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

(jakevdp.github.io)
219 points skadamat | 4 comments | 20 Aug 24 13:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | 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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Ylpertnodi ◴[20 Aug 24 17:38 UTC] No.41302114[source]▶
>the longer the bus has to spend picking them all up and selling them tickets etc.

In my country, apart from an app/ online, you can buy a ticket pretty much anywhere. I guess someone worked out that bus drivers with money are a potential theft risk, and also that selling tickets on the bus takes time and makes busses late(r than they would be).

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jerlam ◴[20 Aug 24 18:35 UTC] No.41302682[source]▶
The slickest process I've seen is to just swipe your credit card, without any setup whatsoever.
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1. SoftTalker ◴[20 Aug 24 19:17 UTC] No.41303056[source]▶
Often the most expensive though. You're paying the highest individual fare rate, possibly plus card processing fees.

If you buy a transit pass or use their app you can get significant discounts.

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2. grkvlt ◴[21 Aug 24 04:09 UTC] No.41306704[source]▶
in big cities in the uk (edinburgh, london, etc.) paying with a contactless tap of a debit card each journey will never result in paying more than the cheapest daily, weekly etc. travel pass. single tickets are gbp 2.00 and a daaily pass is gbp 5.00 so individual journeys are recorded and counted (when paid for with the same card, obviously) and at the end of the day, if more than three journeys have been made the total charge for the day is capped at gbp 5.00 - and the weekly total is also capped at the value of a weekly pass, etc.
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3. MrJohz ◴[21 Aug 24 04:24 UTC] No.41306776[source]▶
A lot of systems that work this way also cap your fare so that you never pay more than the day rate. Say the day cap is £5, and an individual fare costs £2, then if you take two journeys you'll pay £2 each, but from the fifth journey on, you're capped and only pay £1. In some places, there's day and week caps, so if you travel every day of the week, the price will be capped again once you've travelled enough that week.

The Oyster system in London is a classic example of this - originally you needed to load money onto a separate card, now you can do it with your bank card instead, but it still all works the same. I believe it's also the cheapest option - the daily and weekly caps are cheaper than their paper ticket equivalents. You can probably get better deals in specific cases, but generally the Oyster system is the way to go. I know they're slowly bringing that concept in in other cities in the UK as well, and there are schemes around Europe that use an app with GPS as the "tap on, tap off" mechanism.

4. iggldiggl ◴[22 Aug 24 07:22 UTC] No.41317648[source]▶
> daily, weekly etc. travel pass

At least in London it stops there, i.e. the automatic capping doesn't do longer than weekly capping. Also the weekly capping only runs on a fixed Monday to Sunday period, whereas an individually bought weekly travelcard can start on any day of the week.