Trains and buses should be redesigned

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Public transport is often unpopular because it's not convenient enough. On trains and buses each seat should be separate. You should never have to sit next to a stranger. Next to each person's seat should be a space as large as a seat to put a suitcase or plenty of shopping or work tools on.

If buses and trains were like that I think even electricians and builders would use them. Anyone could do their shopping and use them. People wouldn't have to worry as much about sexual harassment or being bullied because each person would be sat alone. I think even bullying on school buses would decrease because each bus would hold half as many people as now and so there would be loss of a mob element to public transport.

Of course twice as many buses and trains would be needed but that isn't really an issue at all. If buses and trains were all redesigned in this way cars would be far less necessary anyway.

Anyone else got ideas on how buses and trains could be changed?

you'll still be sitting "next" to strangers, there will just be a slightly larger distance between you. having an entire cubby or cubicle for each passenger drastically reduces the capacity of each vehicle and reduces the efficiency of the public transport system in the first place-one of it's benefits being the ability to transport many people in a relatively compact "package", reducing road congestion....

what about this new setup of yours would entice electricians and builders to use public transportation? even if it was changed, i imagine their own trucks would be much better suited?

i wouldn't think so, i suppose one way to offset the reduced passenger capacity is to make the buses double deckers, but that impacts handling, stability, and many streets/cities wouldn't be able to accommodate them physically. plus, it's very expensive and many districts wouldn't be able to afford them...

i'm not sure where you get the idea that this change would make cars far less necessary? can you explain

having twice as many would impact congestion, emissions, it would be expensive, and for whose benefit? i don't think the people who have this much of a struggle with the existing setup in public transportation make up the big majority.

i suppose you *could* add a few of these luxo-buses to an existing, unchanged bus fleet and see how people react. that could be an experiment...

one has to remember that bus fleets are run by a company, and one thing that all companies have in common is putting profit first

I think as big of reason people dislike public transportation is because they simply don't want to be around strangers to begin with. Lack of convenience and cost are issues that can be fixed but not much you can do if people oppose the public part of transportation. I use it and to be honest it sucks, the are a lot of gross and unfriendly people on it without really any security. People with money can just opt for Uber or something if they really need a ride too.

[moved to random discussion from GAD]

i took the bus to city college yesterday to drop off a few forms.

boarded the line four, which was taking its sweet time in the station for a variety of reasons...driver switch, lady on wheelchair trying to board but getting stuck on the ramp, etc.

on the bus was an older man with a pot belly, and when he reached over to get something in his bag on the walker in front of him, he would toot. fart. quite soon afterwards the smell permeated the whole bus. (thankfully i was far away)

a younger man looked visibly annoyed, using his black hoodie as a gas mask to shield himself from the stench.

the driver announced that another bus going to the college had arrived, and we could board that one if we didn't want to wait for this one to take off.

you should have seen how quickly he ran out after that.

I agree with Kip and Jacoby----PLUS, who do you think's gonna pay for all of this; the cost would be passed-on to the consumer!!

You do all realize that we're facing catastrophic global warming, don't you? And that something has to be done? Can any of you come up with better ideas?

^^ And, how do you think adding MORE buses, would help Global Warming, when motor vehicles add TO it (GW)? Even if more buses were added, that doesn't mean more people would take them (meaning, less cars)! !

the biggest issue around here isn’t the cleanliness of buses, being cramped in with others or the people(mostly elderly or community college folk), it’s the lack of buses, and routes in such a spread out urban area.

for every transfer, a spare hour is required in planning(most routes come once per hour except for a few major ones that come twice per) in possibly having to wait in direct sunlight if the buses don’t match time for transfer(most stops are just a post shoved in the ground with a number on it). to make things worse, they don’t start until about 7am, they end before 9pm(meaning they’re not acceptable for people who have to be somewhere early, or need to be out late), and most routes halve with frequency or are completely inactive on weekends requiring a much longer trip along with walking to get to a place that’d already take half a day to get to and back by bus(that’d only take maybe ten minutes each way by personal vehicle).

have honestly missed buses by seconds, and out walked the next to the desired stop... they’re so infrequent and inconsistent, you’re better off planning one or two longer routes with walking in between to drastically cut down on time spent waiting around to avoid making a day trip out of something like going to the mall(since if you get there by taking three hours of buses, you’ll already be worn out enough to just want to go home from heat exhaustion).

Yeah twice as many buses may be an issue, what if you need to catch the one right at a specific time but then the first one comes and is too crowded due to all the wasted space and then you have to wait for the next one. Plus it would add to general traffic congestion and also cars are still necessary buses won't take you everywhere. And I think the bus costs enough now...of course there are some downsides, but if they designed them like that it would probably bring up the prices.

And how exactly would more buses being on the road, causing more congestion do anything to reduce global warming?

I would like to see wide cable car systems that connect to existing train and bus terminals.

I think redesigning them to have more space would cause fewer seats to be available & part of the reason some don't like public transport is because they have to stand or have people standing next to them.

The only thing that ruins public transport journeys is screaming brats, but unfortunately there is no solution to that except to learn to endure it, which I find difficult.

huh? well, of course that's an issue, nobody here is denying that.that's a huge issue, the biggest of our times.

but what do your proposals in the OP have to do with global warming? when reading that, i imagined your motivations laid in wanting more personal space and making the buses more autism friendly (?) so this climatechange thing, at least to me is coming out of left field.

less buses would probably better for emissions than more, for starters. using hybrid technology in bus drivetrains/engines can help, perhaps not by much, but my city utilizes it widely. full electric buses as well perhaps, but at least here that technology is limited to the tiny downtown shuttles that can barely make it up a hill with a full load.

the internal combustion engine is a saw-toothed beast by design, and i believe there's only so much that can be done to it to maximize efficiency before something has to be seriously compromised....

hydrogen fuel cells seem promising, see the toyota mirai. but that's a teeny little thing, applying it to a 10 ton bus is a whole different matter... i expect to be stuck with turbo diesel for a little while.

of course there's more to this while dilemma than just fuel efficiency and emissions...we have to make sure the materials we manufacture vehicles with are readily available, sustainable and don't pollute too much when it's time to scrap.

or we could go back to bikes?



don't forget brats that have their devices, volume turned all the way up. smelly homeless folks, farty old men...

i was on a 2 hour bus ride to guadalajara in mexico earlier this year, and one of the seats was so worn i felt the metal frame poking into my back the entire time. ouch.



wellllll...reducing the passenger capacity of a bus, reducing it's maximum load weight can ease the stress on the drivetrain and slightly, very slightly improve its fuel efficiency...?

maybe.

i think double the buses is still better than none.

Nothing annoys me as much as the whining and bawling sound of a kid under 6. And where I come from we don't really get homeless people on the bus. The fare is too expensive.
There are other factors that annoy me on the bus but not as much as a noisy brat.

Well I was operating on the assumption that more buses on the road would mean less people needed to use cars. And I would think if less people need to use cars, also more people would use bicycles. Buses are easier to cope with for cyclists than cars because they have predictable routes and a cyclist can learn them and expect when they will turn or stop. Cars are unpredictable so a lot of cars on the road deter people from cycling. Could be wrong but that's my perspective anyway.