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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

#121

Post by treis »

woodruffw wrote: post #109
treis wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Streetcars are always less mobile buses. You can do everything you suggest for buses and get the same benefits plus everything that being a bus offers you.

The advantages to streetcars aren't limited to what I suggest. They also include noise and air quality advantages (hooking up to municipal power sources instead of carrying their own engines), human advantages (they tend to be more comfortable than buses, both because of road quality and size), capacity, and so forth. There are many, many situations where buses (ideally, electrified ones) are the right choice. But th…

>hooking up to municipal power sources instead of carrying their own engines

You can do that with a bus

>they tend to be more comfortable than buses, both because of road quality and size

(1) You can make bigger buses if you want

(2) There's little difference in a streetcar on a track and a bus on a flat road. And it's a lot cheaper to get flat roads than to lay track

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

#122

Post by kwhitefoot »

chrismartin wrote: post #82
woodruffw wrote: post #33

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...

I live in a city with a "modern" streetcar. I even rode it to work for a few months. Two reasons why it's not great. 1. It shares busy streets with cars yet has zero ability to maneuver in traffic. If just one car is parked a few inches beyond the edge of the parking lane, the entire streetcar route is blocked. 2. The tracks trap bicycle tires and cause many bicycle crashes. This happened to colleague of mine, fortun…

> If just one car is parked a few inches beyond the edge of the parking lane

In places where I have lived and worked that have trams the car always comes off worst because the tram is just so much heavier and more robust. And no one is going to defend the car owner because the tram has right of way. I have even seen buses just touch cars that were illegally parked in bus stops, just a gentle scratch and easily deniable, but you can bet that the car driver never does it again.

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

#123

Post by falcolas »

woodruffw wrote: post #44
whatever1 wrote: post #37

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,…

Public bus systems can be good; most cities and municipalities simply don't bother to make it so (because "polite society" drives everywhere). NYC's buses have their own flaws, but they demonstrate many of the necessary conditions for success: dedicated bus lanes, split-service (local and express on the same route, with corresponding bus sizes), and multimodal connections (light rail, streetcars, subways). This is al…

Taking the bus to Javits Center will quickly show how even NY with their subways and buses fall short. I ended up walking about 10 NY city blocks b/c the bus wasn't running.

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

#124

Post by woodruffw »

mcspiff wrote: post #110
woodruffw wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never once seen any of these on a public bus, either in my city or others. What you're describing sounds like a civic problem where you live, not some kind of intrinsic quality of public transportation.

I’ve lived in 3 Canadian cities and 1 major US city. Regularly used public transit in all of them. Used transit around both Canada and the US as a tourist, plus a few locations in Europe, Australia. For any location where I was using it for more than a week I’ve encountered something unpleasant. Various degrees and extremes, but in my experience (not OP) it certainly seems to be intrinsic to public transit. Some of t…

To be fair: I've seen plenty of unpleasant things on public transport. Subways, in particular, are a different world from public buses in NYC.

When I think about these things, I interrogate my frame of reference. At least for the US, the most appropriate contrast is the road trips I've taken, during which I saw no shortage of drunk drivers and general mishegaas at gas stations and rest stops.

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

#125

Post by rockinghigh »

whatever1 wrote: post #37

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,…

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

Are you talking about the US? I found buses to work quite well in France, Japan, London, Switzerland. Even in the US, they work fine in dense areas.

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

#126

Post by wbsss4412 »

treis wrote: post #105
wbsss4412 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flexibility and efficiency are often at odds. Fixed route service is FAR more efficient than any sort of micro transit service can ever be, unless we are looking at areas with very low demand. The most efficient algorithm is always going to be having people gather in one spot to be picked up and dropped off rather than driving all over to different points.

>Fixed route service is FAR more efficient than any sort of micro transit service can ever be Theoretically fixed route service is far more efficient. Practically, it's not because it takes a lot of demand to run at high frequency and high utilization. As an example, I live in Atlanta and it costs the system $9 per bus ride these days. And given the nature of the system and the city it usually takes people more than…

You aren’t making an apples to apples comparison though, your assertion is that it costs the system $18 for you to take a trip, but you’re only looking at the fare charges by Uber/Lyft. Uber and Lyft continue to operate at a loss, and are therefore subsidizing their rides as well. Additionally, they are able to maintain a contingent workforce that a public transit agency would likely never be able to get away with. Uber and Lyft are directly subsidized by investor money, in addition to the lower wages earned by drivers who also cover the capital expenditure for vehicles and cover the maintenance costs.

And final point, mass transit demand still hasn’t returned to pre pandemic levels. Obviously, it may be the case that we have seen a long term shift in demand, but the fact remains that the current system was built out/provisioned for a higher level of demand, so it’s not surprising that the cost structure is higher right now than it should be. Pre pandemic it looks like bus/rail cost Marta around $4.50 per trip.

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

#127

Post by woodruffw »

falcolas wrote: post #123
woodruffw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public bus systems can be good; most cities and municipalities simply don't bother to make it so (because "polite society" drives everywhere). NYC's buses have their own flaws, but they demonstrate many of the necessary conditions for success: dedicated bus lanes, split-service (local and express on the same route, with corresponding bus sizes), and multimodal connections (light rail, streetcars, subways). This is al…

Taking the bus to Javits Center will quickly show how even NY with their subways and buses fall short. I ended up walking about 10 NY city blocks b/c the bus wasn't running.

I won't excuse Javits: they built it in one of the most inconvenient neighborhoods in Manhattan for public transit (presumably because it's a convention center, meaning that most of the expected traffic is out-of-towners staying at nearby hotels). That being said, the 7 to Hudson Yards is (IME) the best way to get there, and is among the more reliable subway services.

Edit: That being said, 10 city blocks is half a mile. That's an ordinary walk in NYC.

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

#128

Post by fennecfoxen »

marssaxman wrote: post #86
fennecfoxen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public transit that is not subway on rails suck big time. Bus Rapid Transit called. It promised 95% of the raw speed and 4x the service frequency at 25% of the cost.

Bus Rapid Transit calls when you are proposing a subway or a tram, promising great things at a low price. After you agree to settle for a shinier bus line instead of the nice, fast, reliable transit system you originally wanted, the value engineers get to work compromising the design, and you end up with... another bus route. Maybe it has a different color of paint this time.

It sounds like you were just going to end up with a mediocre, compromised system anyway. "Light rail" is still bringing us things like the Santa Clara VTA system at best, and the Virginia Beach "Tide" at its worst. Likewise cities with "real" subways include such luminaries as Atlanta and Miami. Have you tried to take the metro system in Miami?

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

#129

Post by erjiang »

In my past life I built and sold dispatch software for microtransit / on-demand rides. (UberPool as a service, more or less.)

What this article doesn’t say:

* Many, many cities have something similar already, but only for riders with disabilities. (“paratransit”) You need to schedule your ride the day before, but they will take you from door to door.

* The cost per ride is quite high: more than $20 per ride, often. This cost is borne by the city, while riders pay little to nothing. In very few cases does it make financial sense - most places aren’t replacing their buses with microtransit.

* The best utilization I’ve seen is on campuses, where there are a fixed set of stops in a small region, and a large population of people who can’t or don’t want to drive (maybe due to limited parking).

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

#130

Post by andylynch »

sjf wrote: post #102
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a 2mile commute can last easily 45 minutes. at 10mph average, which includes stops, I doubt a 2 mile commute could take 45 minutes. It should take... 12 minutes. Let's call it 15. > I have walked thousands of miles because the bus stops do not align with my destinations. It's probably good for your health. Seriously, now: I get your point. The > under 100 degrees of sun and under snowstorms is the worst part, I gue…

You don't take the bus, it probably is 45mins. You are not including time walking to/from the bus stop at both ends. Time spent waiting for the bus- this is probably the biggest one. Time for people getting on and off at bus stops and paying- in some places, for example in London, there are stops every couple of hundred meters on the route, it is kind of ridiculous.

Having them close together is a massive help to people with mobility issue, bags, and /or small children. TFL policy is to reduce journey times by keeping stops less than five minutes’ from homes, and closer in town centres. The buses also won’t normally stop unless there is someone boarding or alighting.
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