. I have not measured it yet, but I would expect buses that carry 20 passengers each to accelerate that by a factor of 10 or so. and unreliable You mean when the bus is stuck in traffic? Don't you have the same problem with a car? people working 40h+ I would think people who work 40h would be happy if they could do their work in a nice electric bus with a table instead of spending that time handling a steering wheel.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    > but I would expect buses that carry 20 passengers each FWIW, that's a _tiny_ bus. Typical city buses take 80-100 people, articulated buses about 150. At peak time on important routes they'll generally be mostly full. The major capacity limit on buses is stopping. On busy systems at peak times, you'll tend to get clumping at stops, as similar routes line up one after another.
    - mg 2y ago
      city buses take 80-100 people, articulated buses about 150 Yes, but then they are not offering a ride that is better than a ride in a private car. I have took an extensive look at this over the last weeks. A typical articulated bus can only carry about 20 to 30 passengers who are seated as comfortably as in a private car. Partly that is because of the design of the buses. If the buses were redesigned to comfortably seat people, they could probably carry an additional 10 or 20 passengers who are comfortably seated.
jasode 2y ago
>And shifting traffic from personal cars to buses would make mobility much more efficient. Because in a bus, 30 people can cross a crossing so much faster than in a line of 30 individual cars. [...] I would expect travel to speed up when we move from cars to buses. Look at what cars do most of the time. Waiting at crossings, slowing down for crossings, accelerating after passing a crossing. I have not measured it yet, but I would expect buses that carry 20 passengers each to accelerate that by a factor of 10 or so. Your math is leaving out a lot of other waiting periods which makes it seem like buses save time over cars. Your focus on crossing intersections is distorting the calculations. Yes, 1 bus can move 30 passengers through a traffic light is faster than 30 individual cars but you have to offset that savings with extra wait times in other places: + add additional time to travel to the bus stop + add additional time to wait at the bus stop because buses don't come on demand but at spaced intervals. Maybe once an hour or half hour. + add additional time for bus to stop at other bus stops that are not relevant to the passenger, or changing buses, + add additional time to account for the bus taking a longer convoluted route that deviates from the shortest path between points A and B because they have to accommodate for the bus stops and also optimize the # of buses in the fleet vs passenger counts. + add time to travel from the final bus stop dropoff point to travel to the final destination without the bus. Each mile of walking takes about ~20 minutes. If the bus stop is too far away from the destination office or house, then I guess the passenger can take an Uber ride? Not only does that add more time, it negates a lot of benefits of using the bus. People could use the Uber for the entire trip -- or just use their personal car. There are scenarios where the bus is undeniably faster. Inside dense cities where they have special lanes that can bypass some gridlock. The tour buses with stops that have frequent pickup intervals that do continuous loops around cities for tourists is another example that's faster than cars.
- mg 2y ago
  My perspective is from living in a big city. Hamburg in Germany. Here it is like this: add additional time to travel to the bus stop That is more than offset by the time and stress to find a parking place when you use a private car. add additional time to wait at the bus stop I would guess the average wait time here is about 3 minutes. additional time for bus to stop at other bus stops True, but decreases the more buses there are. The more buses, the less stops every bus has to do. And also decreases the better the planning via internet becomes. We have buses here in Hamburg, called "Moia" by Volkswagen, where you announce your starting and destination positions in advance, and the bus only stops where it has to. additional time to account for the bus taking a route that deviates from shortest path True, but decreases the more buses there are. And the better we plan the routes via the internet with people announcing their route upfront.
rsanek 2y ago
>Electric buses make rides pretty cheap and comfortable how much public transit have you used in the US? in NYC, busses are somehow even worse than the subway. in SF, same kind of story. I'll choose to walk, bike or taxi to avoid the implementation of public transit we have.
cafard 2y ago
I can ride the WMATA Metrobus anonymously for $2.25 cash or unregistered SmartTrip. Now that I have the senior ($1.10) SmartTrip, I've blown my cover. And an awful lot of SmartTrip cards are registered with WMATA, people use Apple Wallets, etc. But then a lot of people simply don't pay. There are cameras on many or all buses, too.
palata 2y ago
It's quite amazing how every thread related to "public transport" systematically ends up being "the rest of the world" trying to explain to Americans that they may want to get slightly informed about the rest of the world before they say "public transports cannot work anywhere, because in the US they don't work". Sure, US cities have mostly (1) been designed as far away from anything that is not the individual car as possible, and now it's very difficult to come back. But at least Americans could pretend they are aware of the fact that cities can be built in such a way that public transports actually work. (1) Because there are cities, like NYC, where it actually works!

by mg 2y ago

TinkersW 2y ago

No, but it is an argument for making it illegal for car manufacturers to monitor you.

roflmaostc 2y ago

In most cities going by bike is even faster. Ofc, it needs some effort to overcome weather, sweat. But at the end it pays off. Full privacy, free workouts, faster commute, being outside (getting sun, maybe fresh air). Invest in a good bike (maybe even eletric bike) and commute faster :)!

agumonkey 2y ago
It's really a strange realization. If your health is fine.. and you don't live in smog.. biking is immensely beneficial. There's often multiple path to the same destination, shorter than main arteries, no traffic jam, no stress. I take my car twice a month and everytime I'm surprised by the effect of having to deal with all interruption and safety because we all drive 500-1000kg metallic buckets. It's quickly annoying.. that's a feeling you never have on bike. And no gas cost, near no insurance.. cheap repairs. So true, weather is an issue (but in a way it's fun to now look at the sky to see where the clouds are going), clothing too a bit. My only problem is that weak health quickly cut your ability to move far.
- dudefeliciano 2y ago
  Only argument I have is the no stress part. I find myself stressed out more often than should be when riding a bike in the city due to careless car drivers.
  - agumonkey 2y ago
    My bad, I should have explained that I take detours on smaller / calmer roads, whenever possible, to avoid traffic as much as possible. Depending on your country, there might be a lot of alternate paths. For normal roads you can have shorter trip, but often I choose longer travel if it's on a bike lane near a river or a forest, so I enjoy even more calm. Otherwise you're right.
mg 2y ago
I don't expect bikes to take market share from cars. Bikes have been around for a long time and are expected to technically stay the same in the foreseeable future. Electric buses are so much better than gasoline buses. Fewer vibrations, less noise. Makes it much more suitable to relax or do some work on your phone. Plus, the cost (manufacturing+maintenance+fuel) of electric buses is 25% lower than the cost of gasoline buses. At the moment, only 10% or so of buses are electric. So the effect of these two improvements are mostly still to hit the market. And in a few years, buses will start to become autonomous. Which reduces the costs of a bus operation by 70%. Imagine we get autonomous electric buses with nice seats and tables. Then you can do your work in a bus while getting from A to B super cheap. Mobility would be so different.
- seszett 2y ago
  > Bikes have been around for a long time and are expected to technically stay the same in the foreseeable future. You might have missed the electric bike revolution that started a few years ago? Probably half the bikes I see here (in Flanders) are electric. It has enabled many people who would never have considered it before to start biking. And bikes are absolutely taking market share from cars here. Honestly I don't even understand why enough people still use their cars through my city instead of biking. It easily takes 2x or 3x the time to get anywhere.
  - EndShell 2y ago
    > Honestly I don't even understand why enough people still use their cars through my city instead of biking. I am an ex-avid cyclist. Bikes are easily stolen, You can get soaked if the weather is poor, If it is bitterly cold it can literally take you hours to warm up (especially if you are older). If you have to ride in traffic it can be very frightening especially if you haven't done it before. Other people find cycling simply uncomfortable, I've been told it more uncomfortable for women.
    - roflmaostc 2y ago
      I use a decent U lock. Always lock the frame to something metal and solid. Additionally I have a ~100USD insurance to cover my several thousand dollars bikes. Never got stolen any. Yeah you need to adapt to weather. But a good pair of biking pants, rain cover for the shoes, thick leather gloves and different pairs of coats (which you anyway need) usually do the job. If your bike is super uncomfortable there is tons of different sattles and options. Even bike fitting to fit your bike perfectly to your body.
llampx 2y ago
I love bikes but I value my health so I keep my exercise to places where I won't be crushed to death by rogue road users.
- roflmaostc 2y ago
  Living in Europe this is much less of an issue. Yeah car drivers tend to oversee you but after a while you can anticipate their movements very often. I bike every day to work and the only semi-serious crash was 90% my fault because I was speeding lol
  - llampx 2y ago
    Europe is a big continent. Even within one city you can have neighborhoods with more aggro drivers than others. If there is a protected bike path I don't have problems taking it.

ben_w 2y ago

> Would privacy also be better? Because the government is more trustworthy regarding the collection of movement data than private companies? On this topic, I think public/private ownership, and public/private usage, makes no difference either way. Public transport can be privately owned. Back in the UK, the majority of busses I saw were Stagecoach[0]. But even when government owned, that doesn't remove the argument in favour of CCTV: here in Berlin we have BVG[1], which is government owned, and I'm fairly sure the blobs I see on the ceiling are CCTV cameras[2]. I think what does make a difference is rules like GDPR — but cookie popups have shown that it's an uphill struggle to force businesses to actually follow that law rather than demand "consent" before doing business, or to actually minimise their usage of tracking to the level where "legitimate interest" actually applies and therefore they don't need to ask (as opposed to the IMO wishful thinking "legitimate interest" used by some cookie popups). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagecoach_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagecoach_Group [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe [2] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/rechtsstreit-mit-sitz-design-erfinder-beigelegt-berliner-verkehrsbetriebe-durfen-das-wurmchen-muster-wieder-benutzen-8879236.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/rechtsstreit-mit-sitz-des...

harvey9 2y ago

In general? no - Teslas spying on you is orthogonal to mode of transport. And specifically no where I live because all the buses have CCTV.

euroderf 2y ago
> all the buses have CCTV. IF the default handling of any recordings is total erasure after some specified (and not unreasonable) period, then it's not an unleavened evil is it ?
- b112 2y ago
  Not entirely helpful, if the video has already been scanned, face rec employed, groupings of people recorded (eg, who you hang out with), and perhaps phone identifiers. The recordings may be gone, but is all metadata? And when they answer yes, does that also mean "partners" too? Anyhow, public transport will always be less private than a car, just due to fewer people traveling with you. That's not the point though. The point is, car companies spying on you. And they all do it too. Ford does it. It needs to be stopped.
  - euroderf 2y ago
    Yes, absolutely. All these other potential invasions of privacy. But I'd like to think the items on your list become more visible - and easier to combat - if recordings are time-limited. Can activists conceivably use FOIA requests to identify ALL dataflows out of surveillance systems in use in public commons ?
    - b112 2y ago
      Maybe dataflows out, but I've never heard of a private company (receiving them to provide a service to a government) being part of a FOIA? Maybe that's just in my jurisdiction.
- harvey9 2y ago
  The default. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right? Ironically even in my old car that doesn't even have parking sensors, I can still expect to have the police surveil me from roadside and drone cameras.

tapland 2y ago

In Sweden the municipality finances 40-50% of public transport, and owns recorded CCTV and gathered traffic data (from ticket scans etc). But operations are by private companies (regular procurement stuff). It works somewhat ok

kvakerok 2y ago

In your car you have an expectation of privacy. Public transport is by definition a public space and thus has no expectation of privacy. Whole different ruleset applies. Anyone can monitor you on a bus. Without your consent too.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Ylpertnodi 2y ago
>In your car you have an expectation of privacy. Though, I can freely film you from a public area.
enriquto 2y ago
> In your car There you said it! But, if you cannot control the software, then it's not your hardware.
- kvakerok 2y ago
  Jailbreak your Tesla
QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
in practice, in a car your motions are tracked and stored forever (you, today, already inplemented) by both automated license plate readers, the car’s phone home gps, and typically the phone in your pocket. In a bus, if you pay with a card its tracked where you got on, and they can run facial recognition after the fact, but its at least not greppable
RoryH 2y ago
Possibly the point is that an individual can not be as easily tracked by first identifying the bus, however most cars are registered to their owners. Nowadays most buses and public transport are full of CCTV though so same problem really.
8bitsrule 2y ago
Privacy in public transport systems is poorer than it has to be, and can be enhanced. The following describes a privacy-preserving ticketing system. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-20810-7_9?fromPaywallRec=true https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-20810-7_... No doubt many people are aware that card passes are potential trackers, and that may be why a third or so of the ridership pays no fare.

m463 2y ago

public transportation has cameras, lots. I remember reading about someone who had to track down incidents on the many interior bus cameras.

rsynnott 2y ago
When I was a kid, buses didn't have cameras (or at least most buses didn't; it started coming in in the early 90s) but even then they had these mirror periscope things so that the driver could see the upper deck and the area behind the stairs on the lower deck.

presentation 2y ago

If the reason we decide to invest in public transit is privacy, we’re hopeless.

pyeri 2y ago

In the interest of minimalism and collective human efficiency, buses are best. Car or SUV makes sense only when a family or friends of 3-4 folks are travelling.

dudefeliciano 2y ago

I started playing a game when I’m waiting at traffic lights, that is to count how many cars have a single driver and no passengers in it. A good portion of those cars are SUVs that have no business being in a city. The results are far from surprising and completely maddening.

vaylian 2y ago

> Would privacy also be better? Because the government is more trustworthy regarding the collection of movement data than private companies? It must be possible to buy a ticket that has at least one of the following properties: 1. It is not linked to the times when you use it (flat-rate/monthly ticket). Payment may be linked to your name. 2. It is not linked to your identity (pseudonymous numeric ID). Payment must not be linked to your name. Otherwise it's easy to track when you travel which route. And obviously, facial recognition must be forbidden.

szszrk 2y ago
Plenty of places, including my current city, have time-based tickets only. So even for the shortest ones you have to validate only once, while you can have a much longer trip. Daily/weekend/weekly are even better, and monthly/quarterly even while they tied to your name, don't have to be validated in any particular place at all. You can do it far from any vehicles.

raxxorraxor 2y ago

We had electric busses in our city. They were awesome. The were far less noisy and didn't stink. But they were scrapped again. Reason: Diesel busses had a maintenance time of 2%, electric busses of 5%, meaning they spend 5% of their running time in maintenance. That was all, so we now have loud and stinky busses again. That said, I don't think you can ever replace individual traffic. It is only possible in the most dense cities. Otherwise bus travel is too slow and unreliable for people working 40h+.

mg 2y ago
Which city is that? bus travel is too slow I would expect travel to speed up when we move from cars to buses. Look at what cars do most of the time. Waiting at crossings, slowing down for crossings, accelerating after passing a crossing. I have not measured it yet, but I would expect buses that carry 20 passengers each to accelerate that by a factor of 10 or so. and unreliable You mean when the bus is stuck in traffic? Don't you have the same problem with a car? people working 40h+ I would think people who work 40h would be happy if they could do their work in a nice electric bus with a table instead of spending that time handling a steering wheel.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  > but I would expect buses that carry 20 passengers each FWIW, that's a _tiny_ bus. Typical city buses take 80-100 people, articulated buses about 150. At peak time on important routes they'll generally be mostly full. The major capacity limit on buses is stopping. On busy systems at peak times, you'll tend to get clumping at stops, as similar routes line up one after another.
  - mg 2y ago
    city buses take 80-100 people, articulated buses about 150 Yes, but then they are not offering a ride that is better than a ride in a private car. I have took an extensive look at this over the last weeks. A typical articulated bus can only carry about 20 to 30 passengers who are seated as comfortably as in a private car. Partly that is because of the design of the buses. If the buses were redesigned to comfortably seat people, they could probably carry an additional 10 or 20 passengers who are comfortably seated.

jasode 2y ago

>And shifting traffic from personal cars to buses would make mobility much more efficient. Because in a bus, 30 people can cross a crossing so much faster than in a line of 30 individual cars. [...] I would expect travel to speed up when we move from cars to buses. Look at what cars do most of the time. Waiting at crossings, slowing down for crossings, accelerating after passing a crossing. I have not measured it yet, but I would expect buses that carry 20 passengers each to accelerate that by a factor of 10 or so. Your math is leaving out a lot of other waiting periods which makes it seem like buses save time over cars. Your focus on crossing intersections is distorting the calculations. Yes, 1 bus can move 30 passengers through a traffic light is faster than 30 individual cars but you have to offset that savings with extra wait times in other places: + add additional time to travel to the bus stop + add additional time to wait at the bus stop because buses don't come on demand but at spaced intervals. Maybe once an hour or half hour. + add additional time for bus to stop at other bus stops that are not relevant to the passenger, or changing buses, + add additional time to account for the bus taking a longer convoluted route that deviates from the shortest path between points A and B because they have to accommodate for the bus stops and also optimize the # of buses in the fleet vs passenger counts. + add time to travel from the final bus stop dropoff point to travel to the final destination without the bus. Each mile of walking takes about ~20 minutes. If the bus stop is too far away from the destination office or house, then I guess the passenger can take an Uber ride? Not only does that add more time, it negates a lot of benefits of using the bus. People could use the Uber for the entire trip -- or just use their personal car. There are scenarios where the bus is undeniably faster. Inside dense cities where they have special lanes that can bypass some gridlock. The tour buses with stops that have frequent pickup intervals that do continuous loops around cities for tourists is another example that's faster than cars.

mg 2y ago
My perspective is from living in a big city. Hamburg in Germany. Here it is like this: add additional time to travel to the bus stop That is more than offset by the time and stress to find a parking place when you use a private car. add additional time to wait at the bus stop I would guess the average wait time here is about 3 minutes. additional time for bus to stop at other bus stops True, but decreases the more buses there are. The more buses, the less stops every bus has to do. And also decreases the better the planning via internet becomes. We have buses here in Hamburg, called "Moia" by Volkswagen, where you announce your starting and destination positions in advance, and the bus only stops where it has to. additional time to account for the bus taking a route that deviates from shortest path True, but decreases the more buses there are. And the better we plan the routes via the internet with people announcing their route upfront.

rsanek 2y ago

>Electric buses make rides pretty cheap and comfortable how much public transit have you used in the US? in NYC, busses are somehow even worse than the subway. in SF, same kind of story. I'll choose to walk, bike or taxi to avoid the implementation of public transit we have.

cafard 2y ago

I can ride the WMATA Metrobus anonymously for $2.25 cash or unregistered SmartTrip. Now that I have the senior ($1.10) SmartTrip, I've blown my cover. And an awful lot of SmartTrip cards are registered with WMATA, people use Apple Wallets, etc. But then a lot of people simply don't pay. There are cameras on many or all buses, too.

palata 2y ago

It's quite amazing how every thread related to "public transport" systematically ends up being "the rest of the world" trying to explain to Americans that they may want to get slightly informed about the rest of the world before they say "public transports cannot work anywhere, because in the US they don't work". Sure, US cities have mostly (1) been designed as far away from anything that is not the individual car as possible, and now it's very difficult to come back. But at least Americans could pretend they are aware of the fact that cities can be built in such a way that public transports actually work. (1) Because there are cities, like NYC, where it actually works!