I always get an inkling that buses (like Bolt/Mega/PeterPan) + the existing highway + roads are superior and more scalable than any other type of transportation, dollar for dollar.
Why do people push for rail? Self-driving cars obviously can enhance this (the bus idea), but I suspect they will create even more traffic if we insist on having 5 passenger cars be 75% empty. Buses are great because demand can be reallocated easily.
Imagine a place like New York, where buses can go out to the suburbs and bring people into the city and the evening and morning (say, 50% of the fleet), and during the day 90% of the fleet stays in the city doing intra-city transportation.
Rail doesn't have this flexibility.
EDIT: Rail definitely has its place, but you almost never hear anyone starting a bus project. Just curious to why there's relatively little mention of buses in the public transportation (new project) realm.
I imagine perfected public transportation would involve linking between self driving cars on the square mile level, buses on the square deca mile (is that a thing?), rail for a hundred mile radius and obviously planes thereon.
Why do people push for rail? Self-driving cars obviously can enhance this (the bus idea), but I suspect they will create even more traffic if we insist on having 5 passenger cars be 75% empty. Buses are great because demand can be reallocated easily.
Imagine a place like New York, where buses can go out to the suburbs and bring people into the city and the evening and morning (say, 50% of the fleet), and during the day 90% of the fleet stays in the city doing intra-city transportation.
Rail doesn't have this flexibility.
EDIT: Rail definitely has its place, but you almost never hear anyone starting a bus project. Just curious to why there's relatively little mention of buses in the public transportation (new project) realm.
I imagine perfected public transportation would involve linking between self driving cars on the square mile level, buses on the square deca mile (is that a thing?), rail for a hundred mile radius and obviously planes thereon.