For express or intercity busses, that makes sense, but for high-frequency regular bus routes, I can't imagine that working. It means thar bus stops would have to be extremely sparse, or else the bus trips would need to be extremely slow.
>bus stops would have to be extremely sparse, or else the bus trips would need to be extremely slow.
Way too many transit operators choose extremely slow. Having bus stops every 100m is popular because it offers almost door to door service. But when every single person separately boards it results in the vehicle being stopped 1/3 of its running time! People generally prefer faster bus routes (average 20 MPH) even if it requires them to walk a block to the stop versus a service that stops every block but averages 6 MPH (bicycle speed).
Exactly the opposite. It sucks for intercity buses, cause there's no point. Bus stops are rare and buses don't "bunch up". It's essential for city buses.
This is how it works in every big city in Poland, it's working great. More cities started to use this system over time, because it improves the scheduling so much.
The point of city buses is that they drive in traffic anyway - they rarely drive over 50 km/h and they stop every 5 minutes. How regular they are is MUCH more important than how fast they drive.
If you skip 3 stops because nobody waited there - you get to the 4th bus stop 5 minutes too early and wait for 5 minutes there - potentially blocking the bus stop for others and wrecking havoc with the scheduling. Much better to split these 5 minutes between the bus stops where nobody is blocked.
It's like in gamedev - you don't want to optimize happy case cause you're making the situation WORSE. If your fastest frame takes 5 ms instead of 10 ms it changes nothing at best (and makes for more jerky movement at worst). If your longest frame takes 15 ms instead of 18 ms - it means you can keep consistent 60 FPS now - and that's a HUGE win.
For intercity busses, keeping an accurate schedule is essential. If you miss your bus because it ran ahead of schedule, it's not a five-minute wait for the next one; you'll possibly even be booking a hotel for the night.
For express busses, stops are far enough in between and all major locations, so you may as well stop at all of them.
For milkrun busses, where the frequency is so high, scheduling errors are only really a problem if the busses bunch up and create excessive gaps.
If a bus trip takes 45 minutes when a car takes 15, more people drive and then traffic gets bad. But busses with dedicated lanes and coordinated light-timing can go much faster than traffic, when they aren't stopping for passengers!
I think you and I must live in cities with very differently-run transit companies!
City buses stop much more often than every 5 minutes in my experience. It's more like every couple of blocks, sometimes every block, at least in the densely populated areas.
That is way too often, it makes service too slow. People have things todo and sitting on the bus is not one oi them (even if they are doing something it is rarely what they want todo.
what is right is a compromise but everx block is too much
I agree, but a five minute drive is about a 30 minute walk (for an able-bodied person), which is way too far between bus stops for a non-express bus. Especially if you have to catch a connecting bus going along one of the major streets your bus skipped by.
> If a bus is indicating ( min 5 secs ) and is pulling out from a bus stop they have right of way. Failure to Give Way is worth a $362 fine and [demerit] 3 points.
