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The Empty Bus
From the Slope of Hope: With all the grousing and grumbling I do here, I thought I'd change my tone and write up a genuinely positive, optimistic post. This has to do with what I think will be a tectonic shift over the next twenty years: transportation.
As dull as that sounds, I think the changes that take place in how we get people (or cargo) from point "A" to point "B" are going to be more profound that Amazon, Facebook, and the iPhone put together. My insight, if you want to be generous enough to call it that, is spawned from a couple of (as is typical for me - - negative) observations I make on a periodic basis.
The first observation is one I make almost daily: in spite of the relative wealth of the San Francisco peninsula, there are buses all over the place. Some of them are the fabled "white buses" that tote highly-paid twenty-somethings from Google and Facebook back to their residences in San Francisco. But most of them are the large (and sometimes double-length) VTA buses that drive all over the Santa Clara valley, and there is one thing I notice about virtually every one of them: they're empty or near-empty. As they rumble by, I typically see two or three people sitting in a bus that holds 50 to 100 people.

The other observation I have is that the people driving these buses are really, really, really overpaid. Many of them make six figures. One fellow mentioned in this article was clearing almost $200,000. For driving a bus. This is about as close to "unskilled labor' as I can imagine. It's mindless, boring work. And very, very lucrative. (Thank you, civic employee unions!)
I find inefficiency to be offensive, and just about every aspect of bus systems is offensive to me. Just off the top of my head:
- The empty seats are a screaming declaration of inefficiency. To have these huge, gas-guzzling, polluting monstrosities with a quantity of people that could fit into a VW Beetle is preposterous.
- The bloated salaries (union-driven, surely) are also wildly out of step with the skill set required.
- The passengers themselves have to somehow make their way to the closest bus stop they can find for departure, where in an ideal world I'm sure they'd prefer being driven directly from home, work, or wherever they happen to be.
- The destinations are also approximate, because wherever the bus is taking people is surely not quite where they really want to go. As with boarding, the passenger has to figure out the least-bad place to get off the bus so they can make their way to their actual destination.
- Even the bus stops themselves are wasteful, because, in the future I am envisioning, they simply wouldn't exist. That space could be used for something else - - or be simply empty. To say nothing of the huge parking lots where they store all the buses at night.
In short, it's a huge waste of space, energy, time, and money. I cringe every time I see one of these things rumble by with hardly anyone on board.

So what's going to get better? I think (or hope, at least) a far better world would be one in which small, self-driving cars were deployed all across the nation, and these would be at the beck and call or the same people that are presently riding buses.
First, let me give you a picture for your mind: here in Palo Alto, we see Google self-driving cars constantly. These have been retrofitted normal vehicles, but recently, the actual Google cars (not modified production cars, but honest-to-God all-Google cars) have been zipping around. They look like this:

Cute, isn't it?
So imagine a working-class person needs to get to their job somewhere. They request the car from their mobile phone, and in about five minutes, the vehicle above pulls up in front of their apartment building. They get in the (driverless) car and are taken to work in the most efficient way possible. There's no waiting and very little walking. For the passenger, it's a profoundly better experience.
Well, that sounds all lovely, but who is going to pay for this convenience? Well, hold on a second. Just think of the costs that are being expended right now on the inferior system in place. There are the aforementioned huge salaries, and with nearly 700,000 bus drivers in the United States alone, the human expense is enormous.
There are the buses, of course, and all the attendant costs, such as fuel, insurance, replacement parts, repair, and the replacement of worn-out buses. I daresay if you added up all the expenses related to toting individuals from place to place via the bus system and divided it by the number of passenger-miles, you'd get a higher figure than the one you'd get with the "one person/one car" idea I'm offering above.
Now this sort of thing doesn't happen overnight. It's going to take decades. But the technological leap forward of self-driving vehicles is, I believe, going to utterly alter the economic landscape for decades to come, not only with human transportation, but even more broadly with cargo. All the twenty-somethings today that are adding sillier and sillier features to all these social media web sites will be in far more useful occupations in the future as they weed out the grotesque inefficiencies present in worldwide transportation.
This sounds bone dry, I realize, but I think it's going to be a very big deal. Google is quite smart to be changing themselves to "Alphabet" and getting into new areas like this, because I think it's ultimately going to assure they are the largest company on the planet.
As for what those hundreds of thousands of unemployed bus drivers are going to do with their lives? Or the 3.5 million truck drivers? No clue. That's going to be just as big a challenge, but I seriously have no idea what the answer could be.
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Yea, I trust Google.
/s
Oh, and CT got ya beat.
18 years.....$567 million...all for 9.4 mile bus route.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/03/27/finally-connecticut-to-ope...
"you didn't build that".
If the roads were not being so mismanaged, and people were not being priced out of car ownership, transportation would not be a problem. That's why cars were invented.
Buses are the problem, not the solution. "Light Rail" is a perennial leftist fascist masturbatory fantasy. Control freaks love to shove people onto cattle cars.
People seem to have forgotten that while efficiency is a good thing it does not come at the expense of individual freedom, but works hand in glove with it. In other words, the primary goal (individuality) informs the definition of what is "efficient".
Self driving cars is an interesting idea to some. What is more important is getting everyone back into a car in the first place, the way it was in the past. Everyone could at least afford a beater not too long ago. Now with rising costs many people (especially those under 30) are going carless and being patted on the head and told it is Green and sustainable to live in a rat box and have mommy drive you to work on a bus.
Many people are having their heads pushed into a river of shit by the "system" and are drowning in poverty. You need to get these people back into the game, or you end up radicalizing them. The oligarchs have always known this day was coming, at least the smart ones did, because it is a recurring theme in history. That's why the language of radicalism was trial ballooned overseas before being brought back here.
Tim, You're extrapolating the suburban wasteland that is sillycon valley to real metropoliseseses (metropolises). Bus ridership is never going to be as dense here as it is in SF, LA Chicago, NYC, etc etc. I always see empty VTA buses as well and have the same thoughts--WTF are all these buses doing here? But spend a day in SF and pretty much most if not all Muni buses are packed.
I live in a country where cars are expensive and salaries are modest. Few people own automobiles. The transportation system has evolved organically into one which is both efficient and convenient. Buses go everywhere, and the drivers have contrived their schedules to ensure that their vehicles are always full. This is true energy efficiency that does not overly rely on exotic technoligy such as that suggested by the author.
All the twenty-somethings today that are adding sillier and sillier features to all these social media web sites will be in far more useful occupations in the future....
You didn't consider they'd be doing equally useless shit in the future? You sound a tad too optimistic. Stick to pessimism. You'll never be disappointed.
"I find inefficiency to be offensive"
I find cherry picking data to support a foregone conclusion to be highly offensive.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/bus-drivers.htm
2012 - median pay: $29,550 per year
Question:
How much are you pulling down a year Tim, and what value does your "financial expertise" add to the sum of productive labor in this country?
Going by this puff piece of an article, I'd say not much.
The guy lives in wonderland and is coddled . Go to any ghetto Tim. They are not driving Tesla's you moron. The guy has been short since 09, financial expertise. What a joke.
Five minutes and the ride appears.
Sure. If it isn't during any rush hour times. That is when so many thousands? hundred thousand? of these little vehicles will be sitting idle. Making no money. During rush hours, you will likely have to wait a long time. And the space that a bus saves on the roadways, will be filled with these little vehicles. Each one having some sort of motor, computers, sensors, steering mechanisms, tires, etc... Where a bus has one set of these things.
I have ridden busses to work in several cities. Drove city bus in one for ten years. At peak times a bus can have 50 or more people seated. Maybe 50 more standing. 100 passengers. They get off and on at random spots. So that hundred can represent many hundreds along some routes. Even small 2 seater transports take up a lot of space when there are 50 of them. Assuming pairs going the same place. Unlikely. So 100 little vehicles. Per full bus load replaced. Also, the vehicles will be going back empty, to pick up 1 or 2 people again? Number of vehicles returning, will make traffic heavier than usual in the opposite direction. A single bus can get 100 people across an intersection in seconds. 100 seperate vehicles can burn a whole light. These vehicles will drop off at closest to the door? Then they will be stopping all over the place in high traffic times. Just the BART system has almost half a million riders a day. There are many more mass transit riders using other systems in the area. The majority of those riders are in rush hours. How many of these little vehicles will there be, to move those people as fast as mass transit vehicles do, during concentrated times?
Mass transit has it's inefficiencies. Due to the nature of the beast it tries to serve. In general it is still more efficient than everyone taking a private vehicle. Even if it is not their personal vehicle. The cost of one bus is likely far less than 50 or 100 high tech little autonomous vehicles. Maintenance is likely less for one big vehicle, especially if it is electric rail or trolley bus. Hmmmm. How often does the little 2 seater need to charge? How many round trips, empty one way, before it is out of service, charging up?
When I drove bus, my wage and benefits were good. Not spectacular. But my work day could span 13 hours, only paid for the 8 hours I drove plus a small spread shift bonus. I would start before morning rush, likely taking a bus commute to get there, do some hours, bus it to a different location and route for lunch rush, do some hours, then bus it to a different place route and do some hours for evening rush. Then bus it back home. The 13 hours just includes the start to stop time, not getting to work and back. I drove in Winnipeg Canada. A days work in winter was devoted to not killing a bunch of people while trying to keep schedule on roads that were always thick with ice. Those little personal vehicles would not be able to get out of the ruts.
+1000 for the reality check.
A clear demonstration of the difference between those that do, and those that sit behind a desk thinking they know something. Thanks for the clarity, kedi.
Also.
How is it that private business will magically overcome the inherent inefficiencies of moving high volumes of people at some times, then have the system mostly idle the majority of the time? It won't. It will either charge a whole lot more, or provide a less effective system when it is most needed. Likely, both.
How is it that private business will magically overcome the inherent inefficiencies...
Yes.
au contraire mon frere:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/opinion/hotel-22.html
I love to drive, but if an empty driverless vehicle could show up at my door a few minutes after I tell my smart watch I need to go out, and then I drive it where I want to go, that could work for me.
<dream> A range of sizes from 4 person to single occupancy, plus scooters or segway-type vehicles. A range from lux to yuck in terms of appearance and interior trim.
These transpods are the only vehicles on the surface streets, and the heavy transport vehicles are only on limited access arteries. Local stations to transfer from transpods to long distance carriers.
Transpods equipped with local (only) wireless flocking software to prevent collisions and keep traffic flowing during congestion.
Choose from Apple, Google, Tesla, etc. Their vehicles all share and create the infrastructure, but with corporate ownership, maintenance, storage, etc..
Theme parks catering to lovers of vintage or high performance vehicles, with storage garages for individually owned vehicles, where you keep your 1958 Corvette, along with your tools and spare parts. Take it out for a spin on the limited access streets or race other petrol heads on the track or dragstrip.
All privately owned, regulated by the property owners, absolute minimum of government regulation / taxation. </dream>
I G Y
This is overlooking the core of the problem.
Never in history was it normal to work 10 + miles from home, unless in the army. A hundred years ago a twenty mile trip was rare, once a year for most people. Now there are so many people who spend more than an hour/ day in commute it has become normal.
This will be the big change. Are you close enough to work to ride a bike? That's what it will come down to.
Thats just silly. We live in a society of specialists. Thousands of them are running all over the place 24/7/365 .
The average good plumber is carting around 1500 lbs of crap at all times. The work they do cannot be moved. The nuts and bolts of how this world works demand mobility. It is what it is. Get over it.
Your example is true, but your example is not about the commute. Thanks to the internet more jobs can also be done from home.
But I stand behind my statement that an hour commute will be a serious problem that few think about.
Dont get me started about the commute times. Thats a whole other can o worms.
Many doing a one hour commute think about it alot. lol
Why is it that I don't believe anything you say? I am going to call this BS article, you must be related to Elizabeth Holmes? What does SF have to do with San Jose?
Me or Tim?
I like open source 3d printed cars. There are a bunch of good reasons you might too.
Top of my list. Its not being forced on anyone. Decentralized nonmonopolized choice.
The things that could be are worth trying. Fuel effective? Cost effective? Transport that serves the one that paid for it. Not just the bankers and their lackies.
The 100 mpg car has been done. So has the million mile car. It is possible to do both right now in one package.
How about a car that is 100% owner serviceable? All with basic tools that come with the car? Call this family of cars and trucks KISS cars.
How about some all bad weather cars and trucks?
How about some beginers cars? Cheap and fixable by the owner?
Me I will take free choice over force any day.
If GM was allowed to go belly up as it should have, that would have opened up a whole new world of patent-free smaller industry to pick up the slack and begin progress again. With tabletop manufacturing, parts businesses would have spread far and wide, creating a mini-revolution that would mark the beginning of another phase in the larger industrial revolution.
Our owners were not going to let that happen.
Brand new. Ground up costom tialored rides. Because you do know whats best for you.
"So imagine a working-class person needs to get to their job somewhere."
Sorry Tim, drawing a blank there...
Not to pick nits, but... 'Working-class person'...? Where...? In the Bay Area of all places...? New definition of that old (dead) Kennedy altruism needed perhaps...?
Ok, aside from that - you're definitely firing on all cylinders with the basic premise of 'change' with regard transportation. Hopefully though, with these changes, 'Freedom' will be at the forefront, and co-opting of these more efficient services will be made difficult for the State's 'efficiencies'...
Funny thing about the State - inefficiencies abound in serving people, but are abundant in making life miserable - or worse...
50 - 60 years ago most bus cos. were private as was passenger rail. Business stank because of regulation, a mass move to the suburbs and affordable cars. Capital costs became prohibitive and as business got worse, prices went up killing passenger count. Maintenence was also curtailed to save money. Transport operators were smart enough to destroy their business well enough using the above methods that the local gov'ts decided to "save" the services by buying or condemning them. The pols. fixed prices low enough to attract the lower income earners and also low enough to make them profit proof. The European Model has always appealed to the politicians of the left and they began passing laws trying to force people out of their cars and into the public systems. The pols., mostly owned by the unions, could not allow their voters to suffer from market prices or flat wages. But Americans are not Europeans and don't suffer as much from the Eloi-like attitudes there, so another government run fiasco persists. Think it will ever change Tim? Don't hold your breath or your grandchildren's. Unless we stop electing who we elect, we will keep getting what we're getting.
But Americans are not Europeans and don't suffer as much from the Eloi-like attitudes there...
This is great.
50-60 years ago? Let's go back 90 years ago when General Motors bought all those bus and street car companies and systematically redesigned them to fail. No public bus or street cars meant everybody had to buy an automible! See the USA in your Chevrolet.
Going even further back, Theodore Dreiser has an excellent series of novels from an even earlier time showing the purchase of trolley and bus companies in order to destroy them. What a shame we have a population in America ever ready with an opinion, never ready with true facts.
Congrats to google, er alphabet, for implementing the fucking Johnny Cab. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer my car to go where I tell it, rather than where someone thinks I should go. The fact that google, er alphabet, has regular closed door meetings at the whitehouse should put shivers up any thinking person's spine.
Agree, but it MUST HAPPEN. Roads are so packed in most cities, it's becoming impossible to do business. There is your inefficiency.
With fully automated driving, cars can go 100+ on freeways with no gaps between them. That only works when nobody can do something stupid or hit the brakes. Imagine a big train.
This should be easy to accomplish. All we have to do is put sensors in the roads. The google method of using cameras to find the road is a small step, that ultimately fails under less than perfect conditions.
I'll believe this is real when the sensors get added to the roads. Probably happen in Japan first.
Dont do that.
The coming deflationary depression and 50% crash in Silly-Con Valley house prices and 80-100% crash in Social Mania stock prices will fill those busses in rather short order.
Even if a watered-down version of a crash happens, I think people will simply pull up stakes and leave. People aren't going to get fired from Facebook and then just ride buses all around the Valley for the hell of it.
These days, it seems like it takes a lot more words, and even more grandiose ideas, to avoid talking about the problems arising from the corrupt costs of government employees.
when your employer and/or state provides you with on-demand transportation, with housing, with a meal plan, with a payment method, with healthcare and childcare and pensioncare and newscare and sportscare and musiccare, you really don't have any reason to own anything.
well.
shoes maybe. and clothing.
cups and plates and napkins.
a towel.
bar of soap.