"bert" ] wrote in message
...
In message , John Williamson
writes
tim..... wrote:
"John Williamson" wrote in message
...
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
John Williamson wrote:
The added cost to the operator of carrying an extra passenger is
minutely more than twice (One lot for boarding, the other for getting
off) the extra fuel used to accelerate from a standing start to
running speed over and above the fuel used for constant speed
running. assuming only one person boards or alights per stop, unless
the extra passenger use due to the pass triggers a requirement for
an extra or larger vehicle. The labour cost is near to zero, as any
extra time the stop takes is absorbed in the reserve time in the
timetable.

You've omitted a more serious one - the bus is full so a 'paying'
passenger can't board.

No, that's just an inconvenience for the passenger, it's not normally
a cost to either the company or the council. At worst, one full fare
is lost, but if the route is that busy, it's normally a frequent
service, and people will wait, so the company get the fare anyway. No
bus company will ever guarantee that there will always be a space, or
even that the bus will always run. First come, first served. If it
happens regularly, words are normally said, and schedules altered
accordingly.
There is at least one example of a bus company withdrawing a bus route
because an excess of twirlies stopped fare paying passengers get on the
bus

Do tell. I've never heard of it happening.

Neither have I and it seems a most unlikely thing to do.

The "blue bus" Southampton to Portsmouth route.

This was meant to be a "local" service for the communities on route to get
to one town centre or the other. Not a through bus from city to city as it
takes three times longer then the train.

But as soon as all the twirlies started to get on at one city centre to go
to the other one, because it was free, the bus was full on departure and
couldn't provide the service to the communities that it was designed to
serve.

So they withdrew it

tim