On Friday, April 3, 2015 at 9:17:11 AM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
On 02/04/2015 01:37, wrote:
On Wednesday, April 1, 2015 at 6:34:44 PM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
On 01/04/2015 18:05, wrote:
On Wednesday, April 1, 2015 at 5:17:29 PM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:

Its something very different to what we know as public transport. The main problems with uk public transport are
a) the vehicle usually doesnt go from your origin or to your destination

Taxis do and they are a form of public transport. If necessary, mix with
train, light railway or other long distance PT.

Aiming to increase use of taxis is a mad idea. Of all transports they are the most wasteful of resources, both material and human. Its only sensible to use them to fill in gaps in any other system implemented.

A lot of people, particularly the elderly, rely upon them. I have a
cousin who used to run a very successful taxi service that specialised
in taxis for the disabled.

And that's all good. That doesn't make it a wise thing to try to move more people to taxis from other types of transport.

b) journey time is generally hugely increased compared to car travel, resulting in a vast waste of human resource.

Well, I wouldn't do a long distance trip by bus, but around town, the
traffic usually ensures that everybody travels at much the same speed,
unless there are bus lanes, when the bus will probably be quicker. I
also suspect that the days when I could drive across London faster than
getting there by tube have long gone.

I can drive from A to B in town in a fraction the time it takes to walk to a bus stop, wait, go to the nearest stop then walk the rest.

That is going to be very dependent upon the town, the level of traffic
and whether there are effective bus lanes available. I doubt, for
example, that many car drivers beat the bus from Brighton sea front to,
say Patcham. There is a 20mph speed limit for much of the way, traffic
lights that the Green council seem to have phased to delay cars as much
as possible and bus lanes past the most congested parts.

Long distance buses/coaches are worse since there are inevitably less people doing any given long distance journey, thus times between vehicles are far longer.

I was thinking more of long distance service bus routes, like the South
Coast 700 route, which runs between Portsmouth and Brighton, taking
about four hours to do it.

Hirable vehicles of some sort would go part way to solving it, but only part way. Permitting small vehicles, eg kart size, in all zones might, if implemented sufficiently well, be the best option.

Which is what some of the driverless car experiments seem to be aimed at
doing.

Yes... its the sensible option. Huge vehicles made sense in Victorian times, but today much less so.

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.

If driverless pods prove viable, they can hook up when travelling the same route to save road space and improve reliability.

The figures you quote are clearly for travel at some speed. Town centres today are routinely clogged, and under those conditions karts occupy half the width and 1/4 the length of a car, making stationary queues just 1/8th as long, thus unblocking some of the junctions & roads.


NT