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219 points skadamat | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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rjmunro ◴[] No.41301868[source]
There's another thing that happens with busses that makes it worse.

The further behind the previous bus a bus is, the more people will arrive at the bus stop. The more people there are at the stop, the longer the bus has to spend picking them all up and selling them tickets etc. Therefore the delayed bus will tend to experience more delay. The bus behind them will have less people to pick up, so it will spend a shorter time at stops and tend to catch up with the first bus, so the two busses are dragged towards each other.

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1. ajuc ◴[] No.41302658[source]
That's why city buses have 3 or 4 double doors and there's ticket machines inside (and drivers don't sell tickets). The time to board rarely goes over 15 seconds.

Compare:

https://www.lubus.info/images/stories/taborbus/5122-57.jpg vs https://www.chicagobus.org/system/photos/250/large/DSC00925....

That's double the boarding time at every stop right there.

The schedule is also designed in such a way that the bus is usually ~1 minute ahead of time and can wait for the proper time to depart from each bus stop - zeroing the randomness on each stop. If it gets too delayed on one part of the route it can catch up on next few bus stops.

On intercity routes there's fewer bus stops so usually there's just 1 door and the driver sells the tickets.