On 03/04/2015 10:58, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Nightjar cpb@ insert my surname here.me.uk wrote:
Large passenger carrying vehicles make much better use of limited road
space. I have an MoT report from 1967, where they were looking at the
advantages, if any, of small town cars. They calculated that, at 25mph,
a 14ft car needed 51ft of road, while a 10ft car needed 47ft. Assuming
they each carried 4 people, that is 12.75ft/person and 11.75ft/person
respectively. A Routemaster bus, OTOH, needed 65 feet, to carry up to 64
passengers, or near enough 1ft/person.

That may well be true when both are full. But private cars used for
commuting pretty well never are. Mostly driver only. Buses may be full in
rush hour, but can run near empty outside it. Although it would be rare
to find a bus using up more road space per passenger than a car even
outside rush hour.


The average car occupancy in 2011 was 1.6 people, although only 1.2 on
commuting trips. The average bus occupancy was 9.1 outside London and
19.3 in London.

--
Colin Bignell