I suppose the pitch for such a service could be:
"crowd-sourced bus routes".
Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
61–70 of 98 posts
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#62This is called the Dial-a-ride problem or pickup and delivery problem with time windows in optimization literature in case anyone is interested.
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#63"detroit" (as in the community, not the municipal government) is doing something similar, except it's privately run. http://thedetroitbus.com/
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#64This is public service that is subsidized by goverment and its not profitable and its goal is to help elderly get around in the city. It has some additional stops beyond normal bus stops, and it has far more limited service area than normal busses in the Capital. For instance the air port is outside the service area. Its also a nice complementary service for public transport on uncommon trips that would take too much time to change between 3 different busses or more.
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#65Mixed feelings for me. I wrote a paper on the very same thing, "Demand responsive public transportation" but never really had the conviction to implement it full scale as I thought it would simply fail in a country with huge population as india, where there is always demand in all locations. It would be interesting to see how it would fare in a densely populated route.
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#66I stayed at a town in Turkey, Trabzon I think, where the whole town seemed to run on a related concept - the "taxibus". It was very low tech, based purely on flagging down a taxibus that looked like it was going the right way, but it worked extremely well. Price was reasonable, the town was full of them so it was easy to get a ride, and you got exactly where you were going unlike with a bus. I've been wanting to see a higher tech version for larger towns / cities ever since.
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#67I'm running a service optimizing deliveries (https://fleetnavi.com, Bulgarian language only although it's fully usable when auto-translated with Chrome). I've been thinking of using the engine to do public transit like this, or a courier service (airbnb for couriers), or a transportation services exchange. Contact me if you think we could work together on something similar.
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#68I'd love this. If American public transportation fans would stop fantasizing about trains and instead do what really works for most people -- buses -- then we could have things a lot better. I've been waiting for years for a service that dispatches a nice bus to ride in on my way to work without me having to walk/drive to a bus stop and hope the schedule is right. I'd accept a modest increase in the commute time if I…
You might be interested to learn about the successful bus rapid transit system in Curitiba, Brazil:
"Buses running in the dedicated lanes stop at cylindrical, clear-walled tube stations with turnstiles, steps, and wheelchair lifts. Passengers pay their fares as they enter the stations, and wait for buses on raised platforms. Instead of steps, buses have extra wide doors and ramps that extend out to the station platform when the doors open. The tube stations serve the dual purpose of providing shelter from the elements, and facilitating the simultaneous loading and unloading of passengers, including wheelchairs, efficiently. This system of same-level bus boarding, plus the pre-boarding fare payment, results in a typical dwell time of no more than 15 to 19 seconds at a stop."[1]
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
If American public transportation fans would stop fantasizing about trains and instead do what really works for most people -- buses Trains really work for large numbers of people. A single NYC subway train can carry something like 2,400 people. A bus can carry something like 1/10 of that at best. Once you factor in the subway and local train services to New Jersey, CT, Long Island and Upstate New York you really, re…
The story that trains are superior for high density is not necessarily true. Buses with dedicated lanes appear to have high throughputs and lower infrastructure costs ( not to mention can continue to run into lower density areas or have routes more easily changed as the population density shifts). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit#Comparison_wi...
But significantly greater operational costs. Those comparisons are with light rail not heavy rail like the new york subway.
Re: Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trains are faster if they're grade separated because they don't have to wait for traffic. Not waiting for traffic also makes them more reliable, especially during rush hour. If you can't rely on the schedule, you have to put padding into your schedule, which makes them effectively even slower. Trains are also faster because they have lots of doors and the passengers are waiting at the same level as the doors, and you…
The thing is "They're also smoother and so more pleasant to ride. " is the only thing on that list that's even remotely inherent to trains over buses. Yet you rarely see people arguing to improve the buses so the other things you mentioned aren't an issue.
Capacity is significantly higher and stop frequency significantly lower allowing a high speed high volume route.