[HN Gopher] Bus stops here: Shanghai lets riders design their ow...
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Bus stops here: Shanghai lets riders design their own routes
Author : anigbrowl
Score : 433 points
Date : 2025-05-14 04:33 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sixthtone.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sixthtone.com)
| ketzo wrote:
| This is really brilliant -- like desire paths, but for transit.
| Obviously execution will be challenging, but the concept is
| fantastic, and China/Shanghai seems like one of the few places
| with the requisite density & state capacity to actually make this
| work.
|
| Generally I think that the design of public spaces has SO MUCH
| room to be improved by just responding to the wisdom of the
| crowd.
| amelius wrote:
| It sounds great, but if this idea is a result of cost-cutting
| then it might not be so great in reality.
| MarceliusK wrote:
| In a lot of places, even pilot programs get stuck in analysis
| paralysis. Public space design could benefit so much from this
| kind of feedback loop - more listening, less assuming.
| bluGill wrote:
| If your transit operator is competent it is doing studies that
| look at more than just the people motivated to go through
| effort. They need to look for people who would use a route if
| it existed, but can't be bothered to open an app to ask for it
| - this is likely a much larger group than those who ask for
| something.
| ketzo wrote:
| Well, certainly, a transit operator should be doing their own
| research -- this isn't a replacement for that.
|
| But this is excellent as a _complementary_ new piece of data,
| especially one that can be gathered so frequently and easily
| (especially compared to lengthy transit studies)
| bluGill wrote:
| Either transit studies should not be so lengthy and there
| are plenty of know ways to gather data that are less
| biases; or there is good reason for the length. Note that
| the above is not an exclusive or - there is a time and
| place for short studies and a time for long studies.
| However either way the study needs to be carefully designed
| to not get biased data, and this app is biased data.
| aeblyve wrote:
| The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often
| childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is
| impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge.
|
| -- Mao Zedong
| magic123_ wrote:
| A few years back, Citymapper launched a bus line in london
| where the route was defined based on the amount of data they
| had about desired paths from their users that were badly
| covered by the existing network.
| https://citymapper.com/news/1800/introducing-the-citymapper-...
|
| I didn't follow closely but it looks like the project got
| canceled, as https://citymapper.com/smartbus returns a 404.
| softgrow wrote:
| I'm glad that Shanghai has moved to the next level in public
| transportation in meeting customer demand. Most cities don't have
| the funds to buy smallish buses and labour available as drivers.
| They don't have the money or willpower to get frequencies to turn
| up and go levels (ie frequent) and leave people with long walks
| to widely spaced routes.
| cryptoz wrote:
| The actual money can't be the issue. It's $136 for failure to
| stop at a stop sign in WA. If they enforced that for 30 seconds
| per day the cities would be wealthy beyond belief.
|
| Or maybe not-but we'd have much safer traffic! Thus enabling
| revenue from fewer deaths.
|
| But I digress- the problem with "revenue" for cities is they
| actively avoid getting it. If they actually wanted or desired
| more funds for the city, simply enforcing laws is all that is
| needed. It's just not desired to have revenue I suppose, if it
| means enforcing laws and collecting dues owed.
|
| Yes yes I'm probably being "unrealistic" but honestly? Maybe
| not.
| moooo99 wrote:
| Law enforcement should not be a primary mean of funding for
| anything, as this creates a plethora of perverse incentives
| for lawmakers.
|
| That does not mean law enforcement is bad or unnecessary. It
| just means that law enforcements primary purpose should be to
| keep people safe and educate, not to fund the districts
| mulmen wrote:
| Fines are a disincentive. If they work what happens to your
| funding?
| lan321 wrote:
| TBH if I suddenly notice a massive change in stop sign or
| speed enforcement, to me, it'd be more of a signal of revenue
| gathering than safety. It somewhat undermines my opinion of
| police since I start seeing them more as a money making tool
| of the bossman.. I really couldn't care less if someone's
| speeding a bit or rolling stop signs as long as they are
| actually paying attention. For all I care you can even run
| red lights as long as no one is coming..
| parpfish wrote:
| Tangent:
|
| I've often thought that it would be great to let people design
| their own political districts to reduce gerrymandering
|
| At the polling place you'd get a map with your census tract and
| then be asked "which two or three adjacent tracts are most
| similar to your community". Eventually you'd end up with some
| sort of gram matrix for tract-to-tract affinity, and then you
| could apply some algorithmic segmentation.
|
| Two problems:
|
| - this is far too complex for most voters to understand, much
| less trust, what's happening
|
| - the fact it's "algorithmic" would give a sheen of pseudo
| objectivity, but the selection of the actual algorithm would
| still allow political infouence over boundaries
| permo-w wrote:
| surely then the census tracts would just become the new thing
| to gerrymander
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Gerrymandering is much more favorable in a FPTP system of
| elections than other types of elections. Winner takes all
| really incentives doing whatever it takes to keep winning.
|
| Instead of your quite complex idea of segmentation, entities
| should simply move to a slightly more complex election system
| than FPTP, but which has reduced incentive for gerrymandering.
| For example, systems that give parties some seats based on the
| percentage of votes they get in the whole country/province etc.
| parpfish wrote:
| I agree that ftpt sucks, but there's still a need to
| determine boundaries for various administrative district to
| handle geographically dependent issues.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| My country has a psuedo algorithm in law that guides how to
| draw these boundaries. It basically forces each
| constituency to be convex. There is still some freedom in
| the process, and there is still some gerrymandering, but
| harder than in some other countries.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Comment 2: I have actually had the same idea as you in a
| slightly different context. My country is in urgent need of
| creating new smaller provinces by dividing the existing ones.
| But there is wide disagreement on what the boundaries should
| be.
|
| One method would be to decide the capitals of the new
| provinces, and then ask people in each district which province
| they would most like to join. If there is contiguous land to
| the winning provincial capital for every district, then the
| solution just pops out.
| bluGill wrote:
| Borders should be simple - either natural geography (rivers)
| or squares that are some fixed increment of a km.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Well, the districts are already there and have been mostly
| unchanged for decades. There is a lot of administrative
| history tied into specific districts. So splitting a single
| district across two provinces will not do. So the new
| provincial borders have to across existing district
| boundaries.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I also wonder if it would be stable enough over time
| viraptor wrote:
| > which two or three adjacent tracts are most similar to your
| community
|
| From gerrymandering to gentrifying in one easy step ;)
|
| There are good reasons to force some mixing or suddenly your
| area only caters to the rich people while the non-similar area
| is known for making all the hard decisions for all the
| problems.
| HPsquared wrote:
| The problem is that constituency is about answering the
| question "who are my people?". Like, why don't we have an MP
| for tech workers and an MP for grandmothers? Why do
| constituencies need to be geographical?
| aembleton wrote:
| So that your representative can address local issues like a
| hospital being closed or a new road being built.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I care more about my demographic, my profession and role in
| society then I do about the local area I happen to live in
| right now. Geographic constituencies are a relic of the
| feudal past. Sure, local issues should be discussed at some
| point but it's really not a good way to represent the
| population and the actual range of viewpoints in society.
| kr2 wrote:
| Chiming in from Los Angeles, USA to say wow, must be nice living
| in a modern society that prioritizes public transit and peoples'
| ease of movement. I know, I know, it comes with trade offs of
| living in an authoritarian state, but the absolute abysmal state
| of infrastructure in this country is maddening. Ever been on a
| train in Denmark or Japan or Switzerland?
| wonnage wrote:
| Seems like the form of government doesn't really matter, you
| can find examples from literally any end of the spectrum of
| better public infrastructure
| petesergeant wrote:
| Suffrage is at the top of the hierarchy of needs, with decent
| infrastructure, decent wages, and public safety being much
| more fundamental needs for many people. There's a reason that
| so many Filipinos, Indians, and Pakistanis choose to work in
| the Gulf.
| GrqP wrote:
| Thank gawd for self driving cars...
| sidibe wrote:
| I hope the end state of self driving will be buses or vans
| doing on demand routing like Uber Pool is supposed to be but
| on a larger scale and maybe with fewer points for pickup and
| drop off.
| riffraff wrote:
| When I took an operations research class our teacher
| mentioned they had done a study on Rome's traffic and the
| best solution (optimizing for travel time etc) was mini-
| buses (~20 people) serving shorter routes.
|
| Alas, nothing came of that study, and traffic in Rome has
| not improved in the incurring ~30 years.
| dgellow wrote:
| https://www.moia.io/de-DE/mitfahren/standorte
| sampton wrote:
| I don't know. This check and balance thing is not exactly
| working out here.
| jmcgough wrote:
| Truly the worst of both worlds that we now have
| authoritarianism without good public transit.
| chvid wrote:
| I don't see what this has to do with authoritarianism. If
| anything it is an example of the opposite.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Authoritarian regimes traditionally touted public transit.
| From "he made the trains run on time", the German autobahn
| (which actually predated a certain party) to the lavish
| halls of the Soviet subway stations, to China's highspeed
| rail networks, public transit is just a thing that
| strongmen like to do. And absolute power certainly helps
| when you want to plow a road/rail/bridge through a
| neighborhood.
|
| I watched an in-flight documentary about the architecture
| of soviet rural bus stops. Each one of them looked like it
| cost most than the neighborhoods they serviced.
| chvid wrote:
| I just find this crazy - you can have good public
| infrastructure without be authoritarian.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| But you cannot have good public infrastructure without a
| strong state (strength on its own isn't
| authoritarianism).
|
| A lot of western governments are rather weak, I swear
| baumols cost disease and spiraling social/retirement/debt
| spending has crippled their ability to provide for the
| public.
| astrange wrote:
| In the US, it's mostly because the urban planning field
| was extremely embarrassed about "urban renewal" (rightly
| so) and switched to a new ideology that just completely
| forbids ever doing anything in case it's bad for anyone.
|
| It's also partly because they read The Population Bomb in
| the 70s and literally decided to ban housing/transit in
| order to stop people from having kids.
| dmurray wrote:
| Switzerland has a weak federal government. The cantons
| are smaller than US states, but have more autonomy, and a
| lot of matters are decided by direct democracy. Yet they
| still seem to have good public infrastructure.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| I mean the obvious is that Switzerland is rich, and money
| is power.
|
| But it's true that public infrastructure is more
| dependent on local rather than federal governments. I
| think the best example of weak local governments has to
| be the UK [1].
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0DKsMJl6Z8
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Of course. Plenty of countries do. It is not that one
| requires the other. It is that when authoritarians came
| to power in the last century, many of them initiated
| lavish public transport projects.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| Public transport is in a lot of ways an aggregate
| expression of state power. It takes a lot of state
| capabilities to be able to execute public transport well.
| zorked wrote:
| Famously authoritarian Switzerland...
| aylmao wrote:
| Famously authoritarian pre-1950s USA [1]...
|
| [1]:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-31/why-
| is-am...
| pastage wrote:
| "Not every authorian regime" cars are just as authorian
| see Gulf states. I have a hard time seeing anything less
| opressing than a 2 tonne hunk of steel that you need to
| bring along everywhere.
|
| It is such a tiresome trope, with people gushing over
| cars. We do not live in 1950 anymore.
| powerapple wrote:
| I guess where you come from definitely determine how you
| think: the bus stops look better than neighborhoods does
| not offend me, it actually shows collectively you can
| have something better than on your own, which makes a lot
| sense to me XD
| drstewart wrote:
| No, but tell me about the trains in Canada or Australia or New
| Zealand instead. Curious what high speed, modern trains these
| nations have compared to China, or are they more backwards?
| __m wrote:
| They don't have high speed trains
| supertrope wrote:
| Anglosphere countries are highly car dependent.
| viraptor wrote:
| This is a silly comparison. How many cities can China connect
| with trains vs Australia's 7 cities spread over almost 4k km
| in both axes... It's not as much "backwards" as requirements
| are vastly different. Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney could be
| useful and is getting started now, but I wouldn't expect more
| for decades.
| drstewart wrote:
| China is so much more modern, progressive, and advanced
| than Australia
| viraptor wrote:
| No idea what this has to do with this thread. And you
| lost me at the progressive claim...
| drstewart wrote:
| You have no idea what China being advanced compared to
| Australia has to do in a thread replying to someone
| claiming China is advanced compared to America?
| viraptor wrote:
| Are you confused about threads? You're the first one
| saying China is more advanced here
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981378 as an
| answer to "it doesn't make sense to compare train systems
| in those two countries". What is even the point you're
| trying to make here?
| Apfel wrote:
| I think you may be operating under a misapprehension. The
| word "progressive" is the one people have taken issue
| with.
|
| China is many things but progressive is not my adjective
| of choice (I've spent many years living there).
| danielbln wrote:
| Go protest against the government in both countries and
| see which is more progressive.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Mexico City has excellent public transit without the
| authoritarianism.
| viraptor wrote:
| So does Melbourne. (Yes you can nitpick lots of things, but
| overall it works and gets slowly improved)
| pjmlp wrote:
| I love Mexico, had a very nice time there and would return,
| however there isn't without issues including
| authoritarianism, even if it comes from armed groups instead
| of the goverment.
| stickfigure wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to consider cartel crime as
| authoritarianism. Usually crime is associated with
| inadequate government authority. Which is definitely an
| argument you could make about Mexico... but it's very
| different from China.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I think the people that unfortunately where born on the
| wrong Mexican state would be of a different point of
| view.
|
| For them we are comfortably discussing semantics on an
| Internet forum.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Now we just have incompetent, horrifically corrupt
| authoritarians hell bent on dragging us back to oil and coal.
| olalonde wrote:
| Los Angeles feels like countryside compared to Shanghai though.
| kubb wrote:
| There's a lot of excuses but in the end America can't live in
| the future because of its culture.
|
| People will say stupid stuff like "oh it's because we pay for
| their defense", or "oh it's because we have freedom", or "but
| but this would never work here, because we're really different
| than anyone else".
|
| But actually? It's because we're used to this shit and change
| makes us uncomfortable. We also really only care about
| ourselves, not our broader community.
|
| Have you ever wondered why we have vertical gaps in public
| bathroom stalls? Inertia. There's no reason to have them, but
| nobody cares enough to improve it. A better design isn't more
| expensive or more difficult, we just don't want it enough to
| make it happen.
|
| We're stuck in a local maximum.
| jychang wrote:
| Uh, "we" ?
|
| From someone who uses quotes ,,like this"?
|
| ... https://i.imgur.com/swpYbpv.png
| crummy wrote:
| Maybe they're an immigrant?
| mulmen wrote:
| > Have you ever wondered why we have vertical gaps in public
| bathroom stalls?
|
| You mean the gap between the floor and the walls? Isn't that
| for ease of cleaning?
| kubb wrote:
| You mean horizontal, at the bottom of the door. That one
| can be justified by ease of cleaning.
|
| I mean vertical at the side of the door. You can literally
| make eye contact with the occupant as you walk by.
| mulmen wrote:
| Oh. You'll be relieved to know my office stalls are
| constructed in a way that the panels overlap those gaps.
| You're right it isn't hard, basically the door just opens
| in and is wider than the opening. There's no way to see
| in or out.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| Ironically China used to have public toilets without doors.
| Only separators to your sides. It was more than 10 years ago,
| I don't know about now.
| supertrope wrote:
| >ease of movement
|
| >authoritarian state
|
| China has high speed rail. When you enter the train station
| security checks your national ID then screens your person and
| belongings. Buying a ticket requires scanning ID. Going from
| the station down to the platform requires scanning ID. On the
| train sometimes police come aboard and check everyone's ID.
| When you get off the train you have to scan ID. Riding the bus
| or subway was one of the very few things that does not require
| scanning national ID or registering an account linked to
| national ID. However if you ride a bus into Beijing there are
| checkpoints requiring everyone to get off, get searched and
| show ID.
| m4r1k wrote:
| On the other hand, you guys are early on in the authoritarian
| journey. We shall see a few years down the line if and how
| things get ugly.
| vachina wrote:
| You seem to get quite hung up on ID
| mrtksn wrote:
| AFAIK it's the same in places with high security risks, like
| Turkey&Israel.
|
| I despise this, not because I'm worried about the government
| but because it makes me feel restrained to act in a specific
| manner because this is not my space and I'm being watched.
| It's dehumanizing.
|
| In most of the Europe you feel like you own the place even if
| there are many rules. In Eastern Europe it's even better, you
| feel free and nobody is watching you. The government and the
| wider system feels non-existent(which is the other end of the
| spectrum and can result in unmaintained infrastructure but it
| does have its charm).
| pjc50 wrote:
| Fortunately Greyhound in the US are resisting ID sweeps on
| their buses.
| chvid wrote:
| I have been on trains in Denmark a plenty and our public
| transport planning is slow and bureaucratic.
|
| We could learn from this example - both in major cities and
| areas where demand is too scattered to justify regular routes.
| keiferski wrote:
| I once rode the bus across LA. Years and dozens of countries
| later, it is still probably the single worst public transit
| experience I've ever had.
|
| It wasn't because of the bus itself, or the routes, or anything
| like that. But because the willingness of people to tolerate
| one passenger screaming, threatening others, refusing to move
| for a handicapped woman, etc.
|
| American public transit is a cultural problem, not an
| infrastructure one.
| geremiiah wrote:
| Dude, I have only ever rode busses in Europe, but such
| incidents are bound to happen, even in the most posh areas of
| the continent.
| keiferski wrote:
| These incidents happen on a regular basis on public transit
| in California, and on that trip similar things happened to
| me a few other times. It's not comparable to European
| transit systems at all.
| bluGill wrote:
| Only because in Europe so many more people ride transit.
| The number of people who will be like that is generally
| fixed per population, and so if you have a lot of other
| (normal) people riding they a smaller %.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| As a daily commuter on la metro bus and rail these
| incidents aren't as common as people make out online. Nor
| do they ever really affect you when they happen.
| informal007 wrote:
| This remind me that road router should be walked by passenger
| rather than designed by designers.
| ars wrote:
| Like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| China is the only modern country that has both the capability and
| the lack of bureaucracy to just do things like this. It's
| simultaneously amazing to see and a depressing reminder of how
| badly western societies are crippled by rules of their own
| making. It would take years to make a single new bus route in any
| city, I don't think I've ever even seen that happen.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > China is the only modern country that has both the capability
| and the lack of bureaucracy to just do things like this
|
| Habibi, come to the UAE or Qatar
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Excuse my ignorance, but don't UAE/Qatar mostly use it to
| build malls and vanity projects? That's at least the media
| stereotype I have.
| petesergeant wrote:
| There's no shortage of malls in UAE, but also there's
| fantastic infrastructure -- great roads, a metro system, a
| country-wide rail system (open for cargo, opening for
| passengers soon). As for "vanity projects", the Palm and
| both Burj's are commercial projects that are also highly
| successful tourist draws. I can see an argument that the
| Abu Dhabi branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim could
| be seen that way, but I think it's fairer to see them as
| cultural investments.
|
| I guess I see the unfinished projects as being the proof:
| The World and the 2nd Palm haven't been finished because
| they (I assume) stopped making commercial sense to the
| developers.
|
| I would finally note that Dubai specifically has little oil
| and gas wealth. Maybe 1% directly and 10% that comes as
| subsidy from AD which has plenty. The rest is literally
| just a combination of smart and commercially savvy
| governance combined with an essentially unlimited amount of
| desert to build in.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Thanks for the perspective!
| HPsquared wrote:
| It sounds a bit like Singapore.
| pama wrote:
| Except Singapore no longer has a large amount of jungle
| to build on.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| Very interesting talk about some of the challenges facing
| Singapore [1].
|
| Does feel like the Singaporean economic miracle is under
| a lot of pressure. Demographics and retirement savings I
| guess being a big part of it.
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTHDkLqmoVg
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| Yes.
|
| And slaves.
|
| Lots and lots of modern day slaves.
| fakedang wrote:
| The Roads and Transport Authority of Dubai is by far the
| best government authority I have ever interacted with,
| worldwide.
|
| Once I had an issue with bus routes for my father's
| employees (similar problem, high density route with fewer
| routes). I put a request on their dashboard from abroad and
| within days, their reply came back with them confirming a
| trio of new buses to cater to that route.
|
| Another time, I had an idea for bus route planning (not
| related to above, that relied on a simple ping system for
| bus driver notification). I sent an email describing the
| idea in short to the Emirati CEO of the bus authority, and
| within 15 minutes, he acknowledged my email and connected
| me with his advisor to set up a meeting the next day. The
| advisor (an Indian with a US PhD in urban transport
| systems) discussed my idea through over a meeting.
|
| Oh, and there are self-driving bus demos currently
| happening in Abu Dhabi right now.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Oh wow, that's pretty mind blowing!!! Thanks for sharing
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Once I had an issue with bus routes for my father's
| employees (similar problem, high density route with fewer
| routes). I put a request on their dashboard from abroad
| and within days, their reply came back with them
| confirming a trio of new buses to cater to that route.
|
| Well, that's what happens if you can just throw money at
| problems. In Germany, it would most likely get rejected
| because there are no spare buses/drivers or budget for
| the fuel, and even if there was money it would likely be
| delayed for at least one year because the new route would
| have to pass through the usual tender/bid system first.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's amazing what you can do with unlimited oil money and no
| worker rights, yes.
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Lot of slavery involved though.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| "Slavery"
| umbra07 wrote:
| What term would you rather use?
| panick21_ wrote:
| Their land use and transportation policies are certainty not
| first rate. And from what I can observe and read, it seems
| quite a mix bag, rather then a highly integrated system.
| Doing totally unnecessary things like building a single
| monorail, because monorails are cool or something. Rather
| then an integrated standardized rail system.
|
| And in terms of overall development strategy, its very often
| very Americanized. Big highways, big highway interchanges.
| Dubai is known for basically building everything along a very
| big highway. There is no reason for a country this small to
| ever have a highway this large.
|
| Given how trivially easy they are geographically their modal
| share in public transport is not very high at all.
| tw1984 wrote:
| > the lack of bureaucracy to just do things like this
|
| sorry to disappoint you but Shanghai is the place where ride-
| sharing wasn't even allowed in its main international airport
| just 12 months ago. bureaucracy mixed with corruption is at
| shockingly bad level.
| sudahtigabulan wrote:
| Some Europian countries ban ride-sharing in their entire
| territories, not just airports.
|
| https://www.ncesc.com/which-european-countries-dont-have-
| ube...
|
| So Shanghai seems indeed low-bureaucracy, in comparison.
| kskjfjfkdkska wrote:
| Did Uber actually offer ride-sharing in these places? I
| feel like it's just branding to avoid being called a taxi
| app. Only place I've seen ride-sharing in use was the US.
| presentation wrote:
| I used DiDi from Pudong to Hongqiao around 6 years ago. Was
| there a span in between where it was a no-go?
| fancl20 wrote:
| Yes the policy quickly gathered enough public backlash and
| has been cancelled
| keiferski wrote:
| Check out Warsaw, Poland. Public transit is excellent, clean,
| and basically gets you anywhere via bus, tram, subway, or one
| of 4+ ridesharing apps. Bike lane coverage is also pretty good.
| It's obviously an order of magnitude smaller than Shanghai, but
| so are most Western cities.
|
| Good overview of the system:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kn2tL51bBs&t=8s
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| Warsaw really is booming, visiting from Berlin feels like
| stepping ten years into the future.
|
| Lots of real (and not paper) economic growth.
| keiferski wrote:
| Hah, yeah I do really like Berlin, but traveling from
| Warsaw to Berlin does feel like going back in time,
| infrastructure and mentality wise.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| I mean the public transport infrastructure here is great,
| and there's a lot to love about the place (it's why I'm
| still here after all).
|
| But spot on about the mentality. A lot of that great
| infrastructure here was inherited, and the attitude
| around it's continued development has been super
| conservative. Not to mention the Berlin government is
| borderline insolvent.
|
| Just look at the cluster fuck that was car free
| Friedrichstr.
|
| Warsaw is great, need to visit Poland again, have a huge
| soft spot for paczki.
| unwind wrote:
| ObWikipedia: paczi are a Polish filled doughnut [1] that
| seems awesome. Thanks.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%85czki
| keiferski wrote:
| They are indeed awesome, and once a year, everyone eats
| donuts for Fat Thursday.
|
| https://culture.pl/en/article/fat-thursday-polands-
| tastiest-...
| xattt wrote:
| How does taking transit versus car compare for travel times?
|
| Even in Lisbon, it seemed that public transit was a much
| bigger hassle, both in time and cost, than a ride-sharing
| app.
|
| We had a family of 4. Fares are about EUR3-4 each so EUR12
| per ride in one direction. Ride-shares were about EUR9. We
| also abused the intro ride-share offers by creating separate
| accounts and got that down to EUR4.50.
| keiferski wrote:
| Generally I think the subway is much faster if you're going
| more than 2-3km, and the tram is slightly faster than cars
| because you have a designated lane. Tickets are time-based,
| not trip-based. A 20 minute ticket is about 94 euro cents
| and an unlimited day pass is maybe 4 euros?
|
| I only use ride sharing for longer 30+ minute trips, and
| usually that is between 10 and 15 euros one direction.
| jerven wrote:
| 4 people, for a short term stay is about where it starts to
| make sense to ride share. Long term, you would have an
| longer term pass, vastly reducing the cost of a busride,
| and you would often travel in smaller groups. So in my
| experience there are times when bus/tram can be much faster
| and convenient than a car. Of course there are many cases
| where it is the other way round (and going out of the
| cities that ratio changes dramatically for a car). Good
| city design tends to favor a ratio in favor of public
| transport over cars.
| dgellow wrote:
| > It would take years to make a single new bus route in any
| city, I don't think I've ever even seen that happen.
|
| It happens all the time in Western Europe, not sure what you're
| talking about
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Might be USian bias. I've seen bus routes change in the US
| but not to the degree of adding massive amounts of service.
| bluGill wrote:
| Adding massive amounts of service costs a lot of money. It
| is always a bad thing if you see that anywhere in the
| world. It takes years for people to adjust their lives
| around better service, so your experiment will have data
| proving it was a wasted investment long before it works. If
| your city happens to do a massive investment despite my
| strong recommendation against it look close at the funding
| - if they don't have committed funding to continue that
| service for 10 years just ignore it as odds are too high
| they will cancel that service just as your start to rely on
| it and then you have to scramble to adjust your life
| (generally meaning buy a car - if you are car dependent you
| budget for the costs of a car, but if you normally use
| transit this is a sudden large expense that you probably
| can't handle).
|
| Adding more service is a good thing, but it needs to be
| done in a sustainable way so that people can rely on it
| long term.
|
| Sometimes cities will make massive changes to their
| network. By eliminating bad routes they can often find the
| money to fund good routes. This is a very different
| situation.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Adding massive amounts of service costs a lot of money.
| It is always a bad thing if you see that anywhere in the
| world.
|
| Dublin Bus has added massive amounts of service over the
| last decade, going from an incredibly deficient bus
| service to merely a bad bus service, and has in the
| course of this been able to significantly lower journey
| prices, due to increased usage.
|
| > It takes years for people to adjust their lives around
| better service
|
| I think this possibly _used_ to be the case, but the
| likes of Google Maps have changed that. You'll see bus
| routes introduced days ago with full buses, because
| people want to get to a place, they ask Google Maps, and
| it tells them. 30 years ago, people would take the bus
| routes they were used to, but today they will take the
| bus route their phone tells them to take, so introducing
| new services has become a lot easier.
|
| (This does sometimes have unintended consequences, when
| routes intended as low-volume feeders get identified by
| the apps as a shortcut and swamped.)
| bluGill wrote:
| Dublin is the exception that proves the rule. They
| somehow managed to convince everyone that they were going
| to run their system for 10 years and thus it could be
| trusted, and then continued running it long enough to get
| people to start using it.
|
| Great if you can pull that off in your city, but I'm not
| confident you can. For that matter if you can pull it off
| it means you are lacking smaller investments many years
| before that would have resulted in some transport that
| you could have grown over time to what you are finally
| getting.
| supertrope wrote:
| I'm guessing bluGill is referring to long term changes
| like selling a car, selecting housing, or selecting a
| job.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Berlin and Hamburg, both in Germany, would like a word.
|
| These concepts have been popping up in the last few years all
| over the world.
|
| The Shanghai example is special because it uses actual busses,
| and actual stops.
|
| Now, demand calculation in the west is easy: Students always go
| from where they live to the school they are being schooled at
| in the morning, and return either at around 1pm or around 4pm.
| You don't need a fancy system to put those lines on the map:
| check when school ends, add 15 minutes, then have busses drive
| to major population centres (with smaller villages being served
| similarly when the bus arrives).
|
| The elderly want to go to and from doctors, and to
| supermarkets. That, too, is easily manageable in the 'students
| at school' ofttime and follows similar patterns.
|
| Workers are similar, especially for large workplaces. Smaller
| workplaces - now it gets interesting, especially when there is
| some movement between workers and places of business (and, as a
| third aspect, time).
|
| In Shanghai, that only is possible because you have a large
| overlap between
|
| 1. people who ride public transit and 2. are tech-savvy enough
| to use the demand-calculating system. Also 3. as you are
| essentially making schedules to plan around obsolete, you need
| to provide enough service that people aren't surprise-lost in
| the city because the route changed randomly.
|
| Where I live, public transit is used by students and the
| elderly (who don't do 'internet things' and pay for their
| ticket in cash, with the driver. The essential young-adult to
| middle-aged population doesn't use public transit, because it
| is too slow, too expensive, and too inflexible for their work
| schedules. Good luck getting the critical mass of data to
| design bus routes there.
| panick21_ wrote:
| People always think that 'dynamic' is some magical solution.
| The reality is where people live and go doesn't change that
| fast. And once a bus route exist and people use it, you need
| a very good reason to remove it. And stations almost never
| move.
|
| Re-planning your network once a year is plenty.
| bluGill wrote:
| More importantly, if the routes do not change often you can
| plan around them. If the routes change all the time you
| never know if you can use them today and so you soon give
| up even checking.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| Dollar vans are a lot like this and all over. They will take
| you where you need to go as long as it isn't too far off the
| "route"
| citizenpaul wrote:
| In Austin tx they have 30inch eink screens at all the stops.
| They update with new routes and schedules regularly. I admit I
| don't know the flexibility or if decisions are made years in
| advance though.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Cities in the UK are adding new bus routes all the time, why
| wouldn't you be able to do that?
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Philadelphia Republicans are proposing cuts to bus and rail
| service including a 9 PM transit curfew. Expanding service is
| more difficult than you may think in the US because transit
| is underfunded and the 1st target for cuts.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > including a 9 PM transit curfew
|
| What the hell? That just seems bonkers. Here, the city
| council is berating the transport authority for slow
| rollout of 24 hour routes...
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Where I live, most routes don't run at all on Sundays or
| holidays, and even the days they do run it's only once an
| hour. I suspect these are typical US service levels.
| npodbielski wrote:
| How making rules crippling public transport? Obviously not
| everything is great in the west or here where I live but I
| prefer it to gutter oil or play doah buldings. China is far
| from perfect as well.
| HPsquared wrote:
| There are pros and cons to each system, of course. But I'd
| expect the looser system to produce more innovation.
| npodbielski wrote:
| In expense of peoples lives and well being. You can also
| say that Doctor Mengele helped to advance modern medicine
| and you would be right. Still this would be really inhumane
| view of the world.
| bluGill wrote:
| Transit doesn't need innovation. we have been doing it for
| a long time. Iterate on what is know to work. Small change
| is generally best.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Transit needs major innovation and overhaul if it's to
| gain any significant market share.
|
| For instance in the UK (in 2022), a whopping 6% of
| commuting trips were by bus and 9% were by rail. Even
| less for leisure: 3% of leisure trips are by bus, 3% by
| rail. That's terrible market share!
|
| Source:
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-
| statistic...
| bluGill wrote:
| Innovation is not needed. Overhaul is perhaps needed, but
| all the innovations needed to get high market share are
| already known in the world.
|
| Most of what is lacking is the money needed to run that
| service. That is not an innovation.
| MarceliusK wrote:
| Would be nice to find a middle ground - fast action with public
| input, not instead of it
| panick21_ wrote:
| What the hell are you talking about? Is the only place you have
| ever lived Huston or something?
|
| Try visiting Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and so
| on.
|
| When rural trains in China run as well as Swiss trains, come
| back to me.
| EZ-E wrote:
| China has plenty of bureaucracy, however the transport systems
| seem well designed and well run, at least in big cities. I
| wonder how much of that is thanks to the scale. They are (or at
| least were) launching subway in new cities, and new subway
| lines in cities that have subway already every year. After some
| time you're bound to get good at it.
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| > lack of bureaucracy
|
| Huh? Chinese government is insanely bureaucratic.
|
| It's true that if there's something the govt wants they enlist
| the entire bureaucracy in favor of that and make it happen
| rapidly, but just because the bureaucracy can be functional,
| and even effective, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
|
| I mean, that's basically the definition of a bureaucracy, which
| while some may treat the word as synonymous for inefficient or
| incapable, it really isn't, and the Chinese bureaucracy is
| proof of that.
| jeff_carr wrote:
| > Huh? Chinese government is insanely bureaucratic.
|
| Indeed. It takes a pretty big bureaucracy to be able to ban
| the wikipedia. Oh, and ban gmail & all of google. And all
| news sites in general. Can customize your bus schedule though
| I guess.
| codingdave wrote:
| Last time I lived in a city was a while back, but at that time
| Denver updated routes a few times a year. I'm not saying they
| are the speediest, but I don't know how you are claiming that
| no new route can be created in any Western city without years
| of work. That simply is not true.
|
| Or, if you want to go small, my school district changed bus
| routes with a 48 hour turn around time when we moved to our
| home in the country, and again when our teenager's schedule
| changed and he could no longer drive the younger sibling home.
| bluGill wrote:
| Routes should not be created or changed often. People need to
| rely on transit, if they can't be sure their route will still
| be there for long they should buy/drive a car even if there
| is good transit today since they will need that car when the
| routes change to something that doesn't work.
|
| changing routes is needed of course. Cities chanre and you
| need to follow that. They don't change fast though. long term
| routes also drive change as people adqust their life to what
| they can do.
| nocoiner wrote:
| I went down a rabbit hole a couple years back, and it blew
| my mind to learn that many modern bus routes just replicate
| streetcar service that was discontinued (and the tracks
| torn up) 70-80 years ago.
| bluGill wrote:
| That isn't a surprise as people build their life around
| what they can do. If can make a trip they will and so
| those routes tend to stay useful/busy. There are
| sometimes better routes we could use instead today, but
| often the existence of those routes 70 years ago set how
| the city grew and so those are still useful routes.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > It would take years to make a single new bus route in any
| city, I don't think I've ever even seen that happen.
|
| I live in a city in a Western European country which adds
| multiple new bus routes a year, and always has done. Honestly
| I'd assume this is the case for any medium to large city.
|
| The unusual bit about the Shanghai initiative is that,
| presumably, they have significant _spare_ capacity, to be used
| for low-volume/experimental stuff like this. Spare capacity is
| a slightly weird thing for a bus network to have; they tend to
| run basically on the edge.
| quasse wrote:
| > It would take years to make a single new bus route in any
| city, I don't think I've ever even seen that happen.
|
| This is simply not true. Madison, WI just finished a massive
| revamp of their entire bus system where many existing routes
| were re-aligned or replaced with rapid transit routes with
| dedicated lanes. Despite massive amounts of naysaying from
| local conservatives the project has been a massive success and
| has resulted in a huge bump in ridership [1].
|
| The whole thing happened because the city elected a mayor [2]
| who was laser focused on making transit happen and just kept
| working on it.
|
| I think US politics has a major incentive alignment problem -
| if your local politician's genuine personal success metric is
| "improved transit" then you're likely to end up with improved
| transit. If success is "got re-elected", "got more corporate
| donations" or "used mayorship as a stepping stone to national
| politics" then you're likely to end up with a milquetoast
| compromiser who never does anything of substance because they
| don't want to be accountable for anything.
|
| [1] https://www.channel3000.com/news/madison-metro-sees-brt-
| wind...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Rhodes-Conway
| hayst4ck wrote:
| > It's simultaneously amazing to see and a depressing reminder
| of how badly western societies are crippled by rules of their
| own making.
|
| It all comes down to corruption. In the west we are accustomed
| to thinking we are much less corrupt, but that is proving not
| to be less and less true every day.
|
| Corruption is loyalty to a man over a mission. All systems that
| have good outcomes are when the man that people are loyal to
| (because he can punish dissent and reward loyalty, such as with
| wages) chooses a mission over their own self interest and
| enforce subordination to a mission over themselves.
|
| China is a country that is capable of punishing their richest
| citizens, while the US and most of the west are not. China
| executed the executives that poisoned infant formula. Here in
| the US, our "law" let the Sackler Family promote addiction and
| then gave them a slap on the wrist while letting them use the
| "law" to reduce/avoid consequences.
|
| China has more _Rule of Law_ than the US right now.
|
| Rule of law was thought to be a system where all citizens,
| including the rich, are protected from the government by due
| process, but rule of law is when the rich and powerful have
| limits on their arbitrary executions of power. _Law_ exists to
| protect the weak from the powerful, law exists to bind power.
| In the west the rich have co-opted law as their tool.
|
| > crippled by rules of their own making.
|
| No, not our own making. The making of our richest. The rules in
| the west exist to solidify and cement the power of our richest
| and they use their money to pay for power consolidation giving
| them increasingly more power to compromise our laws for their
| interest.
|
| China can do things because their power is working on behalf of
| their people, while in the west our power is working on behalf
| of the powerful.
|
| > lack of bureaucracy
|
| Who do you think is doing these things? Literally their
| bureaucracy. It requires people to organize and do those
| things. Bridges and tunnels don't get built without planning,
| funding, and execution, which is exactly what bureaucracies do.
|
| The rich people in the west have been so effective at
| compromising institutions of power that "bureaucracy" is
| synonymous with "inefficiency." Their bureaucrats are trusted
| with the power to make things happen, while our elected
| officials bind their behavior and set them up for failure in
| order to justify privatizing their functions.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > China has more Rule of Law than the US right now.
|
| Not quite. You either don't realize or are overlooking how
| much implementation of the law in China, at every level,
| depends very much on who is doing the implementation. But the
| US under Trump is quickly heading down the road to where I
| can see it being worse than China in that respect.
|
| > China can do things because their power is working on
| behalf of their people, while in the west our power is
| working on behalf of the powerful.
|
| I can't disagree with your criticism of the West, but your
| statement about China is straight from a CCP propaganda
| handbook.
|
| > China executed the executives that poisoned infant formula.
|
| That was a long time ago, and obviously those executives
| didn't have the necessary guanxi.
|
| Who gets accused and is found guilty of corruption in China
| depends very much on who is in power. That much was obvious
| in how Xi cleared out the opposition from 2013-2017. Bo Xilai
| is a prime example.
|
| But back to the original topic of public transportation:
| That's one thing China gets right that the US is totally
| inept at because it's built on a car culture.
| bllguo wrote:
| > but your statement about China is straight from a CCP
| propaganda handbook.
|
| and? the Chinese people live and believe it. propaganda can
| be true, and governments can in fact live up to their
| statements. ofc with westerners' pathological mistrust of
| authority, as well as their penchant to pick the worst
| possible leaders, we will never come to any agreement about
| this.
|
| also, are we seriously still unironically typing "guanxi"
| in this day and age? social capital is hardly something to
| be exoticized. keep the orientalist rhetoric where it
| belongs please.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| Train/bus services change every year here in Switzerland, but
| based on usage data rather than voting, which seems like it could
| be gamed.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| I love the Swiss approach to things. Possibly the only sane
| country.
| chrisandchris wrote:
| Routes actually don't change that much, is mostly the schedule.
| The article however is more about the route and less about the
| schedule.
| MarceliusK wrote:
| Combining both could be powerful
| yanhangyhy wrote:
| this is great. hope beijing will adopted this soon
| philberto wrote:
| The moia service in Hamburg Germany offers virtual stops which is
| the next step I would argue. The bus follows a different route
| and stops every time based on the need of current passengers
|
| https://www.hvv-switch.de/en/faq/what-are-virtual-stops/
| dgellow wrote:
| I was going to say this! Moia is pretty awesome
| mattlondon wrote:
| What does that mean? The links doesn't help explain it much?
|
| In the UK/London there are some bus routes where you just stick
| your arm out and the bus will stop to get you where you stand
| ("hail and ride") and equally you can just ring a bell when
| onboard and the driver stops as soon as there is somewhere
| convenient to let you off. The route is fixed though.
|
| Is it that sort of thing?
| mimischi wrote:
| What routes are those? I thought you can only be picked
| up/dropped off at designated stops
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| The route through my village is hail and ride although most
| of the bus drivers seem to disagree.
| calcifer wrote:
| Many routes have "hail and ride sections" without
| designated stops. You can't get off, but can hail and get
| on at any point. Here's a list for London [1].
|
| [1] https://bus-routes-in-
| london.fandom.com/wiki/Hail_and_Ride_b...
| mattlondon wrote:
| https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/buses/hail-and-ride-
| buses?intcmp=79...
| philberto wrote:
| So there are virtual stops all over the city. You book a ride
| let's say city center to your home. The service integrates
| this route into existing rides or create a new ride. It might
| stop 5 times on the way to your home and pick up people and
| drop them. And you as a passenger won't know the route in
| advance. And it will not be the fastest to your place in most
| cases.
|
| I guess this is what you call "ride sharing". It is like your
| parents picking you up from football and realizing the kid
| from the other part of the town also needs a ride so they
| make a huge detour
| geremiiah wrote:
| This is just a shared taxi, no? They have existed for a long
| time at small scales. For example airports and hospitals often
| have such services.
| janfoeh wrote:
| It's a crossover between busses and taxis; they operate on
| demand like taxis, but only get you roughly the most direct
| way (they can drive detours to pick up other passengers on
| the way) in a roughly predetermined amount of time (a 20
| minute drive usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes due to the
| detours) from roughly where you are to roughly where you want
| to go (they are only allowed to stop on a virtual grid of bus
| stops spaced around 250 meters apart).
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| I like this; it's smart. It's a low tech solution that simply
| coordinates transit based on demand and self optimizes to serve
| that demand.
|
| The value of buses and trains running on schedule is mainly that
| you can plan around it. But what if transit worked like Uber.
| Some vehicle shows up to pick you up. It might drop you off
| somewhere to switch vehicles and some other vehicle shows up to
| do that. All the way to your destination (as opposed to a mile
| away from there). As long as the journey time is predictable and
| reasonable, people would be pretty happy with that.
| throw310822 wrote:
| In various countries there are private vans that ride along the
| normal bus routes, marked with the same numbers as the buses.
| They work exactly like buses, collecting and leaving people at
| the stops, but they're much smaller and usually more frequent.
| I always thought they were an excellent solution- I don't get
| why there shouldn't be anything in between big, rare, and
| shared public buses and small, on-demand, individual private
| cars.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| I'm not really aware of many rich countries that operate
| minibusses in urban areas. The bulk of the cost of operating
| public transport is labor so there's a strong incentive to
| scale.
|
| Now if we get Waymo style self driving minibusses, that'd be
| great. But if the running costs for full size electric busses
| aren't too dissimilar it might just make sense to standardize
| on larger automated busses for increased surge capacity.
| throw310822 wrote:
| I'm not sure why the should "operate" anything. Any taxi or
| Uber driver could autonomously decide to put up a route
| sign and start following that route, with a standard ticket
| price that makes the service profitable.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| So the public transport authority stops running their own
| vehicles, and instead places tenders for individual
| routes? And anyone can bid on operating the route? I mean
| they already do that with subcontractors for
| contingencies etc.
|
| Overwhelmingly however it's cheaper to vertically
| integrate, and private operators have no interest in
| taking low profitability routes (which can often be very
| important due to second order effects).
|
| I will contend that automated busses might change things
| here a bit though.
| throw310822 wrote:
| > So the public transport authority stops running their
| own vehicles, and instead places tenders for individual
| routes? And anyone can bid on operating the route?
|
| No. The public transport authority keeps doing exactly
| the same that it's doing now. Simply, taxi drivers can
| choose daily to start following a route for shared
| drives. Nothing else, except maybe some coordination so
| that the ticket price is known in advance.
| pjerem wrote:
| In my country, any city that is profitable enough for
| Uber&co also already have enough buses. When you already
| have a bus every 5 minutes, adding the capacity of some
| vans will not change anything.
|
| On a smaller bus line with less frequency than that, it
| will also not be really profitable for "independent"
| drivers.
|
| It may be useful as a temporary solution or a local test
| but a public transport authority (should) have enough
| data to scale lines or create routes based on real usage.
|
| When public transport are bad, it's rarelly due to the
| physcal constraints but always because budget is lacking.
| You aren't going to solve your lack of bus (drivers) by
| adding more vehicules with less capacity.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Busses cause nuisances so routes are regulated. It is
| also difficult to operate them at a profit. If you let
| the market decide freely on a per route basis most routes
| would disappear.
| bisRepetita wrote:
| Hong Kong
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus
| vkou wrote:
| Vancouver has 20-person minibuses serving suburban routes.
| They are what make the rest of the transit system work.
|
| I'm told (but have no idea of how true that is, since my
| social circles don't intersect it) that New York has a
| cottage industry of private bus-vans, that sit somewhere
| between a taxi and a vanpool that get people (usually
| working poor) to and from work.
| grumpy-de-sre wrote:
| From some googling it appears a major reason for the
| community shuttles is that they are allowed to operate on
| narrower, suburban streets than full sized busses and
| have lower fuel consumption per mile.
|
| I'll concede geography limits are a valid reason for
| smaller vehicles.
| vkou wrote:
| They also do less damage to roads. Large vehicles do
| disproportionately more damage.
|
| They are also cheaper to buy, clean, and maintain.
| alwa wrote:
| Dollar vans are real [0]. Real in the same sense as
| nutcrackers and bodega kitties: endemic, well-loved, and
| officially discouraged.
|
| [0] https://citylimits.org/how-nyc-dollar-vans-are-
| adapting-for-...
| yitianjian wrote:
| New York:
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/interactive-
| new-...
| HPsquared wrote:
| Rich countries have both buses and taxis. These sit between
| the two in terms of both quality and price. I don't think
| it's a cost issue but a licensing one.
| ostacke wrote:
| Visited Florence last year and certain bus lines there were
| operated by minibusses. I guess some routes with the narrow
| streets in the city center are impossible to drive with big
| vehicles.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The most Western place I encountered this was West Belfast,
| twenty years ago. This was after the peace agreement but
| before public transport had been fully restored. So there
| were London-style black taxis in certain areas that
| operated on a shared fee basis; no meter, you'd get in and
| agree a price, and there might be other people in there
| going the same way.
|
| Important to note that this was fully private and
| unregulated.
| htrp wrote:
| gypsy cabs are also a negative externality particularly
| with unscrupulous actors
| Bayart wrote:
| My fairly rich French city operates minibuses, mostly aimed
| at old people, which run through the otherwise non-drivable
| city center. Of course these are short, low-throughput
| routes.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's a regional transit system with smaller buses out
| where I live about 50 miles west of Boston. My empirical
| observation is it's pretty just elderly who take them.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| In Maricopa County, each city has discretion to operate a
| system of circulators or shuttles. Many of them do. Many of
| them are fare-free.
|
| For example, in Scottsdale there are old-timey "trolleys"
| which look like streetcars, but they are just buses with
| fancy chassis. They operate routes which go through some
| neighborhoods and commercial districts, such as Old Town,
| to get people shopping and gambling and attending events.
|
| In Tempe, there are "Orbit" buses which mostly drive
| through residential neighborhoods. They are mostly designed
| to get riders to-and-from standard bus routes and stations.
| You can also do plenty of shopping and sightseeing and day-
| drinking on these routes.
|
| In Downtown Phoenix there is a system of "DASH" buses
| which, among other things, have serviced the Capitol area,
| which is due west of the downtown hub, where buses fear to
| tread, because it is also the site of "The Zone" where the
| worst street people congregate and camp-out.
|
| Now all of these free circulators tend to be popular with
| the homeless, the poor, and freeloaders, but they are also
| appreciated by students and ordinary transit passengers,
| because we need to walk far less, and there are far more
| possibilities to connect from one route to another.
|
| An innovative feature of many circulators is the "flag stop
| zone". Rather than having appointed stops with shelters,
| signs or benches, you can signal the operator that you wish
| to board or disembark, anywhere in the zone. The operator
| will stop where it's safe. While it is still a fixed route,
| it gains some of the flexibility for the passengers to make
| the most convenient stops.
| bluGill wrote:
| Charge a small fee and those routes would be profitable
| on their own. You can of course add reduced/free fares
| for homeless/students if you wish, but most people can
| afford a fare and that money can go into running more
| service which the typical adult needs a lot more than the
| savings of a small fare.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Why be profitable? Charging fares on a free circulator is
| counterproductive. It costs to maintain and enforce fare
| boxes, and you're adding friction to a system that's
| designed to bring riders to the main routes. And you're
| _already_ running more service! The more successful
| circulators you have, the more passengers will be using
| the main system.
| bluGill wrote:
| Any money you make from fares is another source of money
| that can be used to run more service and make the network
| better. The vast majority of your riding population is
| not poor and would gladly trade a little money for better
| service. (if the vast majority of your riders are poor
| you must be running really bad service)
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| The free circulator network is made better by the sheer
| number of people riding it, not the revenue it can bring
| in.
|
| Firstly, more people riding circulators equals more
| stimulation of the economy, via shopping and event-going.
| People getting out of their homes and out of their
| residential neighborhoods is an overall good for
| commerce.
|
| Secondly, I believe that one of the issues for collecting
| fares is the reluctance to create a new tier. Because the
| circulators are not full-size, full-service bus routes,
| they would necessarily need to charge less fare, and
| setting that up and maintaining a lower fare tier is
| labor-intensive, and requires a lot of education of the
| public. If a bus runs around the neighborhood with EXACT
| FARE REQUIRED and people are out of quarters, well
| they're just going to forgo riding that bus. If a bus is
| fare-free, and gets them into the full-fare zone, they're
| going to go for it.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Hongkong has an extensive mini-bus network -- the green
| tops (regularly scheduled and more tightly controlled) and
| the red tops (the wild west). Also, Tokyo runs mini-buses
| in the (richest) central core between areas that don't have
| connecting subways & trains.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| What is the difference between the red and green tops? In
| my experience the green ones are kinda wild as well, stop
| and go anywhere, super interesting. Too bad my
| Hongkongnese sucks.
|
| Edit: Bisrepita shared the info:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Hat tip to Bisrepita for the earlier share.
|
| In my experience, red tops can do almost anything they
| want -- they can deviate from the planned route in any
| way that they wish. Also, most only accept cash (is this
| changing?). Green tops are pretty strict about stops and
| accept cash or local metro card (Octopus). On a deeper,
| urban explorer level: The red tops have _waaaaay_ more
| aggressive drivers. It feels like GTA sometimes.
|
| When riding a mini-bus, you only need two words of local
| language (Cantonese) to make it stop: You Luo jau5 lok6
| ("yau-lok"). (You need to really shout to be heard over
| the revving engine.) For green top routes, use Google
| maps. They will guide you on what green top to take.
| Example: If you want to go hiking in Sai Kung, take the
| 101M green top mini-bus from Hang Hau metro station to
| Sai Kung pier. (Google maps can provide directions with
| the bus info.) Red tops are more adventurous and should
| only be taken if you speak/read more than a few words of
| Canto (50-100 words is fine).
| keiferski wrote:
| Example of this in ex-Soviet countries:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka
| Etheryte wrote:
| I don't think marsa, as they're called where I'm from, are
| the same thing as described here. At least in my home
| country, they serve routes that don't get enough traffic
| for a large bus, so they have their own numbers and routes.
| Usually you would get one if you're going to a small
| village in the countryside or similar.
| keiferski wrote:
| Hmm; not sure then. I remember riding one of these in
| Odesa about a decade ago, from the airport to the city
| (presumably a route that would be busy enough to have a
| bus line.)
| throw310822 wrote:
| Well I was indeed thinking of marshrutkas, at least as a
| saw and used them (many) years ago.
| pydry wrote:
| They operate in post-soviet cities too, especially
| between microdistricts.
| datameta wrote:
| See: Marshrutka (Marshrutka), Colectivo, Matatu
| notpushkin wrote:
| I had to do a visa-run in Vietnam a couple weeks ago and my
| trip to the border was exactly like that. After the bus got to
| their nominal final stop, they've unloaded all passengers
| except me, then made a couple other stops (they took a computer
| monitor from one place to another??), then finally told me to
| wait and take another bus, which I didn't have to pay for.
| (Both buses were of the micro-bus / _marshrutka_ kind, of
| course.)
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Yes! Just use an app to say where you want to go, and it tells
| you which of the 3 nearest bus stops to go to, and you get
| where you want to go reasonably quickly. No bus routes, just
| dynamic allocation and routing based on historical and up-to-
| the-minute demand.
|
| If you tell the system your desire well in advance, you pay
| less. "I need to be at the office at 9 and home by 6 every
| weekday". Enough area-to-area trips allocate buses. Smaller,
| off-peak, or short-notice group demand brings minivans. Short-
| notice uncommon trips bring cars. For people with disabilities
| or heavy packages, random curb stops are available.
|
| Then you remove private cars from cities entirely. Park your
| private car outside the city, or even better, use the
| bikeshare-style rentals. No taxis or Ubers, only public
| transit, with unionized, salaried drivers. Every vehicle on the
| road is moving and full of people and you can get rid of most
| parking spaces and shrink most parking lots.
|
| It's not rocket science. It's computer science.
|
| Fantasy, because it would allow us to drastically reduce the
| manufacturing of automobiles.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I suspect it's a pretty hard optimisation problem if you want
| to be lean. And if you want to overprovision... you end up
| with something that looks a bit like status quo.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'd love for this to exist. Just, as
| someone with optimisation experience, it seems pretty gnarly.
| vidarh wrote:
| I think the cheapest and easiest starting point would be to
| offer people a time guarantee if they book, and contract
| with cab companies to provide capacity.
|
| E.g. a bus route near where I used to live was frequent
| enough that you'd usually want to rely on it, but sometimes
| buses would be full during rush hour. Buying extra buses
| and hiring more drivers to cover rush hour was
| prohibitively expensive, but renting cars to "mop up" when
| on occasion buses had to pass stops would cost a tiny
| fraction, and could sometimes even break even (e.g. 4
| London bus tickets would covered the typical price for an
| Uber to the local station, where the bus usually emptied
| out quite well)
|
| Reliably being picked up in a most 10 minutes vs. sometimes
| having to wait for 20-30 makes a big difference.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Even just letting people know how full the bus is, in
| advance, would help a lot with that decision to take a
| cab etc. There could easily be a map or list of the
| physical buses and how full they are.
| bluGill wrote:
| If the bus is full then the transit agency needs to run
| more service. Unless this is a "short bus" or your fares
| are unreasonably low (free fares are bad for this reason)
| your bus is paying for itself and you can run more
| service on that route to capture even more people.
| senkora wrote:
| NYC has this. Bus locations and estimated number of
| passengers on board:
| https://bustime.mta.info/m/index?q=M5
| wat10000 wrote:
| The status quo in many cities is ~5x overprovisioning just
| in terms of capacity actively on the road at any given
| time, and way more than that if you count idle capacity.
| You could overprovision by a lot and still come out ahead.
| aembleton wrote:
| Citymapper tried something similar in London a few years ago:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/21/citymappe.
| ..
|
| I'm not sure what came of it; but I guess it didn't get
| adopted by the TfL so it never really became part of the
| transport system of the city.
| pydry wrote:
| I tried it out at the time. It was a minibus driving only
| me around for the price of a bit more than a bus fare.
| bluGill wrote:
| Then price to you was just a but more than a bus fare.
| However the real price to the city works out to about 15x
| as much as a bus fare. Does your city really want to
| subsidize this (it would be a similar price for your city
| to just give you a basic car!)
| vidarh wrote:
| Even with regular, fixed routes, I've for some time argued the
| transit operator really need booking apps, on the basis that
| you really need the data on the full journey, _and_ it 'd
| transform e.g. bus routes if you could offer "there'll be a
| pickup within X minutes", without necessarily having the buses
| for it by falling back on renting cars. If you make people give
| their end destination, you can also do much like what the
| article suggests, but semi-automatic based on where those on
| the bus (and waiting at stops) are actually going right now.
|
| Today, ridership gives hard data on where people will go and
| when _given the current availability_. Offer a guaranteed
| pickup, and you get much closer to having data on where people
| actually would _want_ to go, and even more reliably than people
| voting on a "wouldn't it be nice if" basis.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I don't even know if my local bus company tracks when people
| get on and off. It'd need facial recognition to track each
| person getting on, and when that person got back off the bus.
| lozenge wrote:
| This is usually done with WiFi MAC addresses. I know that
| London did this for tube journeys but I'm not sure
| anybody's done it for busses. You can also use smart card
| IDs if there is an RFID payment system.
|
| The introduction of randomised MACs might have put an end
| to it.
| panick21_ wrote:
| This is really a bad idea. I absolutely do not want to
| explain where I am going anytime I get on a bus or train. In
| Switzerland, most people just get on because they already
| have some general ticket for the year or month. And even
| those that don't, you can just enable 'EasyRide' and as long
| as that if active, at the end of the day (or when you disable
| it) it will calculate whatever you used.
|
| And you don't need 'there'll be a pickup within X minutes'
| because regular bus stops in a developed country already tell
| you all the buses that will come when. Some like 'Line 1, 2
| min', 'Line 9, 5min' and so on.
|
| And for your end to end journey, you can simply open the app
| and look up your whole journey when you are planning it. If
| you really don't want to wait a few minutes, you can get
| there on time.
|
| > but semi-automatic based on where those on the bus (and
| waiting at stops) are actually going right now.
|
| That's a solved problem with 'request stop'. If its in a
| city, 99% of the time you stop anyway. For less populated
| routes, the bus driver can just stop if somebody request its.
| Its an incredibly simple system that has worked for 100+
| years. In Switzerland we even do this for rural trains and it
| works just fine.
|
| The data companies actually need is this, what bus routes are
| often full and when. And based on that they can increase
| frequency.
|
| For example in my city, the main bus line is already really
| large buses (120+ people) that run every 10ish minutes. And
| during peak times they run a few extra to increase frequency
| to 5ish minutes.
|
| In a city, you can run 15min frequency even on the routes
| that go into the rural area, and for anything else you can do
| more then every 15min. That fast enough that additional on
| demand pickup doesn't make much sense.
|
| The most important point is, don't ask people for data just
| because you want data. If people want to use the app to look
| up end-to-end journey or buy tickets, that's something you
| can use. But I sure as shit don't want to open an app anytime
| I get into a bus, tram or train.
| vidarh wrote:
| > This is really a bad idea. I absolutely do not want to
| explain where I am going anytime I get on a bus or train.
|
| So don't. But I _want to_ have the ability to enter where I
| 'm going and get the benefits of better service it could
| bring. I'm in London - I just tap in with a contactless
| card, but I'd very happily open an app and pick a
| destination if it meant I was guaranteed a timely pickup,
| especially for less well served routes.
|
| I'm all for still letting people get on without indicating
| a journey; you'd just lose out on the benefits.
|
| > And you don't need 'there'll be a pickup within X
| minutes' because regular bus stops in a developed country
| already tell you all the buses that will come when. Some
| like 'Line 1, 2 min', 'Line 9, 5min' and so on.
|
| I _do_ need that, because buses are regularly delayed, over
| full and skipping stops. Knowing what the current estimate
| is doesn 't solve the problem.
|
| This has been my experience in at least a dozen countries
| over the years. You can solve that with over-capacity, but
| it's incredibly expensive to do so and so won't happen most
| places. Being able to fix that problem at a fraction of the
| cost has clear benefits.
|
| > And for your end to end journey, you can simply open the
| app and look up your whole journey when you are planning
| it. If you really don't want to wait a few minutes, you can
| get there on time.
|
| I could. But my experience would be vastly better, if, when
| I've already looked up the journey, and pressed "go", like
| I often do with Citymapper for an unfamiliar route, I had a
| maximum wait for each of those routes.
|
| Not least because if you do this, you could run routes with
| more dynamic schedule based on demand, and account for
| unexpected spikes.
|
| > That's a solved problem with 'request stop'.
|
| No, it is not. That tells you when to stop as long as you
| follow the regular route. If you have information on who is
| going where, you can dynamically _change_ the routes.
|
| E.g. a route near where I worked often had a very
| overcrowded leg between two stations. It'd often have
| served more passengers better to turn some of the buses
| around at either of those two stations. If you had better
| data on who were going where and how many people were
| waiting at other stations, that decision could be taken
| dynamically, and cars brought in to "mop up" to prevent any
| passengers from being stranded.
|
| Requesting a stop does nothing like that.
|
| > In a city, you can run 15min frequency even on the routes
| that go into the rural area, and for anything else you can
| do more then every 15min. That fast enough that additional
| on demand pickup doesn't make much sense.
|
| 15 minutes frequency is shit. It's slow enough it will
| cause people to make alternate plans. The routes I would
| want this on had 8-10 minute pickups and we still regularly
| ordered ubers for journeys we could do on the bus. The
| problem isn't when the bus is on time - if I was guaranteed
| the bus would always show up exactly on time, and never be
| full, 15 minues would be somewhat tolerable, but the
| problem is when a delay happens, and the bus that finally
| arrives is too full to take on passengers.
|
| > The most important point is, don't ask people for data
| just because you want data.
|
| If you think it is "just because I want data" you didn't
| get the point.
| bluGill wrote:
| > I'd very happily open an app and pick a destination if
| it meant I was guaranteed a timely pickup, especially for
| less well served routes.
|
| There is nothing about an app that can give you that
| guarantee. If the system cannot run their current
| schedule on time data on who wants to go where won't help
| them. They need to fix their operations to run on time.
| If their buses are full they need more buses, if they are
| skipping stops it is obvious that more people want to
| ride than there is room for without data on who that
| person is.
|
| Your transit operator already has all the data they need.
| You need to ask why they are not acting on that data. I
| don't know if it is incompetence (that would be my
| expected answer in the US), or they lack the money to run
| more service. However either way the data they need
| exists and more data won't help.
|
| Now if the transit operator is competent and has money:
| more data can help inform what is the best change of all
| options - but there are better ways to get that data than
| an app. An app is always limited to those who choose to
| install and use it (these days phones shut off installed
| apps that are not in use so you don't get data)
| carlosjobim wrote:
| "I absolutely do not want to explain where I am going
| anytime I get on a bus or train"
|
| And why should the bus driver care about this? You can get
| off the bus if it doesn't suit you.
| immibis wrote:
| You can either tell me your social security number or you
| can stop commenting on Hacker News.
|
| (Who am I? Well why should I care to tell you that?)
| dist-epoch wrote:
| This will never work in US for two reasons:
|
| 1. removes control from local authorities - "we are supposed to
| decide for our citizens, not them"
|
| 2. NIMBYs will oppose the bus passing on their street - "too
| much noise, peoples, ..."
| mcny wrote:
| > NIMBYs will oppose the bus passing on their street - "too
| much noise, peoples, ..."
|
| It is funny because nobody ever opposes Amazon or UPS
| trucks...
|
| I think if we can get people to use a service, they won't
| oppose it?
| noduerme wrote:
| I live on a greenway street in Portland (bikes are
| prioritized, car traffic is intentionally made difficult),
| but I would have no problem with a bus route down it.
| Having said that, I don't bike and I also don't care about
| Amazon trucks. I've lived in NYC, SF, BsAs, Madrid and
| Saigon. The performative hypocrisy of people in Portland
| who claim to want an equitable society and claim to care
| about the environment, whilst using those talking points to
| prevent any kind of urban growth or new housing, is
| shocking. The people who'd have a problem with a bus going
| down the street are the same ones who lobbied to turn it
| into a biking street and take away parking in the name of
| the people and the environment. It's all a lie. A thin
| cover for protecting their property values. AKA keeping the
| neighborhood white. There's no racism as safe as the racism
| you can explain away with progressive corporate-speak and
| some spandex bike tights.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I fled Portland screaming to New Orleans over a decade
| ago and I haven't regretted it for one moment.
| lozenge wrote:
| Once you're paying the fixed monthly cost of a car
| (depreciation, maintenance, insurance) it rarely makes
| sense to use a bus. The exception is when there's
| insufficient parking at the destination but most cities
| have already decided not to go that route and it's too late
| to change it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > NIMBYs will oppose the bus passing on their street
|
| Why do they get a say on buses? You don't get to veto other
| drivers even in front of your own house.
| seb1204 wrote:
| Busses will be electric soon, silent then
| MarceliusK wrote:
| It's like rethinking buses not as rigid lines, but as flexible,
| scalable logistics
| bluGill wrote:
| Which is not something anyway wants. People need ridged
| predictable schedules so they can figure out how to plan
| their life. There are spontaneous trips people make (I burned
| supper - guess we are going out to eat tonight). Meetings
| sometimes run late, and sometimes end early, sometimes I want
| to stay around and chat after the meeting sometimes I want to
| get right home. I need instant flexibility and predictable
| routes gives me that since I don't have to meet their
| schedule. Meetings always start on time - flexible routes too
| often will not be predictable because they detour for someone
| else. Meetings often don't open the door until a few minutes
| before - predictable lines mean I can tell the person with
| the key when I'll be there and I will be right (important if
| it is bad weather)
|
| Flexible routes remove the mass from mass transit.
| lhamil64 wrote:
| My area has a dial-a-ride service where you can schedule a ride
| and they essentially make an on demand bus route for it. I've
| never actually used it though because it's just really not
| convenient. You have to call a dispatch number to schedule
| trips like 3 days in advance, and can only cancel 24 hours
| before your trip. And you can only schedule trips on certain
| weekdays (doesn't run on weekends at all) depending on which
| city/town you're leaving from or going to.
| jenny91 wrote:
| A good example of how good ideas can suck with bad
| implementation.
|
| NYC has a paratransit system where you can essentially do
| something like this if you have a disability that stops you
| from taking the train (there's still lots of subway stops
| without elevators, etc). From my understanding it's nice in
| theory but borderline unusable given delays, ahead-of-time
| scheduling, and the endless gridlock in the city. So
| basically there to tick an ADA box...
| bluGill wrote:
| No, it is an example of why the idea is bad and always will
| be. Experts in transit have written extensively about this.
| https://humantransit.org/category/microtransit for example.
| bluGill wrote:
| That "What if" is a stupid idea that has been around for years.
| Professionals have written about this extensively -
| https://humantransit.org/category/microtransit for example. The
| fundamentals mean it can never work for anyone anywhere -
| including aliens with some arbitrary advanced technology.
|
| You cannot combine fast, predictable and reasonable journey
| times with reasonable costs unless you have a scheduled
| service. If you want a chauffeured limo that is fine, don't
| pretend it mass transit or in any way better than a private car
| for anyone other than you.
| ysavir wrote:
| I think this is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper
| but breaks down in practice.
|
| One immediate problem that comes to mind is that you need a
| smartphone to take public transit. So if there's a teen without
| a smartphone, they can't take the bus, nor can someone who's
| phone died, etc.
|
| One of the amazing things of the current system, as simple as
| it is, is that it's predictable and doesn't require
| coordination. You can walk to a bus stop and know that a bus
| will arrive and take you where you expect to go, same as the
| last time you've taken it and the time before that. You don't
| need to look up a map to see what today's route is, or to see
| where the stop is, or to let the bus know you're waiting for
| you. You just show up at the bus stop and the rest just happens
| in a predictable and reliable fashion.
| dheera wrote:
| > you need a smartphone to take public transit
|
| Life in China these days does not support not having a
| smartphone.
|
| Renting a shared bike, using a public Wi-Fi, ordering at a
| restaurant, literally everything requires an SMS confirmation
| now. There are even automated convenience stores that require
| scanning a QR code to enter. App-based mobile payments
| (Wechat/Alipay) is pretty much the only payment method ever
| used. Cash and cards are almost never seen.
| ghaff wrote:
| One challenge with the SMS thing is when I travel from US
| to Europe I fairly routinely get a local SIM and turn off
| my US number.
| dheera wrote:
| Yeah I absolutely hate the SMS thing.
|
| I usually use Google Fi for almost all international
| travel (free roaming almost everywhere) but I need an
| additional local SIM in China because most of the SMS
| confirmation apps there only support +86 numbers.
| acheong08 wrote:
| Mostly yes but,
|
| I spent ~2 months traveling in Chongqing in 2023, most of
| the time without a SIM. You can get into most public wifis
| with a bit of scanning and mac spoofing. All public
| transport still accepted cash (or transit card) and was
| extremely cheap. Even if some shops no longer accept cash,
| there will always be ones that do. Not planning on going
| back anytime soon but if I ever do, I would not be a fan of
| requiring internet to deal with public transport.
| luke-stanley wrote:
| In my experience, on a public bus there is reasonable chance
| of getting a working USB A socket. But as a private business,
| it's not a complete replacement of the public bus system,
| however apps are used by people already to book on-the-fly
| cheap group taxi trips in Shanghai.
|
| For good or ill, most teens do have a smartphone on them, and
| even kids are often seen with smartwatches that have
| tracking, and probably WeChat, and every mall I've been to
| sells them. On the Shanghai bus and metro, people often use a
| Shanghai public transport card to pay, they do accept old
| fashioned cash though too. Powerbank rental networks are
| common on the street and non-returns default to purchases
| (~$14-$28 USD). Malls, and the Metro often has power
| available for free.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| These examples are all easily solved.
|
| I.e. replace the bus stops with terminals/kiosks which give
| you full service, potentially another in the middle of the
| bus.
| sxg wrote:
| > One of the amazing things of the current system, as simple
| as it is, is that it's predictable and doesn't require
| coordination.
|
| In many cities, the exact opposite of that has been true in
| my experience. I've waited at bus/train stops only for it to
| be 20+ min late or never show up multiple times per week. The
| unpredictability makes it infeasible as a means of
| transportation to getting to work or anything time sensitive
| (e.g., sporting event or show downtown). This is a much
| bigger problem in smaller cities with rudimentary public
| transit, but I've also experienced it in larger cities like
| Philadelphia.
| svachalek wrote:
| My few attempts to take a bus in San Diego lead me to
| believe the schedule is for entertainment purposes only.
| SR2Z wrote:
| > So if there's a teen without a smartphone, they can't take
| the bus, nor can someone who's phone died, etc.
|
| I feel very strongly that if a teenager is old and
| responsible enough to take the bus on their own, they are old
| and responsible enough for a smartphone. Furthermore, it's
| actively harmful to send your kids out into the world without
| the kinds of modern tools that would make them safer and more
| independent.
|
| As for "phone died," well... just find a place to recharge
| it. It's not particularly difficult these days and I can't
| actually remember the last time my phone died on me when I
| needed it.
|
| OP is a really cool demonstration of what we can do when
| everyone carries a computer in their pocket. Uber in the US
| has something similar with airport shuttles. Why should we
| handicap new, shiny things to make them usable without a
| phone?
| thangalin wrote:
| > Why should we handicap new, shiny things to make them
| usable without a phone?
|
| (a) Not everyone has a (smart) phone.
|
| (b) Not everyone can use a (smart) phone.
|
| (c) Not everyone wants a phone.
|
| (d) Not everyone can afford a phone.
|
| (e) Not everyone wants to upgrade their phone to use the
| newest shiny things.
|
| (f) Not everyone can upgrade their phone (see (d)).
|
| (g) Not everyone opts to put (third-party) apps on their
| smart phone.
|
| (h) Not all apps are built with accessibility in mind (see
| (b)).
|
| (i) Some folks are concerned about mass surveillance (see
| (g)).
|
| (j) Sometimes phones get stolen.
|
| (k) Sometimes phones get broken.
|
| (l) Sometimes phones get bricked.
|
| (m) Sometimes phones get hacked.
|
| (n) Sometimes phone get locked out.
|
| (o) Sometimes apps stop working.
|
| (p) Sometimes cell service goes offline (see Hurricane
| Helene).
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| As a forty-something semi-retired electrician, the
| following apply to me:
|
| (c) I own a cell phone, but NEVER leave the house with it
| (effectively a landline, but less expensive). When my
| city recently began _requiring_ an app for public street
| parking, I simply stopped paying for parking (it 's only
| a $16 fine, unless you are handicapped == free).
|
| (e) The only thing that causes me to update my phone is
| when the battery swells up (typically around eight
| years). Otherwise I don't even update the original OS.
|
| (g) Flat out, I refuse to use your app
|
| (i) Whether by business/marketing or governments, agreed
| gtirloni wrote:
| You're an outlier. I can safely say this doesn't apply to
| the majority of the population.
| MrJohz wrote:
| Here in Germany it's fairly common for kids aged perhaps
| six or seven and up to take public transport by themselves.
| They might have a dumb phone or occasionally a smart watch,
| but I rarely see them with their own smart phones.
|
| One of the most important principles of a public transport
| system should be that it's accessible to all in a lowest-
| common-denominator sort of way. Anything beyond that is
| also good to have, but if you don't have that basic level
| of accessibility, then it's not really a public transport
| system, it's a luxury transport system. And there are
| already plenty of luxury transport systems around.
|
| Also, my last phone died on me fairly often, I don't think
| it's nearly as unusual as event as you're making it out to
| be.
| immibis wrote:
| And yet, nearly everything in Germany requires a stable
| physical address. Meanwhile, the state of the housing
| market is such that it's hard to get one.
| patrickdavey wrote:
| "Furthermore, it's actively harmful to send your kids out
| into the world without the kinds of modern tools that would
| make them safer and more independent."
|
| Interesting. I think there's a balance to be had here.
| Making our kids "too safe" I think may lead to a lack of
| resilience. I'll certainly be teaching my kid how to read a
| map (orienteering), and I suspect the sense of autonomy and
| self-reliance they'll get from knowing they can get from A
| to B without needing GPS will be a very good thing.
|
| That said, we probably will get them a dumbphone to put in
| the bottom of their bag for if they really get stuck. I
| have no plan to have tracking etc. though. No way.
| qludes wrote:
| If I damage my phone or it gets stolen I have to walk home
| because the dystopian iOS/Android with SIM that requires ID
| ecosystem here won't actually allow me to simply use other
| computers I might still have access to so I'd have to equip
| my children with 2 devices and 2 SIMs in addition to cash,
| a debit card and an ID card to show that they're entitled
| to use their bus ticket.
|
| These are incredibly user unfriendly locked gardens that
| are often adding gatekeeping to services that used to be
| ubiquitiously available, even in non-totalitarian systems,
| because suddenly you might need a bank account, an address,
| a government issued ID, a SIM card and a $100+ device that
| runs the approved stack just to take the bus.
| moogleii wrote:
| I didn't get the impression this was totally replacing static
| routes. Seemed to be augmenting it. But also, while your
| concerns are valid, I don't think they are large enough to
| not try these things.
| sho_hn wrote:
| > One immediate problem that comes to mind is that you need a
| smartphone to take public transit.
|
| In China, Korea and other places, a smartphone is already the
| required entrance ticket to public life.
|
| It's a little bit like faulting sidewalks for assuming
| footwear.
| er4hn wrote:
| In China in particular a smartphone is the primary means to
| interact with restaurant menus, place orders, and pay for
| many things. Rentable battery packs are also pretty
| ubiquitous.
|
| I once asked an in-law what happens if your phone
| completely runs out of food and you're hungry. He
| (jokingly) replied "no phone, no eat".
| schainks wrote:
| Roads to not have unlimited bandwidth. I think this _is_ a good
| idea, but has to have some boundaries on how it functions or
| you will gridlock your city by accident.
| flakespancakes wrote:
| Via Transportation (ridewithvia.com) started out doing pooled
| cab rides but pivoted to doing what you describe, seemingly
| successfully. Lots of value for school transit, para transit,
| etc as well. I have no affiliation with them but I think the
| model is very promising.
| bretpiatt wrote:
| We're piloting VIA Link in San Antonio, TX to add on last mile
| Uber style from transit stations.
|
| Link: https://www.viainfo.net/link/
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Busses need a rethink. There needs to a TGV like central hub and
| spoke fast travel version, with large capacity. And there needs
| to a a "on demand, collect people to the spoke" mini-bus service.
| And then there is no - as in "NOOO" option, for any local
| politician, to make the speed-bus stop at any location else, that
| is not directly on route and at least 5 kms apart. And the speed
| bus can not be allowed to be stuck in traffic, so obviously bus
| lanes it is.
| brador wrote:
| This has been tried in some European countries in the early
| 2000s, website not app.
|
| People stop using it. Forget to cancel, unreliable service, took
| too long. As users drop wait times become longer, cascading
| failure.
|
| Solution was real time dynamic rerouting and bus stop buttons to
| request the bus. But by then it was no longer wanted and canned.
| gblargg wrote:
| Yeah, it seems silly to let riders try to design a route that
| best fits the needs of other people going to different places.
| Riders don't know how to design good routes. But it seems great
| to ask riders what places they go regularly and then use all
| that data to generate optimized routes. If they can change
| routes regularly they can optimize for actual regular riders.
| That seems the real value in this "agile" approach.
| dluan wrote:
| Last year Shanghai celebrated the 100th anniversary of the bus
| system, so they decorated all of the bus liveries to be a modern
| take on the historical first busses. They are very cute and easy
| to use, and a lot of the bus stops have little old LCD displays
| showing how far away the next bus is.
| elric wrote:
| How does this work in practice? Say someone wants to take a bus
| to the hospital. But not enough people want to go to the
| hospital. Will the bus not run and will you be shit out of luck?
| aembleton wrote:
| You suggest it in the app/website. Others vote on it and a bus
| route is created based off of that. If not enough people want
| it then it isn't created and, similar to other bus routes it
| will be removed if it isn't being used.
| liampulles wrote:
| Here in South Africa, we have "Taxis", which are individually
| owned (to a degree) minibuses crammed full of people. Routes are
| whatever maximises earning potential for the driver, so it is a
| kind of bottom up solution in a sense.
|
| It is a violent cartel, so certainly not a good thing across the
| board, but it's just an interesting variant.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| In most countries in South America there is a similar system of
| buses called combis (or micros). The buses are private and the
| routes change at the whim of the driver/owner based on demand,
| etc. Usually main stops are posted in the front window of the
| bus (it's messy looking lol)
| est wrote:
| take this only as a grain of salt.
|
| It has been tried in many cities before like Beijing, Qingdao,
| Dalian, Hangzhou and Chengdu.
|
| It wasn't a bad idea, it's just a good route gradually became a
| fixed route.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| Sounds like minibus in Hong Kong with extra steps - we have been
| doing this since eternity. Driver just ask where people would
| stop in advance, sometimes an entire area would be skipped if no
| one goes there
| tsukikage wrote:
| How does that work out for someone in the unpopular destination
| who wants to leave?
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| There is a loosely defined route that still needs to be
| followed. You just shout you want to leave when you are near
| your destination. Or the driver would ask/shout is there
| anyone going to XXX area when it is near, you are supposed to
| say yes otherwise it gets skipped
|
| I guess I'll add an example. Let's say the minibus mainly
| goes from A to B, but pass through C in the middle. Dropping
| people off at C is often a non-trivial task that may takes a
| couple of extra minutes so you need to tell the driver in
| advance
| tsukikage wrote:
| No, I mean, what if there is someone at C that wants to
| catch a bus, but all the buses are skipping C because no-
| one already on the bus wanted to go there?
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| Well, you take other transports. Or call the minibus
| company and sometimes they'll arrange for you. Hong Kong
| is a bit unique though, that most people go to one or two
| areas for work, so the minibus is probably already full
| at C in the morning anyway
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| Red minibuses to be more specific.
| MarceliusK wrote:
| The fact that it can go from proposal to route-in-service in just
| a few days is impressive
| arjunchint wrote:
| Taking this even further would be to autonomous dynamically
| rerouting minibuses:
|
| - you have app, and you enter destination
|
| - optimal minibus reroutes itself to pick you up and take you
| there with mix of walking, while dropping off other passengers
| too
|
| - minimizes the door to door time that makes cars so optimal
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| > and take you there with mix of walking
|
| It would be be rather far side for the bus to drop you off, let
| you walk, and then pick you up again 3 (european) streets
| over...in the name of 'efficiency'.
| arjunchint wrote:
| No I meant similar to how Uber offers a discount for you to
| walk a bit to the pickup location.
|
| You request on app, and it sends you to a more central
| pickup/dropoff points
| sidkhuntia wrote:
| This kinda solution wont work in India. People will use relatives
| phones to vote for the route and get the route approved, but in
| reality there will be only one passenger
| pas wrote:
| Then votes should cost some money for the winners.
| Loughla wrote:
| Which would punish low income folks for no real reason.
| pas wrote:
| How? If you want to use the service you pay anyway, right?
| If you want a particular route you should have some stake
| in it. (Low-income / low-wealth / poor people ought to get
| vouchers and/or welfare payments - preferably as a gradual
| negative income tax.)
| hollerith wrote:
| How about we give the low income folks money every month
| rather than crippling the resource-allocation system
| everyone relies on?
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I can't imagine any transit vehicle in india with just one
| passenger
| xnx wrote:
| Scale down the number of seats one notch, and increase the
| flexibility fully and you've got self-driving vans.
| originalvichy wrote:
| Sounds like something we tried in Helsinki metropolitan area
| 10-15 years ago. I think it was shuttered due to low demand.
| Existing paths were already following population density, so
| there already was maximum availability for bus users.
|
| Where I think it is most in use as a separate program is picking
| up elderly people. Retirement homes have minubuses picking up
| people and driving them to centrew and back. The users don't have
| to abide by a busier standard bus schedule and the bus is more
| accessible by the elderly.
| anon291 wrote:
| Everything about this makes sense. I've long-called for similar
| efforts in America. It's painful to watch my local transit agency
| (Portland) expend so much money on figuring out transit routes.
| Endless committees, focus groups, etc, when the state has access
| to a smartphone-enabled population. Just release an app that lets
| people request routes and then self-optimize to maximize the
| number of people willing to take transit. This is not a hard
| computational problem, but instead we end up with endless
| committees and bureaucracy.
| altilunium wrote:
| One of the biggest caveats of citizen participation programs like
| this is that, surprisingly, there's a subset of people who don't
| want to participate in the hassle and simply want to be served
| quickly. It really depends on how the majority of people in a
| specific area think about civic participation.
| bluGill wrote:
| People have lots of things to do in their life. That 10 minutes
| to use the app is 10 minutes I can't spend on my wood carving
| (random made up hobby). This is why I'm against these programs
| - statisticians know lots of better ways to get data that is
| less biased to people who feel like making the time to submit
| information. (Statisticians can also tell you what biases they
| were unable to account for so you can make decisions on if you
| need to collect more data).
| boatsie wrote:
| Google already has the daily trip data on a huge percentage of
| people and could just create and recommend bus and transit routes
| and times based on people's existing commutes. Sure privacy
| issues exist for allowing them to do this but people have given
| up more personal information for less benefit.
| hx8 wrote:
| Every city has traffic analysis data. It's how they make
| transportation decisions. What's neat about this program is
| that it removes some of the bureaucratic process of selecting
| bus routes and lets riders decide the routes.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| This is an interesting experiment, but I have my doubts about its
| effectiveness. I hope someone is tracking how well this works and
| we get some good research out of it. I'm much more interested in
| any research paper that comes from this than anything else.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| It's a cool idea, but this seems like the kind of thing that will
| have the users drift away and cease functioning.
|
| People will log into vote on their route when they want one, and
| then have essentially no reason to ever access the feature ever
| again. With no active users, there will be no way to get "votes"
| for a route.
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