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In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

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Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#31

Post by bluGill »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #25
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #8

Aren’t these just subsidized taxis? They don’t help with congestion, they don’t help with pollution, I don’t see how they ultimately bring down costs since you still need individual cars and drivers... Perhaps in some limited cases, multiple people going the same way at the same time can share a vehicle, but how often will that work out in practice? I basically never end up sharing an Uber/Lyft with anyone else despi…

There are van taxis that do this in third world countries, they're not terrible. Faster than a bus line and cheaper than a regular taxi. I think if pooling was more of a norm and people were a bit less time sensitive it'd work great here with the support of an app.

No post body was provided.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#32

Post by richiebful1 »

pif wrote: post #21
zeroth32 wrote: post #6

In Asia it is called marshrutka. It is amazing to see how US reinvents wheel and gives it cool names.

[OT] > In Asia it is called ... So a few billions of people, speaking a multitude of languages, all use the same name for a concept? How nice!

If I had to guess it comes from Russian маршрут/marshrut (route). Маршрутки/Marshrutkas in the former Soviet Union typically run on fixed routes just like busses.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#33

Post by woodruffw »

Make of this what you will: North Carolina’s cities used to have remarkably developed streetcar networks[1].

It is depressing and frustrating to see public authorities attempt to recreate the successes of public transport on fundamentally inefficient, commons-hostile substrates.

[1]: https://www.ourstate.com/history-of-north-carolina-streetcar...

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#34

Post by ls15 »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #26
ls15 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have congestion which isn't helped much by shuttles compared to a bus or other high capacity transit Multiple simultaneously driving taxis can be replaced by one shuttle van at times or for routes where large busses would run mostly empty, because they lack flexibility.

Yeah, if you need coverage shuttles are great albeit at a high marginal cost per trip. If you need capacity then they don't really work. A city will spend more on shuttles than they would on a network extensive and well designed enough to get good utilization. I guess they are useful in some US cities as a stepping stone where there are massive political and legislative barriers to building a functional city.

But I found them useful in Berlin (see my other comment in this thread) and Berlin already has one of the best public transport networks in the world, I think. For me they were just closing the gap between taxi and public transport. In terms of use cases and in terms of pricing.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#35

Post by woodruffw »

pif wrote: post #18
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #8

Aren’t these just subsidized taxis? They don’t help with congestion, they don’t help with pollution, I don’t see how they ultimately bring down costs since you still need individual cars and drivers... Perhaps in some limited cases, multiple people going the same way at the same time can share a vehicle, but how often will that work out in practice? I basically never end up sharing an Uber/Lyft with anyone else despi…

> They don’t help with congestion, they don’t help with pollution, So what? The first and only point of a public transport system is, you know, transporting people. Limiting congestion and pollution comes very far in terms of priority, and only once the core mission is fulfilled.

The object of a public transportation system is to transport the public, not individual people. That means mass design considerations, which are the same considerations as anti-congestion. Reducing pollution is a nice side effect.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#36

Post by The-Bus »

NYC needs a broader bus network, but it doesn't need to use the existing large (or XL articulated aka bendy bus) to do so.

Hong Kong has Public Light Buses that carry 1M passengers a day: https://www.td.gov.hk/en/transport_in_hong_kong/public_trans...

Dollar vans effectively do this currently, but it's cheaper than any light rail or other solution, especially for outer borough transportation.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#37

Post by whatever1 »

Public transit that is not subway on rails suck big time.

I have wasted thousands of hours waiting for the bus that either came early, or is late, under 100 degrees of sun and under snowstorms. Add to that the I have walked thousands of miles because the bus stops do not align with my destinations.

Since I got a car and live in the suburbs, I pay much lower housing costs, I start exactly 20’ before my punch in time, I park under my office building and I am never late (maybe 1/300 due to an accident). Oh and I always arrive dry.

Commuting in general is bad. Commuting by bus is one of the worst things that us peasants have to deal with on a daily basis.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#38

Post by ceejayoz »

bluGill wrote: post #31
CuriouslyC wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are van taxis that do this in third world countries, they're not terrible. Faster than a bus line and cheaper than a regular taxi. I think if pooling was more of a norm and people were a bit less time sensitive it'd work great here with the support of an app.

Quoted post unavailable.

> People are very time sensitive.

People have been convinced they need to be time sensitive. "30 minutes or it's free", "next day shipping", etc. are everywhere. In many cases, we're not as time sensitive as we've been trained to think.

American public transit is so frequently poor that it often means a 10 minute trip by car might be two hours by bus, but a whole bunch of people would be fine with a 30-45 minute option being available.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#39

Post by HonestOp001 »

bluGill wrote: post #27

Another bad idea that keeps coming back. Real experts have written about it. Start with https://humantransit.org/2019/08/what-is-microtransit-for.ht... and be prepared to read for a while to understand why this is not a good idea despite the hype.

It is the future, getting the large inefficient buses off the system is the goal.

His thesis that the vehicles meander and no technology will fix that is refutable in that technology can identify opportunities to minimize inefficiencies. A good algorithm will create efficient routes for the flexible transit.

Finally, the author is a public transit consultant. He is not going to be good for a reference when he is on one side of an item. He may be a subject matter expert, but he is blinded to what can be accomplished. Judging from other people’s comments from other countries, my thesis is more accurate.

Re: In microtransit, passengers order a shuttle van instead of having to take a bus

#40

Post by woodruffw »

The-Bus wrote: post #36

NYC needs a broader bus network, but it doesn't need to use the existing large (or XL articulated aka bendy bus) to do so. Hong Kong has Public Light Buses that carry 1M passengers a day: https://www.td.gov.hk/en/transport_in_hong_kong/public_trans... Dollar vans effectively do this currently, but it's cheaper than any light rail or other solution, especially for outer borough transportation.

I take the buses in Brooklyn pretty regularly, and I don't find the routes themselves especially lacking[1]. But higher volume would be nice, and I'd be interested to see evidence presented that smaller buses would accomplish that (versus more dedicated bus lanes and high fines for blocking the lanes).

[1]: https://new.mta.info/map/5261

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