It’s an interesting coincidence that, while debating the merits of spending more government money on public transit, the K-W Blogger Psystenance discussed the need for having space left over when making transit available to users. Half-empty buses are not a bad thing:
It seems to me that transit advocates like seeing full buses, and I admit I’ve been one of that number. Full buses mean that people are riding transit, which is good! But full buses are actually a bad thing for a number of reasons, and they may be detrimental to the growth of transit mode share in areas where transit does not predominate.
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A full bus takes longer to get everywhere. As a result of having so many people, it is likely to make more stops. Plus, it takes much longer each time someone needs to get on or off. It’s even worse in the case of buses running every 15 minutes or more frequently, as the later a bus arrives, the more people will be waiting for it. The next bus is comparatively less burdened, and is able to catch up. This bus bunching decreases effective frequency.
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It is an order of magnitude better to run half-full buses at twice the frequency than running crush loaded buses. The difference in quality of service between the two choices is huge: higher frequency is itself attractive to riders, as is having more space available and having shorter dwell times. This higher frequency would of course be particularly effective if it crossed the schedule-free threshold. I suspect that in many cases of full buses in K-W, running at twice the frequency might actually lead to running 2/3 full buses (not just half-full) as a result of increased use by choice riders. These would be serious effects on overall ridership figures and on transit mode share.
Eloquently put. And to say that there’s an overcapacity at the TTC ignores the fact that the commission expects to carry 473 million passengers this year, a record. The system’s farebox recovery is down to 75%, some distance from the 82% it was able to achieve in the lean years of the mid to late 1990s. Transit advocates such as myself did like to point to that high farebox recovery to show that Toronto’s system was efficient, but that efficiency wasn’t always a good thing. At the time, the TTC’s ridership was tens of millions passengers per year lower.
Spending a little extra money per passenger gets more people into transit and off the roads. It’s not wasted space, it’s just space. It’s room for another user if they choose to use it. It makes more of the city accessible by transit. It makes transit a more comfortable alternative than what exists now.
On Watching The House Season Premiere
Brilliant! Lovely! Wonderful! Please to God, make this stick.
I’m serious. They had better not throw this away, or else I’ll stop watching. Indeed, I’ll burn my copies of every single episode of House after this one and claim to my dying days that the series ended here.
Just… make it stick, will you? Please?
September 23, 2009 11:57 PM
The was an interesting observation (On Steve Munro’s Blog?) recently. One route had a lightly loaded final run removed. The heavy load that had been taking the second last bus shifted to the second last bus of the new schedule; passengers seemed to want the security of an extra bus even if they tried not to patronize it. A loading observation on steetcars: After a gap in service everyone tries to get on the first car along; very few will wait for the emptier following cars. Probably with good reason as they have found that the following cars are more likely to be short-turned.
September 24, 2009 8:58 AM
I find myself intensely disliking the new accessible buses because even when partially full, they feel claustrophobic and when full are difficult to get out of. And once a stroller gets on you’re trapped. I do find myself thinking of other ways to get there if I have to use a bus — the observations about capacity are spot on.
That House premiere was brilliant! First time I’ve remained glued to the show from beginning to end!
September 24, 2009 1:04 PM
The House premier was very good. So different from the formulaic episodes that had made me stop watching after Season 3.
September 24, 2009 1:08 PM
I agree the third season got very formulaic, but they really shook things up with Season 4, by supposedly “firing” the team and having House run a reality show parody to select his new team. Season five was more normal, but had high notes, and then finished off with a wonderful lead-in to this season which, I hope, changes House’s character in interesting ways.
September 25, 2009 4:07 PM
Another thing to note on the capacity question: A full bus, just like a full hospital ward, is more a sign of a major problem (i.e. the system has no capacity to expand or deal with a crisis, whatever the case may be) than it is something to be lauded. Empty beds and empty seats are a good thing.
At the same time I do find those buses that dedicate approximately half their space to priority seating to be shining beacons of wastes of space. Less people can comfortably fit in .