Preferences for Trains vs. Buses | Hacker News Reader

Preferences for Trains vs. Buses

citylab.com

33 pointsprostoalex59 comments

People do in general prefer trains over buses. This article is basically just saying that as you make the buses more train-like by giving them dedicated lanes and more reliability, people start to like buses more. Make them longer (articulated), faster, with dedicated lanes, and basically they start to become like a train with rubber tires. I think that is in fact, confirming people like trains better.

Titles do matter and I have an issue with the title of the article. It's like saying people prefer lobster soup over pea soup, but as you start to add more lobster to the pea soup... people start to like the pea soup... and therefore, it's a "myth" that people prefer lobster over peas. People prefer faster, reliable service with fewer stops - duh.

Boses have traffic. People don't like traffic. Trains don't have traffic.

I've had to wait in a train for over 30 minutes due to another train passing by. I guess it depends where you're at.

Sounds like Amtrak, lower priority than freight and using ancient tracks.

Or England at a busy station.

It's not a common occurance, but it happens often enough that people who use trains regularly can remember a time it happened to them.

(I tend to like trains, but I use buses and coaches more often because price and convenience.)

Trains also sometimes have lounge cars, dining cars and theaters.

Buses confine you to a cramped seat and if you're lucky there's a tiny bathroom on board.

This. Also, bus travel can induce motion sickness.

In England some coaches (long distance buses) have tables (seat four people); power sockets and WIFI. They might have a fridge with cold bottled water.

Some buses have WIFI.

We have wifi and nice coach buses in the US. Still don't want to ride them over a train. Trains are certainly faster and more dependable in terms of time of arrival.

One basic idea in TFA is that you can have buses in their own lanes that don't have traffic.

Light rail frequently has traffic. This being said, buses have an advantage when they do - if there's an accident or the transit vehicle in front has a patron in need of an ambulance, a bus can usually go around it. Light rail has to wait.

> Trains don't have traffic.

Trains have traffic. It's baked into their schedules, so it can never improve based on variations in usage.

Trains reliably run to timetable. Buses don't.

Buses around here do.

Happy to change the title if you or anyone can suggest one that is accurate and neutral.

Edit: Ok, we took a crack at it. Can change it again if anyone has a better idea.

UK: Pop your buses on tracks set in the bus lanes and can have the train wheels! We used to call them trams. A tram service often referred to as 'the metro' these days to make them sound modern because we spent loads of money in the middle of the 20th century ripping up the tram lines in many of our larger cities.

http://www.metrolink.co.uk/

and the route map at

http://www.metrolink.co.uk/stationinfo/Documents/Route_map.p...

Also Sheffield, Leeds and a single route in Birmingham.

Yes but in cities like LA which are planned around cars the major arteries are 3 lanes in each direction, so you can put up signs saying $200 fine if you use the bus lane, give buses priority at traffic lights, run articulated buses with pre paid tickets and you have buses that operate pretty much like trams ('light rail') at a fraction of the cost. In most European cities this won't work as streets are too narrow to accommodate seperated traffic so you need a combination of congestion charging with streets restricted to public transport and/or expensive tunnels. Trams make sense if you have sections of tunnel in denser parts of the city and grade seperated sections in outer areas; buses can't run in tunnels. They also reduce pollution at street level. Diesel fumes from buses are a significant problem in dense European cities.

I'm curious why can't buss s run in tunnels? Is it simply a problem of air quality because of emissions? I wonder if this could be solved by using hybrid diesel electric buses that run off of overhead electrical wiring in tunnels, but an onboard diesel-electric prime mover above ground.

The Silver Line in Boston is exactly that: dual mode buses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-mode_bus), and part of the line is a dedicated tunnel for the buses, while the other part is normal streets.

> people have just used "trains" to mean "good transit" and "buses" to mean "bad transit." If that's the case, then marketing better buses as something like trains (or, at least, something other than buses) should weaken this automatic association.

> But such efforts will fall flat without meaningful investments in well-designed service: dedicated lanes, reliable peak and off-peak service, off-board fare payments, comfortable stations or enhanced shelters, or reconfigured routes, to start the list. A pretty picture alone isn't enough.

I wish the author had taken this further. It's not a "myth" that people like trains over buses, it's true and for really good reasons.

Buses / BRT are "bad transit", and Light Rail (or trains / subways / etc) are "good transit" the vast majority of the time it's actually deployed today. That's not "perception", it's truth. You can use marketing to hide that, but the fact will still remain.

This is intentional -- BRT intentionally comes full of big compromises that Light Rail typically doesn't have. These compromises are what makes BRT cheaper than Light Rail in the first place.

Transit authorities want to have their cake and eat it too. They don't want to pay for good service, but they want to pretend BRT is "like Light Rail" to make people think they've gotten good service -- that a route hasn't been shortchanged. It doesn't work that way -- claming BRT is "like Light Rail" is like slapping wheels onto a tent and saying its "like a RV".

The article is right to promote actual investments in transit. But if your going through the investment of making BRT as good as Light Rail (such as 100% dedicated grade-separated routes that can't be impacted by traffic) then your going to incur most of the costs of real Light Rail anyway, so you might as well make the service real Light Rail and get the full benefits of that investment (such as faster transit, smoother rides, much larger carrying capacity, less local air pollution, etc)

The scenes are remarkably similar. This train travels in the same dedicated lane and even has the same style. The only real difference you'll find, if you look very close, is the faint sign of tracks on the ground.

The faint sign of tracks on the ground... and that the tram is 50% longer than the bus. That's not minor. It's crazy that they went to the extent of designing the bus and the tram to look identical, then just lobbed on another 50% length to the rail.

There are also experiential differences between bus and tram, at least here in my city (which has the most heavily-trammed road in the world). A tram pulls up, and punters can get on from a variety of doors. A bus pulls up, and you can only get on at the front, and have to shuffle your way down the vehicle. Buses are usually a lot more cramped as well - few buses handle a stroller well, though some of the newer ones do.

In any case, if you're running your buses like trams, with their own dedicated lane and so forth... then you may as well turn them into rail vehicles, because they're cheaper to run (both in maintenance and wages) and service more people. Of the two images presented, each vehicle has one driver, but the tram carries 50% more folks.

Thank you! I can't believe I had to scroll almost to the bottom of the comments before someone picked up on the length issue.

To add to the already comprehensive list of reasons you gave for tram superiority - due to the electrical drivetrain and bogey system that all rail-based vehicles implement, there is generally more usable room for passengers inside the vehicle, as well as a much quieter environment due to the lack of engine noise. Additionally, the fact that light rail runs on, well, rails, means that generally speaking you enjoy a much more comfortable, smooth ride.

I've ridden on light rail - and the 'quiet' feature was noticeably lacking. It was rattling, clacking, whooshing, pitching, vibrating so loudly that conversation was impossible. Whilst a bus is generally pretty comfortable and convenient. So I don't agree on that point.

There is a catch-22 with buses.

Buses would be a lot better if cities had congestion pricing that could greatly reduce traffic delays. Buses would also be a lot better if there were more routes and better frequency.

But people oppose congestion pricing because it would make commutes much more expensive for the poor. But if you actually had it, then the bus would be a much more feasible form of transportation, because it would be quicker. And as it became quicker, more people would take it, and the frequency would increase. And that would altogether be much cheaper for the poor than commuting by car.

So we cannot have good bus transportation until we have congestion pricing. But we cannot have congestion pricing until busses are a much better way to get to work.

> congestion pricing

Is that a surcharge for being on certain roads at certain times of the day? It's a good idea if it could be undertaken in a somewhat fair way, are there any well thought out theories that you know of?

I don't have any particular recommended reading, but you can google the term and read articles about it.

London has been doing it since 2003.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge

Atlanta has "hot lanes" where the prices increase and decrease with the flow of traffic.

There's a radical, yet likely very workable solution to this catch-22... A couple of years back when there was talk of introducing congestion pricing in Manhattan, there was a bridge toll increase around the same time. Someone figured out that if, instead of the usual $0.50 or $1 increase, the bridge tolls in NYC were increased to $20-25, then you could make all of the MTA lines (subway, LIRR, metro north) free of charge.

Of course, as you might expect, it never got anywhere...

There is a bridge over to Staten Island (from the South, I think?) that costs $14. It's free in the reverse direction, AFAIK. Drove it the other day as a tourist in the area and thought "This would suck if I had to commute this every day!"

Presumably the cost is there to encourage everyone to take public transport instead.

The problem with buses is that they're completely unpredictable. You might as well not even look at the schedule. There's also the issue of having to purchase your ticket; buses rarely have automatic kiosks as do trains and light rail, and you often have to talk to the operator to get your ticket. Finally, bus routes are byzantine and completely impossible to unravel by looking at a map. Rail systems are much more amenable to mapping, and if you're lost, you can always find a rail stop just by looking under your feet or giving your favorite mapping app a quick scan.

None of those problems apply to proper BRT systems. That's the author's point.

In the opinion of myself, and perhaps others, a "proper" BRT system is few and far between. Even the system their describing in the article is almost exactly what they're creating in real live between Denver and Boulder, but many compromises have been made, and it's not going to work out as originally planned. Funnily, part the funding was through a program called, "Fast Tracks", which - you guessed it, was money allocated for a lightrail system that... wasn't created.

I don't see how you can avoid delays if you still have to follow traffic.

Good BRT systems use tunnels / bridges to avoid traffic. When they do interact with traffic lights, they have priority access.

But proper BRT is very rare because it costs almost as much to build as light rail. If you are going to put that much money into it, you might as well spend a bit more and get the other advantages of light rail, e.g. lower operating costs, higher passenger capacity, lower emissions, less noise pollution, smoother ride, etc.

The likelihood of getting a proper BRT system when a city sets out to build one seems a lot lower than the probability of getting working light rail. Granted, both are low.

In NYC, we have "dedicated lanes" for some of our buses. But there are no spikes in the ground and when someone parks in one, the bus doesn't actually smash the car out of the way. So we're back to the mercy of traffic.

As always, it depends. Some transit systems are better than others, and some routes are better than others.

I've recently started taking the bus to work and have found that most of the routes keep to their schedule quite well. The local transit system is also rolling out smart bus technology which, among other things, provides real-time location information on each bus. This is available online and through the transit system's app. It's also used by a third-party app, Transit, which is quite good.

Based on my experience, the bus always arrives within a minute of its schedule in the morning. It tends to fall behind near the end of its route in the evening rush hour, though the most I've seen has been 10 minutes (according to the operator's console [when the bus has the smart bus stuff]). This is at the end of a cross-city route, so 10 minutes behind when the bus is passing through at least two construction zones is actually really good.

I should note that the route I take is an express route. I used to take a non-express bus that followed the same path (up to where I got off anyway) and it was a nightmare - usually behind schedule, too many people, too many stops and starts. I decided that the express bus was worth the longer walk.

As for mapping, this is true, but only because there are so many routes relative to rail. Google Maps helps immensely, but it is not perfect.

As for talking to the operator, it's not strictly required, usually you can just deposit your fare in the box and he hands you a ticket. That said, I always thank the operator when I get off. This is the guy that is driving through the traffic so that I don't have to, the least I could do is say thanks. I also make it a point when driving to do what I can to make things easier on the buses, for the same reason.

Oh, that reminds me: there's also the creeping paranoia that your bus could get there early and leave you behind. I have never had this happen with a train, but I routinely see busses barreling past the stop. And when a route has dozens of stops, you just know the driver isn't checking their clock at every one.

But yeah, smart buses are a great improvement. I love bus stops where they actually tell you how much time is left until the next bus. Can't wait until Apple/Google implement real-time bus tracking in their mapping apps. (I think Google is already doing this in certain areas?)

This, too, depends on the transit system, etc, and also your experience using transit.

My bus, for example, runs every 5 minutes during peak hours. If I miss it I either walk to the next stop, which is a transit centre, or just wait. In fact, I've frequently watched the bus turn the corner and pass my stop while I've been walking there.

I'm pretty sure that the proximity to a transit centre is a major reason that my experience with the bus has been so good. Not to mention working in a place that is accessible without transfering to a different route.

Someone who isn't near a transit centre and/or doesn't work downtown, at least in my city, will have a much worse time. My girlfriend, for example, used to like 8km away from her work (about a 10 minute drive) needed to take three different buses and an hour and a half to do the same trip by transit.

Can only speak from the experience of my own country, but in Ireland

This is the inside of a bus: http://www.cityswifty.com/SC241interior1.JPG

This is the inside of a train: https://c3.staticflickr.com/3/2831/9337782850_41264e4fd4_b.j...

That should say it all as to why people like trains more.

I honestly like both. Better than many buses I've been on. USA here. Namely Florida and Colorado.

Are those both public transit? Both of those, but particularly the bus, put anything I've seen here in America to shame. (Even private bus transit doesn't look that nice…)

(German here.) Both look pretty standard to me. Although I think buses like that are more common for long-distance. Most buses for public transit I've seen have more space for standing people:

http://www.bahnreiseberichte.de/050-Rottalerland-Thueringen/... http://www.eifel-rur-bus.de/seiten/nachrichten/2007/nachrich...

Yes. The bus example I linked are as mentioned by a sibling comment mostly used for longer distance routes, but e.g. my usual bus route is the last leg of a much longer route so is one of those.

For routes that are confined to much smaller areas, we also have these buses: [1] (most of the country) and these ones: [2][3] (Dublin). The Dublin Bus ones in particular might be closer to what you'd expect from public transit.

[1]: http://www.cityswifty.com/MC20interior.JPG

[2]: http://www.dublinbusstuff.com/PhotoWeek/AV170%20-%20Interior...

[3]: http://www.cityswifty.com/Enviro400interior.JPG

I'm prone to motion sickness on buses.

Even for people who aren't, I can't imagine the joltiness of travelling in a geared vehicle that's not on tracks is more pleasant than a train.

I'm prone to motion sickness on buses.

Me too.

Plus, the question is often not trains versus buses; it's about grade-separated versus not grade-separated. Separating the trains from the cars is a huge improvement.

That's very personal. I really enjoy the rustle of a bus engine. It makes me dozy in a very pleasant (if inconvenient when I have to get down) way. Trains are great for transportation, but I don't enjoy the trip as much.

Yep, motion sickness is a big deal for me. I can use my laptop and work on Caltrain, which is something I'm pretty much unable to do on any other moving vehicle. Not even on an airplane. :(

Has to be a smooth train though. Can't work on BART either.

Most train systems I've taken don't have to stop at stop lights, but the buses I've ridden, even with a dedicated lane, still stop at the lights. This means twice as many stops and starts. Big negative in my mind. But then again, maybe this is another small improvement which could be made.

The stop lights for a train are scheduled such that the train doesn't need to stop if it is keeping to the schedule. This works on both smaller and larger lines.

The stop lights for a bus are scheduled in line with the general car population, so it's pretty hard for the bus to keep to its schedule. There's a lot of work goes into timing traffic lights (for cars), how much of that thought process involves keeping the number 49 on time?

I think perhaps what the parent comment meant was more that trains aren't inhibited by normal traffic lights; upon approaching a crossing with a road, the train is immediately given the right-of-way — i.e., the lights activate, the gates close, the cars stop and allow the train to pass.

True, there is a separate signal for the train, though it's more if the train(s) ahead of it are keeping to schedule than the train itself. (Rush-hour trains here are regularly delayed due to the train ahead of the one I tend to ride being so delayed.)

Where I live, the traffic lights know about approaching trams and buses and turns green early or remains green until they have passed. That doesn't work if the traffic gets too bad, but most of the time it works pretty well.

I have taken a "first class" bus from Framingham to New York. It was less reliable than Amtrak.

"less reliable than Amtrak"

Takes some doing.

As a tourist who missed his Amtrak train by minutes in Pittsburgh, I headed over to the bus station. I had no idea you could basically use your train ticket as a bus ticket, and I didn't even finish the sentence "Hi there, I missed my train..." before the teller took my ticket out of my hands and converted it into a bus ticket. A nice surprise - I was expecting to have to do a little cajoling, but I didn't even get a chance to say boo. :) (the bus ride was less than pleasant, though...)

Part of the preference for trains is that the sunk investment in right-of-way is a strong disincentive to move or discontinue service. This allows people to feel confident that they can depend on the service to stay there, and invest in the areas around these transit corridors.

Anecdote: I lived in Seattle for 10 years without a car. (A city with surprisingly high transit ridership considering the lack of any sort of rail network, notwithstanding toy trolleys and the lone light-rail line from downtown to the airport.) More than once I moved apartments due to bus routes I relied upon being discontinued or rendered unreliable by drastic service cuts (e.g. instead of all-day service, you now have 4 trips per weekday, peak direction only, and if you miss them you're either making two transfers or walking 2 miles to the nearest direct all-day service. Weekend service? hahaha.)

This doesn't (often) happen with rail, heavy or light. Being unable to depend on bus service in any particular corridor to last more then a year or two without realignment or service cuts made it hard to justify settling down. If I wanted to buy a car and drive everywhere, why pay the premium to live in the city in the first place? In the end, I moved back to a real city where I could depend on the metro.

Depends on the city though. Bus routes in London haven't changed for a long time. The buses I used 30 years ago all have basically the same routes. There are probably routes that are over 80 years old. But buses could never be grade separated in London. There's just not enough room.

Light train is still a much smoother riding experience than anything a bus can achieve. Just get your laptop out and try to do something.

I wonder what would happen if they also included trolleybuses in the mix.

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