Buses are Actually Pretty Great
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- čas přidán 6. 11. 2023
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The humble bus often feel like second-rate transit options when compared to the mighty train, but they are actually incredibly flexible and can be great when done right. Let's talk about them!
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
The big (but fixable) problem with buses is legibility. When I am in a new city I tend to favour rail over bus because the routes etc are transparent and predictable. Bus networks need good information, maps, signage etc.
Yeah, this is a big problem. When you are traveling or just new to a city it can be hard to figure out where the buses are going or what route to take. To some degree this is inevitable. Bus networks tend to fill in the gaps in your transit network, serving lots of smaller but lower demand routes so there's just going to be more of them than rail lines. But there are also things a lot of cities do to make this even more complicated. Like having the same bus number run slightly different routes at different times of the day (often diverting during rush hour, etc.). There are also concerns like, this route might be running now but will it be running in the opposite direction when I need to come back much later. There's just less consistency of service with buses. And I've also seen buses diverted because of weather conditions, which would have been fine if I *knew* about it, but I was left waiting at a stop the buses weren't actually serving at that time because of snow.
There are some cities with good apps for finding your way on bus networks, but this stuff isn't standardized. It's just so much easier to stick to rail lines, you know where they're going to be.
A lot of cities have good compatibility with google maps though
To add one thing, many bus maps have frequent buses and infrequent buses drawn the same or similarly, so it's hard to know where the useful routes are
See also: Jarrett Walker
In the Santiago de Chile bus system, this problem is (almost) solved with the massive use of a cell phone application that calculates the most useful routes to your destination and the waiting time for the next bus. This works even at the smallest and most distant stops from the center.
Absolutely, which is something cities with a TON of low frequency routes and too many stops struggle with in particular!
One thing about bus exclusive right of ways that I feel doesn’t get enough press is the fact that it can also be used by most emergency vehicles, ambulances fitting easily and I’m pretty sure fire trucks could fit as well, being about the same size. So, good bus infrastructure saves lives.
good point
You can have concrete tram corridors though.
Concrete Tram corridors are nice, as you can route buses from areas without tram tracks through the same right of way in the City
@@szymex22But green track is better! Suppresses noise and mitigates the heat island efffect.
That is how Amsterdam started to over-haul their city in the mid 1970's. Major arterial roads that had 4 lanes in the past were reduced to one traffic lane each way. the center section was raised to make it stand out. Unique traffic lights were added. They use a dot pattern in white or red so that there is zero chance of confusing them with existing traffic lights. This allowed trams to move much more freely, and also busses could use parts of these routes as well as emergency vehicles (from small police patrol cars to their largest fire engines). In the end mass transit moved way better as it was not stuck in local car traffic. At intersections there are dedicated lights that often also add in priority. Win-Win for those using public transport. It started the city on the path where walking, cycling, bus, tram and metro were all way more convenient (often a combination of those) to get around town. You have to be slightly mental to take a car into central Amsterdam these days. Just use one of the 5 or more Park and Ride facilities. It's faster, more convenient and far cheaper than driving and parking in the city center.
I grew up in Crete, Greece and considering the relatively small population of the region and the fact that Greece is a poorer country, the state owned Intercity Buses (What we'd call coaches in the UK) are extremely efficient clean comfortable and cheap. It's very unlikely a train network could ever be built in such a place but you can get a coach to basically any small village town or city on the island. I think growing up with this made me appreciate the benefits of buses/coaches in many situations, such as smaller or poorer areas over rail.
Love from Athens, Crete is great❤
They can be a great substitute as you mention, and potentially for much less money up front
I've used the Crete buses - great service including the ticketing system.
Agreed, visited Crete more times than I care to count and the bus system is excellent. Some routes might not run frequently but when they do they're clean, on time and inexpensive.
@@libman2006 True! A lot of the buses to the villages up in the mountains will only run twice a day once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I believe the idea or if this was to allow farmers to go down to the towns for the day. Would be great if they started adding more routes to these places to encourage locals to use buses instead of cars and even encourage tourists to visit more places sustainably.
I think North America should adopt the various “kinds” of buses that exist in Europe. You have short distance, with more standing than seating space, and then longer-distance, with lots of seats, free-WiFi, and USB charge ports.
I used to have a video on this and I would love to get it back up . . .
But we can't buy those buses unless that meet several requirements; being low floor and manufacturered within North America
Where I live in Scotland, even the short distance buses have USB charging and free Wi-Fi.
@@combeferret damn only our rapid ride and highway buses have WiFi
One example I can think of is that there is a bus going from Peterborough to Norwich which lasts 3 hours. Most do not go the full route getting off at Kings Lynn or Dereham and a train is preferable after that. It is likely not part of the £2,50 (previously £2) for journeys over an hour.
I would also stress that for buses to be as comfortable as trams and trains, the roads need to in good condition. I had a recent 30 minute ride on a trolleybus in Bratislava. The vehicle was modern and quiet, But the road surface was so bad that the journey made me feel ill.
From my experience the road surface isn`t the biggest problem here. For some reason Bratislava always manages to put the maximum possible amount of manhole covers in bus lanes, turning articulated buses into a trampoline when you ride over them.
Thats why I mentioned road quality in the video!
Bratislava also just has a weirdly designed transit system in general. For such a small city, it's surprisingly hard and uncomfortable to get anywhere useful, despite a system that's decent on paper.
@@majorfallacy5926I disagree, Bratislava is outside of the immediate city center oriented around a small number of large streets (say 6-7 boulevards), these are covered by tram lines which have an interval of around 2-3 minutes during peak hours. Those are complemented by a bus/trolleybus network connecting them to other parts of the city, so that even the most remote neighborhoods get a bus every 15 minutes. It`s those intervals and coverage that make up for the screwed up way the city is designed. I`ve traveled on systems in Europe which were way worse.
@@placeholder1088 maybe. I'm from vienna so my perception might be skewed, but I always hated having to go anywhere on the other side of the danube in bratislava. 15 min intervals seem high for the only way to get to main station. I think the main issue is outside connections though, it's easier to go to towns in austria than slovakia from bratislava.
Living in Singapore, I’m pretty fortunate to live in a country with such incredible public transport, having such an efficient train system and bus system combined makes for an awesome experience, and you can definitely get by without a car. Buses in singapore are pretty extensive, and you can typically get anywhere in the country with one or two bus services; plus, most bus services come every 10 minutes or even less, so we don’t even need to check a schedule. Bus tracking systems are pretty detailed too, and you can check how long until the next bus arrives, the subsequent bus, as well as what type of bus it is (double-decker, bendy). With how comfortable the double-decker buses are, I typically enjoy hanging out with my friends while chilling out at the back of the top decks of the buses
Singapore is one of the places in Asia with the best bus service along with Hong Kong IMO
MRT in SG is great but the stations can be huge and can take so long to actually get from platform to street level. I loved the buses, even more convenient
@@monketok141 Yeah, that’s one of my main gripes with the MRTs here. I also wish that they would make express trains, as I’d love for public transport to finally be faster than cars, but at least we have trains in the first place plus the island is so small so it doesn’t take that long to get anywhere
Singapore's buses are much worse than your trains. There is a reason the MRT is being expanded so people don't have to use buses.
@@Secretlyanothername Actually sometimes we prefer buses over trains as the former has more seats (e.g. a double decker bus is licensed to carry 135 passengers with 82 seats, while a train car is licensed to carry 320 passengers with only 34-62 seats) or because some train stations are deep are less convenient. Look at how much unhappiness there was when service was cut on buses 22, 66, 75, 162, 167, 506
Trains are cool, but buses are just as cool, and the solution to a transit problem depends on the location. In Wuppertal for example, they chose a suspended monorail above the river because of the narrow valley, and it effectively unified the communities. Adelaide chose the O-Bahn Busway which serves its suburbs, the buses avoid traffic with their own guided busway, and they can exit and enter the busway at ease, effectively serving not just Busway stations but also surrounding streets. Buses are a great way to get to a final destination as feeders from train stations, on top of bikes. By prioritizing bicycles, transit, and pedestrian infrastructure, cities can create more livable and vibrant communities!
In Jersey City, one could take the PATH from NYC to Journal Square, and then could take a bus to get to their final destination whether it's somewhere like Union City or maybe JC's The Heights. One could board at one of the bus platforms at the Journal Square Transportation Center which serves an important bus hub, not just for NJ Transit and PATH but also the many jitneys/dollar vans. And it's nice and organized with four different platforms lettered A through D, with each platform having a PATH entrance. Not to mention Journal Square also participates in the Citi Bike program just like other locations in Jersey City, Hoboken, and of course NYC. Thus expanding the reach of the Citi Bike program and providing an alternative for more people.
The thing about buses is they can only go as fast as the traffic around them, which makes it a slow system for highly congested roads. This can be solved with fully dedicated lanes, but then rail would be applicable as well and would have a higher capacity and speed. I might be biased though since I've lived all my life in a city with very poor quality mobility that relies almost only on buses, Lima. Loved the video, cheers from Peru.
I agree if you go to the trouble of separating buses from traffic, you might as well put in a tram (if you can afford it)
@@thomaswill37 Agreed, Lima BRT has fully separated lines however it gets excesively crowded and complicated because it doesn't have enough capacity to suit the demand. At rush hour you have to make a pretty long line to get in (squish in really) a bus. To kinda solve this they use express lines (16 different services using the same stations!) that skip some stops, but it's not enough and it makes it very hard to use for first timers
Living in submilion city in EU with trams and buses i would say that bus is always less comfortable than tram. Even on smooth surface there are tighter curves and bus is bouncing more to sides than tram, which is a problem if you are standing and trying to read a book ;)
Fully agree! Case in point: In my extended family, children tend to get car-sick quite easily, so did I when I was a child and so does my daughter. However, they never get car-sick on a tram or a train, but they get car-sick on a bus. And I am talking about Viennese and Swiss buses, so both road and vehicle quality tends to be quite good.
(Even though to be honest, I don't know about electric buses. My daughter hardly ever gets car-sick in the car anymore since we got an EV, so the discomfort in IC cars and buses might also have something to do with the engine vibrations and the less linear acceleration in comparison with electric vehicles.)
Another case in point: Often when I decide whether to use public transport or my car (or bicycle) for a journey, I decide for public transport when it's rail-based because I can get some work done on my laptop on the way. With a bus, even a smooth-running one, that's quite a challenge.
Thank you for an excellent video. Writing as a British commentator, l would however stress that for buses to be an excellent form of public transport they need to be controlled by public bodies. The Britsh privatisation and deregulation of buses has been disastrous..
Also, Britain is too “one size fits all” with buses, and single entrance double deck buses, which are really best suited to faster interurban routes, should not be the dominant form of urban transport in major cities of over 500,000 people, as they often are here. Double deck buses have way too long dwell times at each stop and really shouldn’t be used in cities at all
The buses in Edinburgh are great 👍 Enormous, very comfortable and modern and (mostly) very frequent.
@@samuell.foxton4177no real replacement on British streets, most places I can think of which have tried to use articulated buses have found them too cumbersome (alongside tending to be unreliable) for the narrower streets and gone back to double deckers within years. Could do with more doors on buses outside London though.
@@NaenaeGaming double door double decker busses exist
Same in Australia as well.
Even though MTR dominates the market in Hong Kong, buses are still a force to be reckon with. Since bus companies in Hong Kong are all private, there is always competition with one another and even with MTR. Long express routes can even be very frequent (departures within every 5 minutes) and can be serving parallel to the MTR. This is why I believe the combination of MTR and buses in Hong Kong is, in my opinion, the key to making HK one of the most successful transport hubs in the world! Heck, you can even get to their Disneyland using the MTR system, which has its own dedicated line that acts as a shuttle between Sunny Bay on the Tung Chung Line and Disneyland Resort. And the trains look so cute!
On Oahu, TheBus has a big network. These vehicles provide daily service on 106 routes, including three rapid transit routes and two limited express routes. Because of low cost and wide coverage, many high school students have used the network to get to where they need to go, and since July 2023, it is free for high school students to use the system! And with the Skyline, TheBus acts as feeder services to get people to their final destination from the stations. And on the topic of trolleybuses, even a city like Pyongyang in North Korea has trolleybuses, as it began operations in 1962 and currently has 12 lines! The Pyongyang trolleybuses are in harmony with the trams and Pyongyang Metro.
Thank you for making this, for some reason in this community there's a lot of hate for busses. As a Londoner busses are lowkey the unsung heroes of this city.
Stay healthy and stay blessed brother.
i cant lie theyre just boring compared to other forms of transportation in london
I lived in London in the 90s and I really enjoyed using the buses. They opened up so much of the city. I lived in different parts and when I moved to a new area the first thing I did was get the relevant bus maps. I used the buses far more than the tube in fact.
Thanks for watching! Buses are important!
Transit nerds keep telling people that they're wrong. Meanwhile the people who have to use buses find them awful.
@@Secretlyanothername Transit nerds often ride and study various transit systems around the world. Just b/c buses r bad where u live doesn't mean they are bad everywhere
In Paris a surprising amount of residents overlook the bus due to the comprehensive metro system. Many times people are surprised to discover their 2-metro + walking trips could be a single direct bus line. If I'm carrying something heavy it also lets me avoid the sometimes multiple flights of stairs to get to and from the trains. You also get nice scenery since they are street running. I've told people the cheapest tour bus you can get is bus #69 (nice) which hits a ton of landmarks.
A big downside though is the same positive I mentioned - street running. Unlike a metro with a dedicated right-of-way buses have to stop at intersections and are more subject to blockage. During the march protests my local bus line was nearly non-existent due to always getting stuck at the protests downtown.
yeah the paris metro is a disaster for mobility impairment, ive never seen so many unnecessary stairs in my life
@@cooltwittertag It's my favorite metro system but I always think that if I were to become disabled I'd probably need to move to another city.
@@kueller917 i love how much you can reach, but unfortunately my parents with mobility issues struggle hard to use it
This is a great comment with a ton of cool local detail - thank you.
The problem I have with buses is they feeling of uncertainty you get as you wait for them. The bus stop nearest my house, has no timetables, no shelter, no electronic live update sign...nothing. It's a sign on a pole. My local operator has a twitter page, but they are very bad at updating it with live route info. I've know the bus to be early, i've known it to be 40 mins late, and I've experienced complete no-shows. There's also the prospect of a road closure (that i'm not aware of) causing the route to be diverted or cancelled. Yes, i know there are easy solutions to all these problems, but this is just my experience of buses here in the UK, and why often dread having to rely on them.
Same problems in the Southeast US
Generally speaking buses can be pretty good if they are controlled/regulated by the municipality such as in London or Edinburgh where I live but in places where they've been deregulated the service is not so good such as e.g. Glasgow.
I would suggest there are a lot of models that work, its just that the UK chose one that didn't!
In Sydney the new government has been talking about fixing on road transport. We're going to have a terrific railway system when the metro opens next year, but Western Sydney is still going to have bad last mile connections. When buses are given right of way and dedicated lanes on major arterial roads, they can be very effective.
i would LOVE to get more toronto bus content. you're always touting the TTC's suburban bus network as being among the best in north america, but you don't have a dedicated video discussing ~why~ that is!
I do have a lot of videos about various elements of the buses, but who knows!
The problem with flexibility is a lack of dependability. Just ask yourself: would you rather buy a home next to a new bus stop or a new train station or tram stop?
Both lines could be discontinued, but rail routes take more effort to rip up and generally come with more advanced warning. A bus can be rerouted at the stroke of a pen.
Here in the UK we have a lot of double-decker buses. When I was young I would always go up to the top deck. Now I am older I go to the bottom deck but I am so glad the young ones all go up to the top deck. 😀
Buses are great for what they are. Low upfront costs, high operating costs for routes where there is no demand or need for speed for rail. Pretty useful for connecting other modes too.
It's a huge asset for smaller cities. I live outside of a city with 200,000 people in Austria, so there are only 4 tram lines, but the entire city is connected by a massive network of busses, that even extend to my home, which is in the middle of a forest. The trams are putting in a ton of work for capacity, but it's the buses that really allow you to rely on the system and get to wherever you need to.
You can get buses pretty fast too, so I think it often comes down to opex and capacity
as a bus op, I can say that buses can be fast if they are on a road with high enough speed limit and no pesky cars. sometimes running a route like 606 or 604 we often can go 70 mph but again thats not something we can do on street cordors.@@RMTransit
Linz? @@Ruzzky_Bly4t
@@Ruzzky_Bly4t Exactly. Rail for heavy lifting, bus for lower demand point to point travel. That's why I find BRT a bit confusing, because you get the high opex and capacity of buses, with the limitations of rail (because most of them operate on separate lanes).
I remember being in high school and complaining about the TTC busses we had to ride home. My friend from northern China then told me they're actually not too bad in his experience, so that kind of gave me the first moment of pause to really give busses a fair shake.
Its really interesting how peoples gut reaction is always "they're horrible!" but when you talk about it people realize pretty quickly they actually have a lot going for them
I think the biggest drawback to buses, compared to rail is that they don't feel as integrated and quick to get the hang of. With rail, you get one map with all the routes and you can quickly create a mental picture of where you can go and the possible connections you can make. Buses, on the other hand, have a map for each route because they rely on the street grid and now you may have to check different maps (that sometimes have a different design that the rail maps, like NYC's) and routes to figure it out. Technology has definitely made this a lot easier and many bus stops have a route map, but it can feel overwhelming at times, specially when there's poor frequency.
Both bus systems I have experience with also provided an integrated bus map, but they get pretty confusing to keep track of whenever multiple routes converge on a single street. I think the fundamental difference between bus and train maps is that train systems have fewer routes, so the map can be simplified accordingly.
Buses are pretty great, especially when they're *frequent* and *on time!*
Thanks for giving buses the recognition they deserve! 🙏
As someone who's had an affinity for buses (and transit) from a very early age and worked as a driver for almost 20 years, I still believe a bus system done well is an essential tool in giving people mobility.
I hate the bus service in my own city because the GPS trackers on them usually go down quite frequently, or simply glitch out. As a result you either get buses that pass by a stop without letting you know beforehand, or "ghost" services that actually ran like 3 hours ago, but still appear on the info system.
Plus, they suffer horribly from rush hour traffic.
I agree that buses are given negative connotations. I recently done an English writing assignment, where I decided to write a letter to the MTA about the issues of a bus line, Q28, and provided my solutions.
The problem is that in the morning, the Q28 has to run extremely frequently to not run out of capacity at their first stop, Flushing. Enough people come every 3-4 minutes to fill a bus to maximum capacity, which is also approximately the frequency of the bus in the morning, which is already double the average frequency of a bus line of its size. Almost everyone gets off at either Francis Lewis Blvd (outside IS 25, population ~1,000), or Corporal Kennedy Street (outside Bayside High School, population ~3,000, including me). A popular bus stop is Crocheron Avenue, some time before IS25, with the connections from Q13, but as I mentioned earlier, these buses are full before they get to any of the schools, so these people have to wait for several buses to hope for a bus that packs the students to an illegal and unsafe degree(so packed that the bus driver cannot see the side mirror, and many passengers are nowhere near a handrail). If you’re wondering, it’s worse in the afternoon rush hour. Students walk as far back from Bayside High School, the 7th stop flushing bound, usually to either the 5th stop or the 2nd stop, and due to this, 4-5 buses are already full by the time they get to the school, and stay that way all the way to flushing, the most common stop as a transit hub. AND THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE RUSH HOUR FREQUENCY. Rarely anyone gets on or off in between, with the tiny exception of Francis Lewis Blvd, with the connection to Q76(which is a really small load thanks to Q31, another bus line to Bayside High School that has a much smaller demand), and Crocheron Avenue/Northern Blvd, with the Q13 connection again.
For solutions, I stated that extending the 7 isn’t a good idea, due to prices, potential impact on the community, having to dig deeper tunnels due to deeper foundations, and the fact that the LIRR already covers that area(but are not free for students still, while the bus and metro are free). Giving students access to the LIRR, I also stated, is a major risk, as it may become harder to maintain the trains, and they are not frequent as well. However, it is plausible if the MTA can somehow regulate the trains from vandalism, as the trains go opposite of rush hour, being already empty.
The other solution I offered was articulated buses. However, I also added that it should run on a new line, a limited line that runs on a slightly different route that avoids as many tight right turn corners as possible (only 1 remains at the 35th avenue/Corporal Kennedy Street intersection), and skipping many small stops.
Service frequency needs to be optimized for the area so people aren’t waiting more than 10-15 minutes for a bus, the busses aren’t overcrowded AND there’s no bunching (3 buses show up at once, then it’s 20 minutes for the next one.)
I love the vibrations on bus drives. You can feel the journey and the hicks and bumps on the road can have a special charme on the ride.
I needed this video today. Buses deserve some more love!
That they do! Thanks for watching!
Thanks for this. Re the Bus vs Rail debate, this may be a red herring: a lot of the time you’re lucky if you have even one option!
My own take on buses is that I love riding them - when I am confident about where and when they will run, and that, if I have a deadline, they will enable me to keep to it. But my experience (mainly in the UK) has been terribly mixed, some of it really bad.
I put down a lot of bus problems to what I call ‘Bus-manager mentality’. Now I’m sure there must be some great enlightened bus managers out there, but it is hard to look back at the 1970s when they all plunged lemming-like off the cliff of driver-only operation. It is difficult to think of another industry where, when the competition (the car) was becoming cheaper, faster, more reliable and more comfortable, they managed to make buses slower and less reliable, and the new buses they brought in to do this with were horribly rattly and uncomfortable, and fares mostly increased! No one thought to try and compete by offering better, and better-connected, services, so as to appeal to the new appetite for travelling more widely which the private car was generating.
Another bone I have to pick with bus managers is that they insist on each route covering its costs (including a fixed percentage for overheads, including a fat bonus for the CEO), and don’t look at the extra whole-network income generated by a new properly integrated service. They set frequencies at different levels (based on what they see as the different commercial characteristics of each route) and so discourage the growth of journeys involving transfers. They also avoid any opportunity of meaningful talk with rail operators about connections: being fair, the rail people are probably just as bad - but from the passenger perspective it means having your journey possibilities severely and unnecessarily limited by this blinkered vision, and so you will probably choose to buy a car (so the bus and rail operators each loose out by their silo thinking).
They appear to have no care for passengers’ (their customers) experiences before they board, or after they leave the bus. In the end many UK local governments took on this vacant area, often with good success, but the current financial stress of most of them is meaning that bus stops are ill-maintained, and timetables out of date.
They are very generally (with a few honourable exceptions) terrible at publicity, from advertising the services, through web-sites and social media, to timetables at bus stops and wayfinding at interchanges. Have you ever come across a bus stop at which the bus service was detailed in a font-size the same as that which publicises the car dealer on the adjacent advertisement-hoarding? In particular, detail of service changes during road-works etc. is often very poor - especially in London (UK).
The vaunted flexibility also has a down-side. Most bus users will have been caught out by the bus they want going off-route and not serving their stop, maybe to serve a school etc., or maybe just because the bus is running late and the driver wants to take a short cut; or maybe the driver is new and has forgotten the route! And many of us have had been left behind at a crowded bus-stop because the driver hasn’t seen that we wanted to board. (Neither of these would be true of trolleybuses …)
Finally (or maybe not) bus systems tend to be opaque. Would you go to a town you don’t know and rely on being able to use the local bus system without having studied it in depth and brought notes with you?
It doesn’t have to be like this! For over a hundred years the London Underground has offered a genuine travel network with hundreds of easy and stress-free journey opportunities which require only a map (large version at all stations), based on (1) simple, consistent service patterns, (2) good quality transfer-points with excellent way-finding signs and (3) frequent services - usually at least every 7-8 minutes. Why can bus operators not manage this?
One of the reasons service can be poor while prices are high is that the core passenger groups bus companies target are the young, the old, the infirm, those too poor to afford a car and people whose driving licenses have been revoked. They have something of a captive audience, why then try to be competitive? If busses were used more generally by everybody and particularly by well off folk who are commuting and need to be at work on time there would be a lot more pressure on bus companies to provide better service. Bus companies won't provide better service until demand exists but demand won't exist until service is better. This is why I like this channel, it gets people into thinking that going by bus might just be better and create enough demand to get out of that rut.
@@2mains234 I agree with all you say. But I think the bus companies should not get off the hook easily. It takes quite a lot of time and hassle, and costs quite a lot of money to buy a car, fuel it, service it, insure and tax/licence it - and for learning to drive. Admittedly for some people it is their dream and their hobby, but by no means for everyone. So the transit operators have to realise they are doing quite a lot wrong if they can't get all of those people to use their product!
7:14 I love that wink at the most project-that-took-place-after-a-night-under-alcohol-influence of all time lol.
The Neoplan Jumbocruiser is just crazy lol.
Something worth noting: even with a diesel engine, buses are more efficient and less polluting than cars both in tailpipe emissions but also *importantly* by removing the sheer volume of tires on the road (an underappreciated source of toxic emissions).
Stand or cycle behind a bus and get back to me.
that's funny, I ain't ever seen 40 people on one bike
In Kolkata, India we have over 5000+ private buses and over 1000 government many running on 10 min frequency
I see two major problems with buses in most cities. The biggest one is legibility. It’s great buses can have quite specific routes to provide good coverage and one seat rides, but for new or infrequent riders it’s mainly confusing.
After I moved to my current city I have spent about a year slowly drawing myself a map of where the different services actually go and which of them could be useful , especially which of the regional lines have usable frequency and I have actually started using buses a bit more often, when they are faster then the trams. But if I’m new in a city I will only take a bus, if it can’t be prevented.
The second problem is service quality. For one, riding a bus seated is not great, but usually fine. Riding a bus standing is a terrible experience nobody wants. There’s really not a lot that can be done about this, even on a good road a bus ride will be bumpier then a tram. Buses also are often less reliable and have little information at stops. I’ve actually realized one of the reasons I use the buses in my new city is because they often have departure displays even at standard bus stops. Seeing a „next 32 bus in 5min“ display means you can relax knowing it will show up eventually and you’re not at the wrong stop or it’s cancelled or something like that. Waiting next to a sign with a paper timetable is always a bit of a leap of faith in my opinion.
"Riding a bus standing is a terrible experience nobody wants" actually I enjoyed riding a bus standing there. Personally I liked it better than standing in a tram, subway or commuter train even though it's a rougher ride.
"and have little information at stops." entirely depends on the network.
Here in Milan there are a couple of issues with buses:
- City centre has less dedicated lanes than needed so they are always stuck in traffic
- At night tens of homeless people sleep inside buses, plus in general buses here are and feel less safe than they should (pickpockets and stuff). Surely having them as only public transport option at night doesn't help...
Living in Hong Kong, the bus network is super extensive with many express lines connecting districts far apart together! And most of the time you get a seat on the bus (while you likely need to stand on the MTR)!
7:13.... DER SUPERAUTOBUS VON DRESDEN! Vielen Danke Reece!!!
Night buses in London are great. The network is expansive and I can get home using a few buses from most places in the city.
I remember having the same university bus experience as you in Brisbane, except on a crazy twisty route. The university was built on a hilly pocket of the river, so there are tight old suburban streets that are barely wide enough for buses with frequencies of over 12 buses an hour. Thankfully the busway has taken some pressure off those routes now
100% agree. Most cities probably don’t have the density for train lines everywhere. High quality bus service can also massively expand the reach of a high quality rail service. (OC Transpo, are you listening?)
I think there’s a decent case that for cities of 500k or below, a great bus network, with modern vehicles, high frequency and integrated ticketing, can provide an excellent transit service without the upfront cost of investing in any trams or metro.
And since they're not on rails, bus routes can be adapted to better suit local demand. If a particular line proves to be exceptionally popular, it could be a candidate for conversion to a tram track later on.
Even for big cities, they provide additional coverage to fill in the gaps.
500k should already have light rail, ideally with decent amounts of grade separation for fast and uninterrupted running.
@@bahnspotterEU It’s fine to start building light rail around that level for future growth, but you can have a perfectly excellent public transport network at 500k without it.
@@Zveeboif buses are enough for a city of 500k, the transit usage must be quite bad. I live in a city of 300k and there is no way the city could even function without the 5 tram lines. Buses simply don’t have enough capacity to be the transit backbone of a city that size. Before the pandemic they ran trams every five minutes during rush hour and every 7,5 minutes outside. Every tram has the capacity of two articulated buses, so they would need a bus every 2,5 minutes to provide the same capacity. This requires double the amount of drivers and vehicles while providing worse ride quality. It’s exactly what they do when they need to shut a line down and it sucks. To be able to replace two tram lines because of a big construction recently they had to cut service on all other bus lines to even have enough drivers. The city simply couldn’t afford to provide this kind of bus service permanently, but they can afford the trams, because the combination of lower operating costs and higher usage massively increases affordability for the city.
It might be possible to provide good service with buses in theory, but in countries with expensive labor it’s just not a financially viable long term solution.
doing a semester in berlin. I absolutely love the Public transit but the buses absolutely tie the u bahn and s bahn systems together especially for short distances
The only real issue I have with busses is they get stuck in traffic without dedicated lanes. This technically easy to fix since we generally have way too many lanes in most places anyways, but convincing everyone to put in a dedicated bus lane is not always easy.
You should look into Auckland and the northern express way/bus network overall. Auckland is developing multiple busways.
I love your content @RMTransit, keep making this stuff it is awesome. Just a quick one. Do you have an explainer on Melbourne's new "Metro tunnel" yet or could that possibly be a new video in the works. I'm from Melbourne and would like to know your thoughts on it as well as the Suburban Rail Loop.
Loved this video, buses are very important and seem like a reachable way to improve a struggling area. I would love to see a video about paratransit, the scatterbrained cousin of regular bus routes. What can be done to make this type of transit better? What argument can be made to localities to bother actually doing it, rather than the legal bare minimum?
Here for the Brisbane footage!
Good to see the Bus infrastructure get the attention it deserves - as a user, it's a very convenient system!
I grew up and still live in a small German town with 11000 people and we had a train station until the 1970s. They discontinued service and ripped out the tracks, but at least they put a nice cycling path there instead. Now we have great bus service with a bus going to the next big city every 60 minutes and half-hourly during rush hour. The bus to the next small town which has a good train station goes every 30 minutes where I can catch a train going between Nuremberg and Frankfurt (both directions) every hour.
From the outside my town doesn't look all that connected but the service is great for such a small town thanks to the buses (admittedly, it is a wealthy town). The buses used to be smoother, though. Now they have what I call a "stone suspension" and some drivers throw the steering wheel around, so standing is not really an option.
Wohnst du in der Nähe von Würzburg? Denn ich finde dass gerade hier Busse oftmals zu selten fahren
@@mischiefmayhemsoap ja landkreis main-Spessart, für meine Verhältnisse reichts. Nachts könnten die aber noch mehr fahren lassen. Da fährt ab 10 garnichts mehr
@@bananenmusli2769 Ab 10 nichts mehr ist echt arschig, aber das ist selbst in Offenbach so
@@mischiefmayhemsoap lohnt sich halt wirklich nicht, da würden dann vielleicht 2-3 besoffene mitfahren und ob man dafür noch nen bus fahren lässt? Gibt ja rufbusse oder taxis zur not.
Stone suspension sounds like Toronto!
The challenge with permanence/fleixibility is that a bus route can easily be shut down or rerouted from one day to another. It can easily be moved to a street one or two blocks away or the existing bus route can suddenly switch destination with another bus route. In my city in Denmark there have been some changes in the bus routes, meaning that some people now need to change and some people have a longer walk to the nearest busstop, because the bus now takes another road than before.
Some NIMBYS also got the two bus routes moved from one street to another, further away from the city centre.
In Copenhagen they changed all the bus routes when the Metro City Ring (M3) went into service in 2019, making a direct bus trip to a bus + metro trip for many people living along the bus routes but not along the new metro.
With dedicated infrastructure (BRT or LRT) there is a commitment to keep the same route and a decent frequency, which is mostly important for developers and their ability to sell and rent out apartments and office space close to transit.
I'm torn on buses. I use them in central London because you can tap in with contactless and if you miss one, you can literally see the next one. They're also really easy to hop on and off.
I tried to use the bus network in Edinburgh recently and had to buy a ticket from the driver. They arrived at irregular intervals and took different routes. Many were cancelled.
i recently started a job that has full transit fare coverage for all of UTA, and i have to say - the busses in salt lake are better than i ever expected. the light rail handles the most common routes, with significantly farther apart stops, and then the busses fill the gaps between those, with much more route coverage and far more frequent stops. used together it's really rather nice
It's nice too so many shots from Brisbane, my hometown!
Would love to see a video on how Trolleybus BRT can be a bridge between buses and rail particularly for growing cities who need to plan for future light rail projects!
I wouldn't really say its a bridge, just an option to get emissions and opex down!
@@RMTransit Fair enough! Just thought that the infrastructural and design costs associated with the catenary wires getting taken care of by a trolleybus system could help slim down the infrastructure cost of light rail down the line.
Trolley wires avoid the inefficiency of transporting a big heavy battery that's not a passenger. Some issues to think about for a bus-to-tram conversion are whether the future train would want a double wire (pantograph) instead of a single wire (trolley pole), and the voltage.
Buses in NYC are beyond awful - you might end up waiting an hour for a bus that's scheduled to come every 15 minutes! Some of the routes have an average speed of around 4mph - barely faster than walking!
Here in Bengaluru, India, Government buses run by the BMTC are the lifeline of transit. We don't have a good urban rail system, with no local trains services, and the metro system is too small as of now. Not to mention how higher-salaried IT employees prefer to drive more than anything (the main reason cited being safety). The buses cater to several routes along the city's main arteries as well as lower density neighbourhoods. However, the transit planning here is taking a turn for the worse with bus lanes (and bicycle lanes) being erased to widen roads. This is mainly driven by drivers' demands since the city is renowned for its traffic jams. And even though the bus fleet is being expanded, I just hope the quality of service doesn't end up suffering because of the chaos on the roads.
I noticed Brisbane was shown many times. Yeah, the bus network is ok but many aspects need improving. As an example, Coronation Drive recieves around 24 BPH outside of peak, whilst other routes drop to hourly frequency.
Yeah, I could easily live without a car since I was lucky enough to live near a Buz stop (service every 15 mins), but it is an extreme pain when I need to go on a rare trip into the hourly frequency areas of the city
You might also want to look up the concept of "guided busses" (especially those that drive on a dedicated track) 😅
In Munich the bus system has the task of a fine grained coverage towards S-Bahn, U-Bahn and Tram stations. Also they're an important part of the public transit at night as all subway lines, nearly all S-Bahn lines and nearly all Tram lines don't operate from around 2 to 4 at night. (At least the part about the subway lines is going to change at December next year though 😅) And yes, I can definitely sleep in the night bus on my way home when I'm not careful. I've missed my stop twice already, but thankfully I'm only two stops from the terminal. 😂
While we have a wild mix of non-articulated and articulated busses and both diesel and more and more electric ones in Munich we also have two curiosities:
First is two extra long articulated busses (they have two axis at the articulated part).
And the second is the "Buszug" aka "bus train" aka "bus with carriage" which allow for adjustment to the current demand by either leaving the additional carriage or adding it. Riding is a favorite among some people, cause they're more quiet than the powered part (there aren't yet any electric busses that can tow a carriage). Also sitting at the very back is awesome in sharp bends 😍
The biggest frustration with the majority of bus networks are that they are prone to being stuck in traffic. When walking is faster than taking the bus, that's a problem.
That's the difference between a high-quality and a low-quality bus network. One problem is politicians can promise "BRT" but then water it down to avoid taking car/parking lanes, and then you're left with a regular bus that gets stuck in traffic and is uncompetitiive with driving.
@@sluggo206 why I'm team tram. Yes, they can share lanes with cars, but they do so less often, and they are less disruptive to pedestrian spaces.
I’m glad Reece is giving more air time to buses. One thing he didn’t talk about is the usefulness of buses in making places other than the downtown accessible. In North America, most transit rail systems are quite radial to downtown. That’s fine for certain kinds of trips, but not necessarily good for going from neighborhood a to neighborhood b.
Crosstown rail is very expensive and unlikely to be built in many U.S. cities. A city can create a network of buses that make trips outside the downtown direct and convenient. San Francisco and Portland are two of the cities that have done this. Portland has a designated frequent bus network that it highlights on maps, schedules, and bus stop signs. San Francisco’s new transit maps show frequent buses in brighter and thicker color.
Having a bus network that serves multiple destinations is particularly important in polycentric cities with multiple major job centers. In Houston, they speak of having 5 downtowns, only one of which is the traditional city center. So they have adjusted bus lines and frequencies to better serve other “downtowns”, like the massive Texas Medical Center. Los Angeles is also planning crosstown BRTs, such as North Hollywood to Pasadena.
Yes, frequency is important.
By the way, Japan has long had a significant shortage of bus drivers.
Furthermore, the large number of layoffs during the Corona pandemic led to a critical shortage of drivers and overwork after demand returned.
As a result, there are even bus routes in many parts of the country that are in danger of being closed, even though both residents and operators want to maintain the routes.
Not mentioning the Jakarta BRT (the largest BRT network in the world!) is a crime 😅
In Halle (Saale), Germany the City rebuild the combined bus and tram station Gimritzer Damm a few years ago. Before rebuilding the Tram stops behind the bus or the bus stops behind the tram on the same platform, depending on what comes first. Now the bus will stop right beside the tram tracks on his own platform and the later arriving tram passes through to their station just a few meters away. This is also important as the buses has a stop of a few minutes to allow the interchange between bus and tram. So a late tram could potentially blocked by a waiting bus. This could also cause problems if the route is used as alternative route for other tram lines during problems on their routes.
As a person who lives in Berlin, I couldn't live without them. They run everywhere around me
Love the vid. I'd be interested to learn more about the common mistakes cities make with their bus systems. I rarely come across vids on it and discuss in this space seems lacking.
I'll think about it!
Recently my city upgraded a major bus corridor to a grade separated BRT with priority signaling. It was a significant improvement and I stopped using my car to visit downtown because it was far more convenient
My city is fully covered by the bus network but I’ve genuinely never used a bus, sometimes I feel like I’m missing out but I’m too intimidated by transit costs and bus networks
Sounds like your city could improve the legibility of their bus system! If it was easier to understand the network and see how to get to where you're going, would you be more likely to ride the bus? Or is cost still a limiting factor?
Hi Reece, there’s currently a big Bus Review going on in Sydney which is quite interestingly providing alot of data on how buses do the heavy lifting for much less than the cost of rail, but are lacking investment and new services. You would enjoy the reports.
There is also a transport for nsw on street transit white paper out now too, which is very good, and they are seeking input on overseas use of bus rapid transit. Have a look.
I really love buses personally. Rail replacement bus is, on balance, a slight positive for me because of how much I love them.
One thing I would add about bus transport is that in many context it's simply not an appropriate transportation solution regarding capacity/frequency. To give you an example, the area of Sydney I live in was (and still is) served by BRT to the city centre until a railway line opened a few years ago. This part of the network struggled for a long time with being overburdened, even though:
1. buses ran frequently (frequencies of 5 minutes during peak)
2. they used bendy buses, long rigid buses, and double deckers
3. the stops along much of the route were far apart
However, the government put this solution in place instead of railway (and built dedicated rights of way etc.) because they figured it was cheaper (and indeed more flexible). Today that's changed as the government some time ago finally realised it wasn't viable to keep relying on them and finally brought some much-needed relief to the network with the opening of the metro.
Of course I still love my BRT, and it's my main method of commuting. But it would be a lot less enjoyable if it were still doing the heavy lifting.
Buses every 5 minutes is 12 buses per hour. Brisbane's BRT has being measured at 232 buses per hour. I would say they line was overburdened as it did not run enough buses for demand.
I agree with you - I don't have a problem with buses at all inherently, I make many trips on buses that are just totally fine.
It is very frustrating though to take buses that are very full, where you have to stand in close proximity with lots of people and don't even get the benefit of a smooth ride. Even more frustrating when they're full and not even all that frequent. I think the flexibility does get used as a bit of an excuse to not properly invest into them. They are a bit expensive to run at good frequencies too, and there is often more money for the big capital expenditures to build something new than there is for the kind of operating expenses that don't just happen once.
I was once on my way to a bar for my high school reunion. Great, I'll just take the bus, I thought. The bus was full and passed me and the next one wasn't coming for another 15-20 minutes, at which point I would be late. This was a TransLink bus in the early evening, mind you. I actually walked home and got my bike to get there on time. I think this situation is kind of unique to buses as a transit mode, because it's possible to provide an insufficient bus service without it being a waste of money. I walked my bike home, but I probably would have ended up walking home anyway because TransLink doesn't run very much late night bus service at all.
It's easy to see though that the improvements to these problems don't necessarily have to involve rail service or trams or something like that. I think it's just that the whole sunk cost thing works well in favor of transit that involves fixed infrastructure that just seems like a waste if it's not being well-utilized. Buses just cost more money to run more of, they don't usually run a profit, and so transit agencies have to make sure they've got the operating budget to expand service.
Yes, Improving buss systems is the low hanging fruit in so many places. Also, some metro areas use busses when other modes of transit are a better solution.
Hey RMTransit, speaking about buses, I think you should really talk about Indonesia (specifically the capital of Jakarta) and its BRT system as we have the largest BRT network in the world at 230km. I think it would make for a great video topic to talk about its strengths and flaws of our BRT network
Grew up in a city of 150k inhabitants where the entire local public transport was carried out by busses, with some bus stops (not a terminal, hub or alike) being served by more than 20 different bus lines
here in my city in canada, busses are actually quite decent, nothing like the netherlands, but decent, we got "rapid transit" a separate road for busses and emergency vehicles only, used to take 40 mins+ to get downtown, now its about 17 mins
My high school life was MADE by inter-city bus transit. I remember watching it upgrade over the years and by post-graduation, I was riding them all over town.
You could talk about Barcelona's bus layout, which is really interesting :)
My comment won’t get seen, but I was thinking that if we realistically want to replace cars, we would need to give as much route flexibility as possible: buses are great, but I think we need more accessible “unlimited travel” subscriptions.
Usually bus tickets have a fare for every trip, and in many cities you can have monthly/yearly subscriptions for every ride within the city; but these subscriptions are usually only for students, or they’re only for cities. Why don’t such things exist for suburban dwellers too? I mean, I live in a european suburbia, and I often need to go from a suburban place to another.
You just got seen! And I totally agree with you, and that is easily fixable if the right people want to do the right thing... Which of itself is not easy at all. We used to have to buy a subscription for each company, service, and sometimes even zone, which made for awful practices where the city has two stops, they know everyone heads for stop 2, so they make stop 2 a new zone, effectively forcing you to either stop two kilometers away from your destination, or pay extra for another zone. My route to work would easily reach €100 a month, and I couldn't use it for much else because of the same restrictions you mentioned.
Back in 2019 our government did probably one of the few actual great things they've ever done: In collaboration with the regional authorities, they turned the entire metropolitan area, comprised of about 18 municipalities, dozens of cities and towns, and effectively 30% of the entire country's population, they made a joint subscription with every single transit company: You pay €40, €20 if a student or elder, free under 12 years old or some other special conditions, and you get access to every single option for every single city and suburb, which is great because even the tiny social neighborhood near us of ten or so blocks has four bus stops, but zones made it far more expensive to use them properly. Something like this could be done if more politicians had the incentive (some left-wing parties have proposed a national subscription that costs just €10, while right-wing parties have made it free for residents in the municipalities they run). It's effectively far better because, just like healthcare or education, everyone paying for it through taxes drives the costs down for each individual, but it also allows private companies to stay in business and have an incentive to outperform the competition even more, because now there's no extra cost stopping me from using a train if my bus is late, and the company will lose the government's money from my ride and everyone else's.
They even made it far more extensive last year for buses: All major private companies joined into one, with each company operating in a different set of municipalities, and renewed their fleets with more than a thousand new vehicles, leaving only a few dozen vehicles that were electric, biogas, or very recent and still in great condition. They still retain the incentive to outperform public companies and railways, but now you also have the added benefit that even if you do not have a subscription and decide to purchase a ticket, it costs the same everywhere for each route type (local, regional, etc.), and if I'm not mistaken, much like train tickets, you have a period of three hours after purchase where the ticket works everywhere, even if you get on a new bus. It all comes down mostly to political and private will, so while the plan is easy, the conditions are nearly impossible to achieve.
"but I think we need more accessible “unlimited travel” subscriptions. " well in good networks there are plenty of those options. Like a day / week / month pass for the entire local network, a smaller part of the local network, or even an entire state's or country's network. Also pass for groups, families etc
A rather unique bus service is in Westport CT which offers to and from your front door service from their main train station along a few general routes. It does something for improving transit in a rather suburban environment, and keeping the sea of cars around the station from growing even bigger. As for practicality, it helps that Westport CT is an incredibly wealthy town. It does show the ultimate flexibility of buses, and given all a service like this saves in traffic and pollution, flexible route services could make sense in a lot of suburban environments, even in ones that aren't quite so wealthy.
I'm living in Hamburg, and my feeling is the Buses are doing a lot of heavy lifting here
The U and S bahn are nice, but the Buses here are dense, frequent and can get you to any destination, and this totally changed my mind on buses.
It could be really capable, not for the huge waves of people moving on peak traffic hour, but for efficient and convenient inner city web to move people around. And probably far more suitable for that then any other transit type.
Hamburg could definitely support a good tram network. Unfortunately they ripped their entire network out of the ground in the 70s. There comes a point where buses just shouldn't be used anymore, both for vehicle capacity's and ride quality's sake.
I think apps have very improved the bus experience. Being able to track buses, being at the stop when the bus is about to show up instead of endlessly waiting etc. I use the bus so much now despite owning a car simply because of the quality of the apps available now.
I’ve never seen a bus app. Great idea !!
@@Clyde-2055 your transit agency doesn’t have an app? Mine does, Valley Metro. It tracks all buses and trains, lets you pay your fare etc in the app.
@@CityLifeinAmerica - I live in Asia - and I’ve never heard of this before. But as I said, I think it’s a great idea.
An app is what most of the people on my commute train uses to buy tickets as far as I can see. I usually use a period card, though, but still have the app to check on time for buses, trains and trams.
It can be used in Västra Götaland region i Sweden.
Loving all the footage of Brisbane, probably one of the greatest ‘bus cities’ out there
Although i'd say although the proliferation of Low Floor busses have been good for accessibility and overall a net positive, they have made the ride quality a lot worse as they just don't have the suspension to cushion the bumps like High Floor busses. Also if you have to stand on a Bus and there is a lot of tight turns, acceleration and heavy braking it can really degrade the experience much worse than any train or tram.
But overall, Buses are an important part of the transportation mix and have had many good rides.
ngl, the second you hinted at double decker bendy busses i was like "that sounds like something neoplan would be up to" and lo and behold.... :'D
I live close by to Berlin, Germany. And i made major experiences with busses that let me prefer rail generally. in My own region so called "country-side Coaches" are the norm, and while the trips are fine, when u dont have much luggage, i struggle often to get a trolley into the small front doors. In Berlin i prefer the Subway. Its just more convienent and more reliant. Busses in Berlin can easily stuck in traffic in the centre and be overcrowded, cuz even if busses line on each other back to back the capacity is reached at some point. Before the BER Airport opened, which has perfect connectivity, i met a Friend at Tegel Airport. Well the only opportunity to get there were the bus, and getting millions of tourists from the city centre to Tegel Airport wasnt a promissing trip. At that time Tegel Airport were the only Airport in Berlin. Tempelhof closed long ago and Schönefeld (SXF) were already integrated in the continously delayed BER Airport. So neither the Airport or the Airport Express Busses were suited for that amount. The second time i had to use the Bus in Berlin were for a Meeting in the last corner of the District Spandau. Berliners will know how plagued this District in the West is with 250.000 inhabitants. The outer most station, aka Spandau Station, is the major hub for thousands of busses and people. The Streets are far too narrow and there is just too much traffic for a reliant bus service. Plans to extend the subway lines and S-Bahn lines are there, but like everything when it comes to public transport, the bureaucracy is slow and cant follow the demand. But i know that for alot of outer Districts of Berlin and also the suburban towns are bus focused and can work very reliant. In the end can busses be an easy and cheap way to apply public transport in city. if reliant and sufficent the demand may grow, maybe alternatives are needed, afterall is public transport not a steady product u just apply as a politican and have never to look after.
I think the biggest flaw with American bus systems is they too often follow the outdated hub/spoke model of route planning. Few people will ride if they're forced to transfer downtown vs. go straight from suburb to suburb. I'm very thankful to live in a US city with a very grid-like network similar to Toronto. Combine that with our quick easy mobile fare payment system, pulse scheduling, frequencies ranging from every 10-40 minutes, and service hours from 03:00-01:00 every day, and our buses in the area have even higher ridership than the rail system.
We used to have a 24hr bus service on weekends in Melbourne that ran every half an hour on weekends to the outer suburbs.
The government cancelled this and just ran trains every hour which has been 40% of the time bus replacement rail services halfway along these same routes.
A poor government decision in my opinion.
Great video!
I live in a mountain valley that is totally cut off from the nearest city save for a tunnel. The road passing through the tunnel is steep, difficult to drive for big trucks and buses, often has to endure snow and passes across all the settlements scattered in a straight line across the valley. On the other side of the valley there's a minor centre with logistic importance, so many freight trucks cross the valley.
I always wondered if in this case the best approach to designing a functional and relatively cheap (on the long term) transit system would be going with smaller and more agile buses (possibly more frequent and individually cheaper than the big ones we have today, often incapable of driving adequately through the difficult road and almost-empty outside of peak hours where commuters go to the city to work), or directly building a light rail that goes though the whole valley and that provides mixed people+freight capacity (note: it could be valuable to have a backup option to the road that passes through the tunnel, since the tunnel can be out of service sometimes and it cuts all connections).
What would you do?
also, i'd love buses that can board bikes for an additional fee, like trains. If the bus can get you close to where you need, switching to bike for the last mile(s) could make that really much better than cars. E.g. you get to the city centre with the bus, and then the bike takes you across the city centre in a faster way than any motorized vehicle could allow you to
In London there are about a billion tube journeys per year, but 1.6 billion bus journeys. I think we have a really great bus service in London - no guideways, but a huge number of bus lanes and bus priority features with sensible routes and stops integrated into the tube and rail network. The numbers speaks for themselves!
Born and raised in Dallas, Tx and use DART daily, I’m way to quick to downplay the positives of the bus. The bus is not reliable and never has been in my lifetime. This is the primary reason why I now own a e bike. The bus network is improving though. It just takes time. Thank you for this video.
From my experience busses are usually slow, sometimes even slower than walking and almost always slower than driving or cycling.
At the end busses are just cars, which have to follow the same rules of the road and may get stuck in traffic (even if they may have dedicated lanes to bypass the worst sections) and like any mass transit they don't bring you exactly from your door to your destination nonstop, but stop frequently and may take detours. While a train makes up for this with a much higher and mostly uninterrupted travel speed, a bus just gets slower.
So at the end busses are just a walking aid for those who can't bike or drive - which also makes them more more useful in rural areas, which is the opposite to where they usually operate.
Buses is great for region or city that is already too developed and too dense to have at-grade rail transit system. At least to live in a city with a very extensive Bus Rapid Transit system pretty much makes me think of that.
Some of the bus rapid transit systems out there are great, Mexico City comes to mind as a really good system without the giant right of ways you see in the South American systems
the uk tends to hate articulate buses (bendy buses to us), london tried them for a decade and went for double deckers instead, swansea tried it and the buses still sit in a graveyard today, manchester tried it and gave up
Bi-artics are double bendy, artics are single bendy. To my knowledge, a bi-artic has never run in the UK
York had artics on Park & Ride services for many years without issue, and Belfast has a BRT line (and a bit) with artics, and Cardiff, Brighton, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham and Coventry have all had bendies at one time or another
@@samuell.foxton4177 oh yeah my bad, yeah we try them then get rid of them, they never last
IIRC, the main downside with them is that they're worse at taking corners over and the streets of British cities don't make them any favour which is why the UK prefers doubledecker busses.
Incidentally, this is one area where trams, even mixed traffic one, really shine: They can be longer than articulated busses as, assuming all other variables are equal, their turn radi is constant regardless of their length.
@@MarioFanGamer659 the swept path of a standard bendy (not the weird ones that were used in Swansea/York/Leeds-Bradford for a while) is the same as a long single decker. York has used standard bendies for a long time on narrow streets, but only the weird ones (Wright Streetcars) kept knocking into kerbs
Cheap and efficient. Theyre great not only for less wealthy regions, they can complement railway systems or provide additional capacities in rich areas as well. Also bus tickets are generally cheaper than train tickets, which is always great.
I remember when Aalborg first got a BRT system instead of the Light rail treatment that Aarhus and Odense got, which surprised me. However, it was still a valid option since Aalborg is a bit behind compared to the three other big Danish cities, and I still appreciated that we got something, considering the lackluster Light rail that is underperforming in both Odense and Aarhus and hopefully will do better when it gets finished in Copenhagen.
Of course. I'm agreeing with your video. In Sri Lanka , we don't have these elegant buses. Really love your videos❤️
I'm from Germany and can't help myself notice that Northamerican busses look like some imperial walker from star wars. They just look very weird, without wanting to insult the design. Why is that?
Here in Berlin, the bus routes form some kind of very fine-meshed network. This would be impossible with trains or anything else relying on a dedicated infrastructure. For example, I'm living around 150 meters away from some bus node in one of the outer districts of the city, and from that bus station (which actually consists of seven individual bus stop positions) there are six lines departing, each one with two destinations (because none of those lines has it's terminus here). During daytime, there are around 80-100 departures per hour. Okay, a bus ride isn't really comfortable. But it's pretty convenient that there are so many departures, that you don't have to look on the schedules, you can just go to that bus node and wait for a moment. Usually, you won't wait there for more than a very few minutes during daytime. We also have bus service at night here, but between 0 and 5 o'clock, it's proably a good idea to know the actual times of departure, because during night time, there are only buses every 30 minutes.
Only problem with our bus network: it's hardly comprehensible for people visiting our city. For example, if you want to ride home from Kreuzberg to our district during night time, you'll have to change three times, and the times for changing from bus to another at intermediate stations are very short. You'll exactly have to know before where to walk (from one of the stop positions to another). If you know your way, you can change from one bus to another without any need to wait, because the schedules of the different lines involved are synchronized. But if you aren't quick enough, you'll lose half an hour. And many visitors are shocked at first if you tell them "takes only not much longer than half an hour, but we'll have to change three times on that way".
I view it like this, if trains and metros are the aorta and arteries, then buses are arterioles that branch off and feed into into the aorta and arteries.
We are very privileged in Austria (essentially Europe) because the city planning makes the lanes that buses use always have priority. I don’t remember being stuck in traffic in a bus except for one time where there was an accident. But we were out of there quickly because we got re channeled.
52 y.o. Mexico City native here. Many people think that the golden era of bus networks down here was when it all was organized within the umbrellas of Distrito Federal's "Ruta 100" and State of México's "Sistema de Transporte Troncal" in the 1980's and early 1990's. Having a rationally ordered network based on a grid really helps getting around.