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nightjar

On 04/04/2015 15:53, wrote:
On Saturday, April 4, 2015 at 11:22:07 AM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
On 03/04/2015 16:05, wrote:
On Friday, April 3, 2015 at 9:17:11 AM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
...
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.

I don't recall suggesting that. I simply pointed out that there is a
form of public transport that will go from door to door. Most people are
happier than you to use fixed stops.

...
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.

They are still not going to achieve the passenger density of a double
decker bus.

No, ignoring bizarre multistorey configurations But much better density than the car & taxi rides they replace.

With computer programming of destinations and suitable pod design it also may be possible to shift passengers into and out of bus sized pods while travelling, enabling large pods to take more of the traffic than today's buses, yet take people door to door.

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.

As I said, they are for 25mph. The average free traffic speed for buses
in a 30mph limit is 27mph. Bus lanes should allow buses to achieve free
traffic speed much of the time. However, at 10mph, the length of road
needed by a 10ft car is still 25 feet for up to four people, while at
10mph the Routemaster bus will need 32 feet for up to 64 people.

Road vehicle density is an issue when its busiest, and pretty much a nonissue when everyone can do 27mph in a 30 zone. The biggest deal is to unclog congestion, when speed is near zero. In those conditions, a 10ft car takes maybe 13ft of lane, and a 4ft kart maybe 5 feet, two abreast. 2.5 feet of lane per just over 1 driver versus 13ft.

You are still going to face the problem they found with the concept of
small personal transport vehicles in 1967 - virtually nobody wanted to
use them. A survey found that, besides most people disliking them simply
because they were small, small vehicles were rated badly for both
comfort and safety.

--
Colin Bignell