On 16/08/2014 06:40, John Williamson wrote:
On 15/08/2014 20:43, Dennis@home wrote:
On 15/08/2014 18:10, John Williamson wrote:

Buses are the most efficient motorised way to move people round the
average town or city, and can fit over 50 passengers in the space
occupied by a dozen cyclists displaying their normal behaviour.

The hell they are.
Outside rush hour they are empty unless you reduce the service to a
tenth of rush hour.

Have you looked at a bus closely lately?

Yes.

Most services now are purely
commercial and if they don't carry enough passengers to pay (Average
about 30% of the potential maximum over the route length), they're
removed from the timetable.

Most are nearly empty.

There are still some subsidised services,
but they are getting fewer by the year.

Maybe, but not in a noticeable way around here.
In fact I think there are more services now than last year.


And I didn't say they *always* fit 50 or more passengers into the space,
I said they *can* fit over 50 passengers into the space. IME this only
matters in the rush hour periods, when cyclists are also more common,
and cause more holdups.



Cyclists seldom travel slower than the buses except in bus lanes when
they can't get past the three or four buses in front waiting to join the
queue of cars at the end of the bus lane. The queue caused by the cars
trying to get out of the next bit of bus lane a few hundred yards down
the road!