Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#101

Post by zimpenfish » Wed, May 29, 2019, 11:10 AM UTC

superqwert wrote: post #46

zimpenfish wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rough calculations give it 15 stops for 2420m in direction 1 (avg 160m), and 2235m in direction 2 (avg 148m). Alas, it appears that route 631 has it beat - 1440m in direction 1 (avg 130m), 1751m in direction 2 (avg 134m) (although, peculiarly, the information in TfL's bus route download doesn't match what you get from the web site when you look up 631.)

Using TfL open API ----------------------------- 389 inbound: min: 24.14811016418819 lq: 63.13737031546762 med: 117.45915732519208 avg: 159.1719773263877 uq: 188.0955557392336 max: 845.60445291754 389 outbound: min: 27.01945592261999 lq: 41.34298814984834 med: 117.00503319935248 avg: 146.97253048021068 uq: 167.28703169991314 max: 809.8962084249061 631 inbound: min: 7.0860750640801 lq: 27.685480182275676 med: 104.9109…

Yeah, I got my numbers from `bus-sequences.csv` downloaded from the API site.

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#102

Post by cafard » Wed, May 29, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #52

cafard wrote: post #17

In Washington, DC, the distance varies considerably, but 200m sounds about right for the average. WMATA does have a "next bus" service that I see people using.

Notably there are also several "MetroExtra" buses that run similar routes as popular bus lines but make about 1/3 as many stops and are therefore much faster. The NextBus service DC uses is clearly using a very naive algorithm that is often (consistently) too fast or slow. Some of the better apps modify it or add their own data.

Yes, WMATA has managed to move a lot of S9 buses up and down 16th St. NW at busy times of day. Judging from what I see, the S9 is efficient at moving such people as get on, less so in moving numbers of people. It is routine to see three mostly empty S9s go by a stop before a local bus (S1/S2/S4) arrives.

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#103

Post by lathiat » Wed, May 29, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #59

JackFr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Subway spends billions of dollars a year on power. Most of that power (for trains) is spent accelerating so every stop counts. The entire MTA spends less than $500 million on electricity annually (which includes the subway, Long Island Railroad and MetroNorth commuter rail) of a roughly $17 billion dollar budget. Additionally, the 4.5 million people who use the 28th Street stop on the 1 line and the 6.7 million…

Moreover, if power becomes significant you can add regenerative breaking to regain a large fraction of energy (if they're not doing so already; maybe not because of the age of the trains).

The London Underground definitely does that. Also in part because it reduces the heat output. The underground has been heatsoaking for decades and it’s hitting problematic temperature levels.

This article is a great read: https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2017/06/10/cooling-the-tube...

Apparently about half of the heat generated in the tunnels is/was from braking. And the tunnel temperatures have risen from 14-30C since around 1908.

Is a good read about the engineering challenges.

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#104

Post by anticensor » Wed, May 29, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

hibbelig wrote: post #62

anticensor wrote: post #61

İzmir: 300m in city proper, 100m in suburbs.

Stops in the suburbs are closer than in the city center?

Yes, because smaller buses run in suburbs. This does not include highway strips, which retain 300m stop spacing in suburbs, too. Example route: https://www.eshot.gov.tr/tr/UlasimSaatleri/501/288 Disclaimer: I live very close to this bus route

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#105

Post by JackFr » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #94

JackFr wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C’mon -- that was a rhetorical flourish.

A rhetorical flourish that conveniently made your argument appear much stronger than it actually was.

That literally is the point of rhetoric.

Re: Ask HN: How close together are your bus stops?

#106

Post by matt_the_bass » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 11:47 AM UTC

I have no statistics only anedata. In my old neighborhood in Providence RI bus stops we’re within shouting distance of the next stop. This was infuriating to me and a 2 mile bus ride to downtown could take 30-40 minutes. That is literally slower than my normal walking speed (~4 miles per hour). This duration was generally due to the number of stops not traffic. Maybe I’m a fast walker, but that still seems ridiculous.