by et-al on 7/24/18, 6:53 AM
On a tangental note, another HN user posted another visualisation a few months back which I quite enjoyed:
Why do buses bunch?: http://setosa.io/bus/
by exogeny on 7/24/18, 4:57 AM
Pittsburgh is a super interesting city from a transportation logistics and efficiency perspective. It's got an extremely difficult topography mixed with a rather obstinate electorate that has routinely de-prioritized mass transit.
This particular piece emphasizes what anyone who attended CMU could tell you - if you're going to take the 62C anytime during rush hour, you better learn to hold your breath.
by remarkEon on 7/24/18, 7:10 AM
Love this. I’ve experienced bus bunching in several cities at this point (LA, DC, and now Seattle). It seems to be a known failure mode of metro transit planning. First step is understanding what your problem space looks like. Curious to know what anyone here thinks could be a solution. I doubt skipping stops is one. I suspect that speed controls are probably the way to go.
Edit: kudos to doing this in R. I’ve done other city analysis stuff in R and I keep coming back to it for one off things like this.
by arendtio on 7/24/18, 7:13 AM
> how do we make this better?
Just teach the bus drivers to let the empty busses overtake the crowded one.
It won't solve the pauses when there will be no bus coming, but at least it increases the passenger comfort by a good margin and the average speed by which the bunch travels increases too.
by scarejunba on 7/24/18, 5:06 AM
Tognar visualization dude. Is there an easy library that helps put together stuff like that or is it custom?
On mobile so can't inspect.
by dthal on 7/24/18, 7:05 AM
Its striking how much less bunching there is on the two routes (P/G) that operate in exclusive right-of-way.
by scandox on 7/24/18, 7:57 AM
In Dublin (Ireland) the drivers at Dublin Bus call this polling (or poling...not sure of spelling).
The explanation given to me by a former driver is very simple. When a driver is very hungover or in bad form for one reason or another they poll the other bus so they get light duty.
by paulsutter on 7/24/18, 5:08 AM
Naive question: when buses are bunching, can't the front bus skip stops that are not needed for dropoffs? (the driver would have to announce that passengers need to request their stops of course).
by duxup on 7/24/18, 4:55 AM
Anyway to use this to predict when you should wait for the next bus so you can ride more comfortably?
by nebstrebor on 7/24/18, 8:55 AM
I see this phenomenon in airport parking shuttles ... more frequently than I would like.