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The waiting time paradox: why is my bus always late? (2018)

(jakevdp.github.io)
219 points skadamat | 2 comments | 20 Aug 24 13:55 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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rjmunro ◴[20 Aug 24 17:11 UTC] 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. soperj ◴[20 Aug 24 19:10 UTC] No.41302981[source]▶
If you track the busses, this should be as easy as changing one bus to "bus full" and have the emptier bus behind it picking up the passengers for a while. That will speed up the fuller bus and slow down the bus behind it.
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2. blahedo ◴[21 Aug 24 04:22 UTC] No.41306761[source]▶
In Chicago (I assume also other places) the leading bus will sometimes announce "after this stop this bus will run express to Western" (or wherever) "if you need a stop before then, transfer to the bus behind this one". I wish they'd do it more often, it really helps to de-bunch the bus routes.